Mike Andrew Consulting

Most Active Tweeters Also Boast Most Followers

By mike, Oct 16 in blog with 0 comments

It seems logical, yes. But a new study from Beevolve released in October finds a strong correlation between a Twitter user’s tweet volume and follower count. According to the global study of 36 million Twitter user profiles, users with between 100,001 and 1 million followers boasted the highest average number of tweets, at almost 15,300. The group with the next-largest follower base (10,001 – 100,000) averaged almost 13,000 tweets, while those with the smallest follower count (0-50) averaged 66 tweets.

Of course, correlation does not equal causation, and this is not to suggest that increased tweeting volume necessarily leads to more followers (the Beevolve analysis doesn’t factor in frequency, for example). Still, similar correlations have been found before: in February, a HubSpot analysis showed that increased frequency of blogging correlates with increased customer acquisition.

1 in 4 Twitter Account Holders Do Not Tweet

Some Twitter users might be bringing down the tweet volume average. According to the Beevolve study, 1 in 4 Twitter users are only interested in consuming content, having never actually tweeted anything themselves. [Tweet this]

Overall, women appear to be more active than men, with an average of 610 tweets by female account holders, compared to the 567 average for men.

In terms of follower count, the study finds that more than 4 in 5 account holders have up to 50 followers. In fact, more Twitter users have no followers than have more than 500 followers (6% vs. 3.4%). Those with a large follower count appear to skew the average, though, with the average user having 208 followers.

There is a similar distribution for the number of Twitter users followed, too. Almost three-quarters follow a maximum of 50 users. Twitter users are more likely to follow upwards of 500 users than to follow none at all, though (3.7% vs. 1%).

Other Findings:

The study finds that on a global basis, 53% of Twitter users are female. Recent analysis from Pingdom revealed more of a female skew within the US, with women accounting for 60% of the US Twitter user base.
In terms of self-disclosed age distribution, the Beevolve study shows that almost three-quarters of Twitter users around the world say they’re 15-25 years old. This appears to be a huge number – in the US, Pingdom found the average age of a Twitter user to be about 37. The Beevolve results might be skewed by the finding that only 0.45% of Twitter users disclose their age.
1 in 2 Twitter users are from the US. The UK sports the next-highest share of users, at 17%.

About the author

Mike Andrew has been working with the Internet and small business for over 12 years. Mike has been a keynote speaker at conventions and seminars and conducted social media training sessions all over the world. Mike has an extensive media background having worked in electronic media for over 30 years. Mike specialises in social media and Internet marketing strategy, SEO techniques and search engine marketing campaigns. His articles appear on numerous blogs around the web as well as national magazines.