Do you tweet for business or pleasure?

I like Twitter and have made it part of my business.

Having to be concise means that the information presented via Twitter is quick to read (although it can take a fair bit of time to read all the associated links!). I only follow people who are providing business information so I don’t get a lot of personal things coming through which is the complaint I most often hear from people who don’t like twitter.

Study of Twitter users

Recently, results of ‘an exhaustive study of Twitter users around the world’ were released.

And apparently my use and perception of Twitter is not shown by the results.

Here are some of the statistics…

36 million twitter profiles exist – 25% of which have never actually tweeted anything
I’m in the 75% as I’ve tweeted many times!

70% of tweeters don’t have anything in their profile
That is an incredible number to me – although if the 25% who never tweet is included it makes more sense. Certainly for any business using Twitter for marketing, you have to add a bio to get the maximum benefits.

53% of users are female
Yes, I am in that 53% and without actually counting them, I would think the people I follow and am followed by do fall into roughly 50% male/female.

74% of users are between 15 and  25
This time I am in the minority apparently. Interesting though as everyone I have met via Twitter is certainly out of their teens, and most would be over 30 – and my teen daughter and her friends don’t Tweet (they use other social media platforms obsessively but don’t like Twitter. My daughter has sent one tweet – actually a retweet of something I wrote as I was testing something!)

4.09% of users are in Australia – 50.99% the USA and 17.09% in the UK
I contribute to Australia being the third most prolific country for twitter use – I wonder how we’d rank if the statistics were done per capita rather than just number of users…

81.1% of users have less than 50 followers
I actually fit into the 9.2% with 101 – 500 followers but I found this statistic interesting.With so many people appearing to be keen on having many followers, I am surprised so many have less than 50 although if the 25% of non active users were included in the results it completely skews the meaning. If over 80% of active users have so few followers I am pleased – social media should be about relationships, not numbers, even in a business setting (50 followers who engage with me, retweet me and potentially buy from or help me is much better than 500 who don’t read my tweets at all).

22% of female twitter users have a purple background
I don’t have a purple background (I want blue to match my logo and brand) and generally find this sort of statistic somewhat superficial but I find it interesting because there has been an increase lately in purple as ‘the girl’s colour’ including the introduction of ‘women’s pens’ which are purple (although I appreciate this for the hilarious reviews made of this pen!)

Females are generally younger
By age group, females to number males while under 25, while the genders are pretty even for 26 – 35 year olds and males outnumber females after age 35. Men outnumber women by approximately a third in the management category and by about 50% in the entrepreneur category.

22.7% of tweets are sent by third party apps, not directly from Twitter
I also fit into this category as I use tweetdeck most of the time – it gives me access to multiple accounts and platforms at the same time (although not as well as it used to unfortunately since Twitter took it over).

On average, the more followers you have, the more often you tweet.

So obviously a lot more people do use Twitter for ‘social chats’ than I thought. However, the fact I don’t see that stuff shows you can select your Twitter experience by choosing who you follow – Twitter is definitely a business tool for me but I also make connections and have friendly conversations with people – it’s not all business.

So how does Twitter feature in your business and life?

Do the above statistics put you in the average or doing your own thing?