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Inside Twitter

An In-Depth Look Inside the Twitter
World

June 2009

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Report

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By Sysomos
Inc.
Alex Cheng, Mark Evans, and Harshdeep Singh

→ Appendix for
reference with complete list of graphs

Contents

Twitter's Hockey
Stick-Like Growth in 09

Twitter
Self-Disclosed Age Demographics

Number of People
Followed

Number of
Followers

Followers
vs. Following Activity

The More
Followers, the More You Tweet

Tweets/Day

Twitter
Activity

How Active Are
Twitter Users?

Twitter Activity
By Day Of Week

Twitter Activity
By Time Of Day

Publishing
Tools

iPhone Users on
Twitter

Top Twitter
Countries

Fastest Growing
Cities

iPhone Users
on Twitter

Most Common
Keywords in Twitter Profiles

Insights on Social
Media Marketers Using Twitter

Average Tweets
per Day

Number of
Friends

Number of
Followers

Most Common
Keywords in Profile of Social Media Marketers

Twitter
Communities

Methodology

About Sysomos

Summary

Over the past few months, Twitter has experienced explosive growth,
attracting celebrity users such as Oprah, and a growing mountain of media and
blog coverage. Sysomos Inc., one of the world's leading social media analytics
companies, conducted an extensive study to document Twitter's growth and how
people are using it. After analyzing information disclosed on 11.5 million
Twitters accounts, we discovered that:

72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009.

85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day

21% of users have never posted a Tweet

93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than
100 people.

5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity

New York has the most Twitters users, followed by Los Angeles, Toronto,
San Francisco and Boston; while Detroit was the fast-growing city over the
first five months of 2009

More than 50% of all updates are published using tools, mobile and
Web-based, other than Twitter.com. TweetDeck is the most popular
non-Twitter.com tool with 19.7% market share.

There are more women on Twitter (53%) than men (47%)

Of the people who identify themselves as marketers, 15% follow more than
2,000 people. This compares with 0.29% of overall Twitter users who follow
more than 2,000 people.

"We wanted to take an extensive snapshot of Twitter that goes far beyond
anything done to document Twitter's use, growth and demographics," said Nick
Koudas, Sysomos' co-founder and chief executive. "While Twitter's growth has
been well documented, we wanted to put the spotlight on how people use Twitter,
as well as identify many of the key trends in their backgrounds, demographics
and activity. Our study, based on the most comprehensive dataset of Twitter
users, provides a wealth of information for anyone interested in getting
in-depth details about Twitter."

To discuss this report on Twitter, use the hashtag #sysomossurvey or copy us @sysomos. Visit the appendix for complete list
of graphs.

Twitter's Hockey Stick-Like Growth in 09

The Facts: Since the beginning of the year, 72.5% of Twitter
users have signed up for the service. This includes 22.7% of total users in
March and 19.7% in April.

So what accounted for the tremendous growth in March and April? In March,
Twitter started to attract significant media attention after Compete.com
reported that the number of Twitter users had skyrocketed in February.

In April, Twitter's profile was enhanced when Ashton Krutcher (aka @aplusk)
waged a public race against CNN to be the first to have one million followers.
Then, on April 17, talk show celebrity Oprah Winfrey (aka @oprah) started using
Twitter, making her first Tweet on her show with help from Twitter co-founder Ev
Williams.

Although April did show impressive growth, it was also the first time in nine
months that Twitter had a decline in month-over-month growth.

Twitter Self-Disclosed Age
Demographics

The Facts: Based on a sample set of users who disclosed their
age, 65% of Twitter users are under the age of 25

Note: Only 0.7% of users disclosed their age, with younger users showing a
higher probability of doing so. Still, the statistics suggest Twitter is growing
in popularity among younger people.

Number of People
Followed

The Facts: 92.4% of Twitter users follow less than 100 people,
while 97.8% of Twitter users follow less than 400 people. At the other end of
the extreme, 0.94% of Twitter users follow more than 1,000 people.

Number of Followers

The Facts: 93.6% of Twitter users have less than 100 followers,
while 98% of users have less than 400 followers. Meanwhile, 1.35% of users have
more 500 followers, and only 0.68% of more than 1,000 followers.

Followers vs.
Following Activity

Fast Fact: Until people have 150 followers, they follow
about the same number of people. After that, this starts to break down. Twitter
users who are follow 950 people, for example, are only followed by 531.

The More Followers, the
More You Tweet

Fast Fact: As Twitter users attract more followers, they tend to Tweet
more often. This is particularly evident once someone has 1,000 followers the
average number of Tweets/day climb from three to six. When someone has more than
1,750 followers, the number of Tweets/day rises to 10.

Tweets/Day

The Facts: 85.3% of Twitter users update less than once/day; while 1.13%
Twitter users update more than average of 10 times a day.

Twitter Activity

The Facts: As many people have speculated, a small group of Twitter
users account for the bulk of activity. Sysomos discovered that 5% of users
account for 75% of all activity, 10% account for 86% of activity, and the top
30% account for 97.4%

How Active Are Twitter Users?

