If you’ve been hearing more and more about Twitter these days, you’re not alone. A new report on Twitter usage in America released by Edison Research shows us not only how explosive the growth of Twitter has been, but who is using it, how often, and for what reasons.
A few key findings from the report:
- Twitter has caught up to Facebook in Awareness at 87% and 88% of the American public respectively
- One in three monthly twitter users are between 25 – 34
- Twitter users are more likely to be well-educated and live in higher income households
- Despite awareness, Facebook still dominates usage at 41% over 12 years old in the US, Twitter has only 7%
- Marketing uses for Twitter far exceed any other social network – according to Edison:
The percentage of Twitter users who follow brands is more than three times higher than similar behavior expressed by social networking users in general. Significant percentages of regular Twitter users report using the service not only to seek opinions about companies, products and services, but to provide those opinions as well. Users of social media monitoring services should be aware that these behaviors may be far more prevalent on Twitter than on other monitored sites and services, which may introduce a bias into the data provided by social media monitoring platforms.
Twitter’s explosive growth cannot be questioned, but some statistics could be seen as cautionary to whether or not it will last. Despite it’s awareness, a large percentage of Americans are not willing to adopt the technology. The number of inactive accounts show how many people set up an account, but aren’t regular participants. Over time, this could change as Twitter demographics are getting younger.
It will be interesting to see what Twitter usage in 2011 looks like. Do you think it will ever reach Facebook heights, or is Twitter too limited?
