The questions came up again and again last week on Twitter: Does anyone know how many people use Twitter? Which cities have the highest Twitter usage? Who exactly uses Social Media and where? What do we know about the demographics of Twitter users? (Etc.)
I spent all of five minutes researching the internets to find the answers to all of these questions and bring you what is probably THE most comprehensive aggregation of Social Media stats, demos and other factoids in existence today. (Yes, my right index finger even broke a sweat.)
If anyone ever asks you anything about Social Media statistics for 2008, you can just point them to this post. (You’re very welcome.)
Okay, so to start us off, here is the breakdown of the leading social media platform usage by country as of Nov. 2008. It’s a great snapshot of where social media is today: Not at all the one-size-fits-all model many of us might think. This map doesn’t show why platforms are growing the fastest – just which ones have the most users for each country. If you want to see the map in its full glory or see how it’s changed over time, go straight to its source:
oxyweb.co.uk. The site gives you a great month-by month snapshot. (As you can see, Twitter still has a looong way to go – which may not be a bad thing. Quality over quantity and all…)
Now that we’ve had a glimpse of each country’s SocMed platform prference, let’s have a look at specific demographics for each of these platforms, from Badoo to the inevitable YouTube. Courtesy of the brilliant and enterprising folks at Ignite Social Media, here is the definitive 2008 report on all things Social Media, from geographic and search traffic data to basic demographic info (age, gender, education and household income). This is a KILLER quick reference guide for all you marketing/agency folks out there trying to get under the hood of certain SocMed platforms. Below, the Twitter data. If the font is too small to read, download the report. The skinny: The most common Twitter user is male, aged somewhere between 35 and 45, is college educated and makes a decent living. (Mid-career professionals.) Specific demos aside, Twitter seems to have a pretty even appeal across gender lines and income brackets, which is a good sign.
You can download the full report here. I’ve already printed my copies and covered my office walls with the pretty graphics. Thanks again to Ignite for having taken the time to put this document together. Impressive work.
Another report you might want to look at is TechCrunch/Hubspot’s State of the Twittersphere, which also provides us with some interesting factoids about everyone’s favorite social media platform:
For example, did you know that 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008? That 20% of Twitter users have joined in the past 60 days? That the average user has only been on Twitter 275 days?
Or how about this: The most popular days of the week to Tweet are Wednesday and Thursday. An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 new accounts are registered each day. Only 5 percent of all Twitter users have more than 250 followers.
Great stuff. Check it all out for yourselves here.
If you are looking for microstatistics like fluctuations in Twitter usage in the last seven days – or peak Twitter usage times, look no further than TweetRush‘s little dashboard:
Evidently, people are busier at work in the morning than they are in the afternoon. Hmmm…
Now for bragging rights: Since Twitter seems to be exploding all of a sudden, many cities around the world are vying for the #1 Twitcity spot. Well, don’t just wonder where your homestead ranks, find out! Twitterlocal serves you the Top 30 Twitting cities (arranged by sheer volume of tweets) and also allows you to search for tweets in specific areas. As I write this post, the top Twitter cities around the world are Tokyo (JP), NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London (UK). Here’s the list:
Bear in mind that this list is generated by twitter update volume during a 24 hour period and NOT by net Twitter user per city. The two are quite different. (Don’t go thinking that Tokyo has 37,212 Twitter users.)
If you do want to see a Twitter user count by city or state (and actually find Tweeps there) look no further than Twellowhood. Great map-based tool, so you can zoom in and out, pan in every direction, etc. The tool is still in beta and only includes North America (US and Canada) but look for it to extend to every country very soon. Great way to visualize/search Twitter usage geographically, and even dig deeper into who the users are. (If only phone books could be this well designed.)
For a metrics-obsessed guy like me, this is far from enough, but it will at least help you guys get started next time a friend or client asks you to give them some idea of who does what where in the Social Media space.
As always, please feel free to add more info, data and sources to this post via the “comments” section of this post. And if this inspires you to dig up even more data and publish your own Social Media reports, that will be a very good thing.
Have a great day!
It will be interesting to watch the dynamics between the early pioneers and the waves of new users. It’s usually the new arrivals who can parlay the community into something much larger. That’s why I think the biggest Twitter personality hasn’t even joined yet.
Nice work pulling these statistics and visuals together into one convenient place. We’re definitely still in the nascent stage of Twitter.
@scottyhendo
Thanks for the article. Lots of good stuff in heere.
Note the link to Twellowhood is incorrect. It’s linking to Twitpic.
-Adam
Love this post – provides some very interesting resources! 🙂 But your link to Twellowhood goes to a Twitpic of food. LOL
You are right on my friend. What do you think about attention? How much do you have to engage to get a response?
How do you use twitter?
Thanks for the twellowhood heads-up. I’ve fixed the link. 🙂
Happy, there is definitely a huge issue with bandwidth. People are already having a tough time dealing with email, returning phone calls, sorting through RSS feeds, filtering information from hundreds of sources every minute of the day. Adding Twitter to the mix can seem overwhelming. (John Warner, Trey Pennington and I were just chatting about that.) Attention is definitely a huge factor.
I guess you have to start at the beginning: What do you want to get out of Twitter? If you know that, you can more easily create your own filters and focus on following very specific people/conversations/topics. To help filter signal from noise, I use TweetDeck and create specific groups. (I currently follow over 800 people, which is too deep a river of content for me to truly manage.) So I have a Greenville, SC group devoted to local Tweets. I also have a group called “The Ten”, which focuses only on my top 10 favorite marketing/business/SocMed follows. You can create groups (feeds) for everything and anything. I’ll probably eventually have one devoted to triathlon tweets and another devoted to French Tweeps, etc. This helps me make the info more manageable.
I’ve also stopped paying attention to my RSS altogether. The relevant conversations start on Twitter now. (At least for me.) I basically let my chosen influencers on Twitter point me towards the articles and blog posts I want to read. More word-of-mouth than automation, which I like. 🙂
Thanks for the great comments! 🙂
This is interesting. I thought I was one of the new tweeps but I just learned I’m not.
Awesome article and information – thank you!
Great wrap up, Olivier … makes the start of my new year so much easier 😉
Next time I want stats, I’ll just Tweet you.
I’m going to get fat following you.
Glen Woodfin
Twitter.com/GlenWoodfin
WOW! Excellent information, THANK YOU!! Have you considered updating in 2009??
@CharPennyAnn