The Facts: 50.4% of Twitter users haven't updated their status in the
last seven days.

Twitter Activity by Day of Week

The Facts: Based on a sample of 20 million Tweets, Tuesday is the most
popular day for Twitter activity, accounting for 15.7% of total activity;
followed by Wednesday (15.6%) and Friday (14.5%)

Twitter Activity By Time of Day

The Facts: During the day, the most Twitter activity happens from 11
a.m. to 3 p.m. (EST)

Publishing Tools

The Facts: More than half of Twitter users (55%) use something
other than Twitter.com. TweetDeck is the most popular non-Twitter.com publishing
tool with 19.7% market share, while Twitterfon had 4.5% and Twitterfeed 3.8%
share.

iPhone Users on Twitter

The Facts: Not surprisingly, the majority of iPhone owners using
Twitter are located in the U.S.

Note: These numbers are based on the number of iPhone users who use their
devices to update their Twitter status. It also reflects higher penetration
rates of  the iPhone in the U.S.

Top Twitter Countries

The Facts: US is the biggest Twitter country by population, followed
by UK, Canada and Australia.

Fastest Growing Cities

The Facts: The cities with the biggest Twitter populations are
New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco and Boston. Los Angeles is the
fastest growing city in the list.

Most Common Keywords in Twitter
Profiles

The word cloud below shows a list of common words in bio of Twitter
users.

Insights on Social Media Marketers Using
Twitter

The Facts: 15% of Twitter users who follow more than 2,000 people
identify themselves as social media marketers. More than 78% of social media
marketers have more than 20 followers. As well, 35% write more than one
update/day, compared with 15% for the overall Twitter population.

Average Tweets Per Day

The Facts: 65.5% of social media marketers post less than a update a
day, compared with 85.3% of the general Twitter population. In addition, 6.3%
post two updates a day (vs. 2.8 overall), while 4.3% post at least nine updates
a day (vs. 0.17% overall). This suggests social media marketers are far more
active than overall users.

Number of Friends

The Facts: 9.23% of social media marketers follow more than 500
people; 9.74% follow more than 750 people; while 10.7% follow more than 1,000
people. (Tablular
Data)

Number of Followers

The Facts: 10% of social media marketers have more than 500 followers,
10.9% have more than 750 followers, while 11.8% have more than 1,000 followers.
(Tablular Data)

Most Common Keywords in Profile of Social
Media Marketers

Twitter Communities

We analyzed our entire Twitter collection of 11.5 million users to identify
communities. While the notion of a community is admittedly open to multiple
interpretations, in our case we adopted the following intuitive definition: we
seek to identify sets of Twitter users that are tightly "connected" in terms of
following each other. Our results are astonishing:

There are communities on Twitter for nearly any topic! Sample communities
include users interested exclusively on children's books, lounge music, new
parents, lawyers, state politics, city events, etc.

The denser the community, the more specific the topics of interest. One
for example, can easily observe a tightly coupled community of mothers
interested exclusively on children's books, as well as a loosely coupled
communities of individuals interested in politics in the U.S.

Communities tend to be of manageable size (in accordance with known
theories in sociology)

We will be updating our blog (blog.sysomos.com) with Twitter
communities.

Methodology

Sysomos analyzed more than 11.5 million Twitter accounts, including the
indexing of user profiles and status updates. Location and age information is
based on information disclosed in their profile pages. Genders are based on the
analysis of user's real names as disclosed against extensive lists of male and
female names. Statistics for social media marketers is based on users who
mention their profession in their profiles as social media practitioners, online
marketers, and pr professionals.

Note: this survey report was produced in May and, as a result, hence data for
May 2009 is not complete.

→ Appendix for
reference and complete list of graphs

About Sysomos

Sysomos is redefining social media analytics by providing corporations,
marketers, public relations agencies and advertisers with the intelligence and
insight needed to make smarter business and strategic decisions. The Sysomos
platform provides instant and unlimited access to all social media conversations
to see what's happening, why it's happening, and who's driving the
conversations.

Sysomos' products include

MAP: A
feature-rich service that offers customers the ability to analyze and understand
social media conversations. MAP delivers insight and intelligence about the
major conversations, why they're happening and who's driving them. You can make
unlimited queries on any topic to get real-time results, collaborate, and
generate detailed reports for clients.

Heartbeat: A
cost-effective, real-time monitoring and measurement tool that provides
constantly updated snapshots of social media conversations delivered using a
variety of user-friendly and intuitive graphics. Heartbeat organizes
conversations, manage workflow, facilitate collaboration, and provide ways to
engage with key influencers.

Feedback

To discuss this report on Twitter, use the hashtag #sysomossurvey or copy us @sysomos.

Sysomos has collected a comprehensive collection of data from Twitter user
profiles and updates. We will be publishing our analysis of this ever-changing
and growing data on a regular basis. To leave comments (including the kind of
information you would like to see in future) about this report, visit our
blog.

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