In December, Twitter has announced there 100 million new accounts had been opened in 2010. eMarketer has estimated that the US Twitter population rose from 18 million in 2009 to 26 million last year, twitter has become a more participatory community than ever.
Twitter users’ following habits have changed dramatically since 2009., according to the research from Sysomos. In 209, nearly two in five tweeps around the world followed five people or fewer. By 2010 that group had more participation among users. And there was also a sharp difference in the proportion of accounts who were followed by five or fewer other users, dropping from 46% of the total in 2009 to 32% in 2010.
As a whole, tweeting is still a relatively niche phenomenon among the population, with a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey indicated that, 8% of American adults who use the internet are Twitter users – with 2% doing so on a typical day. It also found out that 74% of American adults are internet users, meaning that the Twitter cohort amounts to 6% of the entire adult population.
The groups who are notable for their relatively high levels of Twitter use include:
* Young adults – Internet users ages 18-29 are significantly more likely to use Twitter than older adults.
* African-Americans and Latinos – Minority internet users are more than twice as likely to use Twitter as are white internet users.
* Urbanites – Urban residents are roughly twice as likely to use Twitter as rural dwellers.
Women and the college-educated are also slightly more likely than average to use the service.
In the other survey regarding to how often Twitter users check for material posted by others, they found that Twitter users are nearly equally divided between those who check the site on a daily basis (or multiple times per day) and those who check the site infrequently or never. Just over one-third of Twitter users (36%) check for material posted by others on a daily basis or multiple times per day – this is roughly comparable to the two in five (41%) who say they check the site less than every few weeks, or never do so at all. The remaining one-quarter of users say they check the site for updates a few days each week or every few weeks.
For the type of content that posted on Twitter, they found that:
* 72% of Twitter users in our sample say that they post updates related to their personal life, activities or interests. A total of one in five Twitter users (19%) say they post personal updates once a day or more.
* 62% of those we queried said they post updates related to their work life, activities or interests, with 12% doing so on a daily basis.
* 55% of these Twitter users share links to news stories. One in ten (12%) do this at least once a day.
* 54% of these Twitter users say they post humorous or philosophical observations about life in general, with 16% doing so on a daily basis.
* 53% of these Twitter users use Twitter to retweet material posted by others, with 18% doing so on a daily basis.
* 52% of these Twitter users send direct messages to other users, with 11% doing so on a daily basis.
* 40% use Twitter to share photos with others, with 12% doing so at least once a day.
* 28% use Twitter to share videos with others. Fewer than one in ten Twitter users (8%) do this once a day or more.
* 24% use the service to tweet their location, with 7% of users doing so on a daily basis.
As the economy chugs toward recovery, many large brands has shift their big portions of budget from traditional media to digital – where the consumers are. So no matter your firm is big or small, if you still not start to tweet, you really should start and get it going now!