Posts Tagged ‘hitwise’
Wall Street Journal: “Twitter goes mainstream”
October 27th, 2008
At Liberate Media we are continually telling our clients and brands we meet with that they should not be ignoring Twitter. The micro-blogging tool is still seem by many as the domain of the geeks and early adopters, but this is a false perception - it is now crossing into many mainstream sectors and communities.
Today’s article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Twitter goes mainstream” nicely supports this point. The article reads: “When the service first appeared a couple of years ago, its appeal seemed largely limited to narcissists who wanted to let everybody know what they were doing in real time. But, like blogs and social-networking sites, Twitter is starting to cross into the mainstream, as a wide range of people find interesting uses for the brief notes.”
By way of example, I follow an ambulance driver, Working Lunch, Dell, BBC News etc… The potential for all businesses should not be underestimated. For example, I’m sure Twitter would be great for estate agents wanting to let buyers know about houses that have just been reduced, or for car manufacturers to let customers know about new upgrades that they have coming out, or for restaurants to let residents know about daily specials etc. The opportunities are endless.
Unfortunately, Twitter does not disclose user data, and so historically it’s been difficult to offer clients demographic statistics about the platform. The company has said to the Wall Street Journal that the number of active users rose sevenfold in the past year. The article quantifies it in this way: “Twitter.com had more than a million unique visitors from the U.S. in August 2008, up from just 282,000 in August 2007, according to research firm comScore Inc. Those numbers are likely to underestimate overall usage, much of which happens on mobile phones.”
Digging a little deeper, a fairly recent article by US Hitwise analyst Bill Tancer for Time magazine claimed that:
- Males make up 63% of Twitterers, specifically males from California
- Today the site’s largest age demographic is 35-to-44-year-olds, who make up 25.9% of its users
- The first group of users, type H03 (14.7% of Twitter visitors), a.k.a the “Stable Career,” comprises a “collection of young and ethnically diverse singles living in big-city metros like Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Miami.”
- The second largest type of Twitterer is H01 (12.3% of the site’s visitors) — or, the “Young Cosmopolitan.” These are the 40-somethings. They’re likely to drive a hybrid car such as the Toyota Prius, earn household incomes over $250,000 per year and also identify with very liberal politics.
These demographics are not conclusive though, and have an obvious US bias.
If anyone has any more Twitter stats to share, please let me know as we’d love to see them.