SOCIAL media with a business angle has really taken off over the past year and many managers and senior business people are beginning to get left behind and become isolated from the latest ‘new media’. In other words it does not just stop at having mastered simple texting occasionally from your mobile phone.
Over the past few months, Twitter has experienced explosive growth and a growing mountain of media and blog coverage according to Sysomos Inc, a leading social media analytics company. It conducted an extensive study to document Twitter’s growth and how people are using it.
After analyzing information disclosed on 11.5 million Twitter accounts, it discovered that:
72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009.
85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
21% of users have never posted a Tweet
93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people.
5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
It is still mainly a North American phenomenon but expanding rapidly in Europe and especially in Ireland.
New York has the most Twitters users, followed by cities like Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco and Boston; while Detroit was the fast-growing city over the first five months of 2009 More than 50% of all updates are published using tools, mobile and Web-based, other than Twitter.com. TweetDeck is the most popular non-Twitter.com tool with 19.7% market share.
Thee are more women on Twitter (53%) than men (47%)
Of the people who identify themselves as marketers, 15% follow more than 2,000 people. This compares with 0.29% of overall Twitter users who follow more than 2,000 people.
After two years of phenomenal growth – averaging about 15% a month so far in 2009 – Twitter and other ‘microblog’ facilities are attracting the attention of slightly older internet services. The search giant Google has stated that it believes Twitter’s real-time search is part of the future of the indexable web.
It had talked about partnering with Twitter on real-time results and more recently there have been suggestions that that Google is addressing this problem of real time results and seems to be preparing to release its own microblogging search engine. This new product will sort results by relevancy, will be integrated with standard Google search, and will appear based on frequently-used keywords or current events but tied closely to Twitter messages.
Microsoft, the giant of PC software, is taking on its younger Google rival with its newly launched search engine Bing which only went live about a month ago. Since its launch at the beginning of June, it has given Google reason to face up to a potential serious challenge but this will only become evident if the Bing search engine prospers and gains a foothold among the top ten or 15 visited sites on the internet.
According to Michelle McGiboney of Nielsen Online, a market trends specialist analyst, Twitter.com continues to grow in popularity and importance in both the consumer and corporate worlds. It is no longer just a platform for friends to stay connected in real time, it has evolved into an important component of brand marketing. Unique visitors to Twitter increased 1,382% year-over-year, from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7m in February 2009, making it the fastest growing site in the Member Communities category for the month. Zimbio and Facebook followed, growing 240% and 228%, respectively.
Fastest Growing Member Community Destinations
|
RANK |
Site |
Feb 08 |
Feb 09 |
% growth |
| 1 | 475,000 | 7,038,000 | 1,382% | |
| 2 | Zimbio | 809,000 | 2,752,000 | 240% |
| 3 | 20,043,000 | 65,704,000 | 228% | |
| 4 | Multiply | 821,000 | 2,394,000 | 192% |
| 5 | Wikia | 1,381,000 | 3,758,000 | 172% |
| Source: Nielsen NetView, 2/09, U.S., Home and Work | ||||
A unusual aspect is that Twitterers (aka ‘Tweeters’) are not primarily teens or third-level students as you might expect. They seem to prefer Facebook which still dominate the real time interactive sites. In fact, in February the largest age group on Twitter was 35-49; with nearly 3 million unique visitors, comprising almost 42% of the site’s audience.
Nielsen found that the majority of people visit Twitter.com while at work, with 62% of the combo unique audience accessing the site from work only versus 35% that accessed it from home only.
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