A Closer Look at Who’s Tweeting

More and more brands are using Twitter to reach out to a new audience and engage with their existing customers. Aspirational brands like Starbucks, Whole Foods and Southwest Airlines have found meaningful ways to interact with their customers through tweets. Naturally, the twittersphere is especially friendly to big brands and celebrities, whose profiles users are particularly interested in following.

The question is: can Twitter be effective for any brand? There’s a lot of things to take into consideration before diving in. Yes, it’s a free service, but making Twitter worth your while requires a big time commitment and, more importantly, a well-devised plan. To reach these conclusions, it's important to understand who’s really tweeting.

A Glimpse at the Numbers
There’s a lot of research dedicated to the marketing value of Twitter. Who’s in the audience, and what do we know about them? First of all, it’s important to note that Twitter is still growing. According to the social networking blog Royal Pingdom, the number of tweets in January reached 1.2 billion, an all-time high for the site. And with 20 million users, the demographics are backed by some big raw numbers.

The most widely used estimates show Twitter users skewing slightly female at about 53%, and overwhelmingly, 82% of users are Caucasian. Additionally, 44% are aged 18-34; the next largest age group is 35-49, which makes up about 27% of Twitter users. Individuals with Twitter accounts are also less affluent, and there's a high index of users with no college education.

There are definitely other considerations. Some research shows nearly 80% of Twitter accounts are inactive. Whether or not this number is accurate, it’s safe to say that there is a considerable amount of dead accounts. But based on the number of tweets that kicked off 2010, we also know that those who do actively tweet are doing so very often.

Digging Deeper
Given this information, the potential of Twitter for building a brand will look different depending on, well, the brand. If the initial data looks promising in relation to your target audience, it’s a good idea to take a closer look at how Twitter users (both individuals and brands) engage using the medium.

Twitter is equipped with a number of tools that provide more insight about users in general. Hash tags, and more recently, geotags, are two ways that Twitter users connect with each other. Hash tags are used to identify topics of interest. These, of course, are constantly in flux, but Twitter provides the most popular trending topics of the moment on their home page. If you’re worried about connecting with people, trending topics can help you get to know users better, but also bring you some attention as a tweeter.

Geotags, on the other hand, are a newer phenomenon. Even if you have Twitter, you might not be using – or even be aware of – geotags. Geotagging allows users to tag their tweets with their current location. The idea of geotagging is to allow users to “join into a local conversation and annotate the world around you as you travel from one place to another” (Twitter.com). Users have to opt-in to turn on geotagging for their account.

There’s not a lot of information or statistics concerning the number of users who use geotagging, but the feature is still very new. For brands whose reach is more local or regional, geotagging provides the opportunity to identify users in your immediate area and start a conversation about upcoming events, promotions or your products. And with the viral nature of Twitter, there’s a lot of potential that comes with one thoughtful tweet.

With this quick look at the audience, you might already have a better idea about how to utilize Twitter in an appropriate way. And even though the social network has a short history, there’s a lot more in-depth information available to help determine a brand’s future in tweeting.