How Big is Twitter (Really) and Should You Use Twitter?

I originally published this on MarketHeist.com blog.

The first question, “how big is twitter really?” is a question we’ve been wondering especially to answer client’s marketing question of whether they should spend time and money on a twitter marketing campaign. Here’s two sets of stats about twitter to chew on. The stats of number of twitter users don’t quite match in the two sources we’re quoting, but that’s just because of a time difference. The Business Insider article “CHART OF THE DAY: How Many Users Does TWITTER Really Have?” was posted on 3.31.11. The article “Is Twitter more effective for brands than Facebook?” by Lies Damned Lies and Statistics was posted on 4.11.11. (with this Twitter vs. Facebook infographic from Digital Surgeons)

How big is Twitter, Really?

First off, I don’t agree with how Business Insider defines an “active” Twitter user, but it’s interesting stats nonetheless. The main thing I noted was

• Facebook has 600 Million Monthly Active Users (MAU) vs. Twitter 175 Million registered users

The key word for twitter is “registered users” which does not necessarily mean active users. No matter how you slice the data, such as how Business Insider defined “active users,” twitter has much less than 175 Million active users. Just from simple anecdotal checking our own accounts, our clients accounts, and checking other people’s followers, you can see most twitter accounts or spam or advertising accounts. Hardly real people sitting there using Twitter. But I’m not blaming twitter. Anyone with common sense for PR would always show the numbers that make you seem the best and biggest you can possibly be, and not mention the shortcomings.

Here’s a quote of numbers from the Business Insider study:

There were 119 million Twitter accounts following one or more other accounts.

There were 85 million accounts with one or more followers.

With these figures, and Twitter’s claim of 175 million accounts, a little subtraction shows us that there are 56 million Twitter accounts following zero other accounts, and 90 million Twitter accounts with zero followers.

So let’s say an “active” Twitter user is someone who follows at least 10 other accounts.

How many such “active” Twitter users are there? Our source’s API data shows that there are 56 million accounts on Twitter following 8 or more accounts. There are only 38 million following 16, and just 12 million following 64.

Facebook has more than 600 million monthly active users.

Foursquare has 7.5 million registered users.

The Huffington Post reaches 30 million people each month.

Now, I wouldn’t use how many followers or twitter users you’re following as a gauge for active twitter users. Anyone who’s used twitter for a while knows many of the most followed, most popular users to follow on twitter actually follow very few themselves. These include celebrities and popular news sources. Most twitter users sign up for twitter to get instant updates from these “content providers” whether if it’s Justin Beiber filling fans in on his personal life or AP News with instant news across the world. Content providers often follow less than 10 because they ARE the source, and also they probably don’t have time to socialize and read what others post on twitter. They’re busy making content.

On the other side, the “masses”…the people using twitter to get updates from Justin Beiber or Fox news are usually individuals who only sign up to get these exclusive updates. They themselves aren’t using twitter to provide content or socialize, so very few people would follow them. So i think Business Insider’s analysis flaw is in their assumption of how people use twitter.

To me, the real question is: HOW MANY PEOPLE ACCESS THEIR TWITTER ACCOUNT MONTHLY?

You can easily check that by seeing whether they accessed their twitter API either to check for updates and/or post tweets themselves. As simple as that. Of course, you can’t count the accounts that are auto-tweeting bots without a real person behind the content. (There’s a ton TON of these.) So why isn’t the twitter API access data talked about? I wonder. It should be the easiest data to get.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Should you Use Twitter?