The State of Twitter: U.S. Awareness Far Exceeds Use

Linc Wonham — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 18:00:00 GMT

A new report from Edison Research called Twitter Usage in America: 2010 makes at least one thing abundantly clear — people in the U.S. know about Twitter. What is less clear, and far more significant to marketers, not to mention the future course of Twitter, is do they know what to do with it?

Edison’s findings show that Americans’ awareness of Twitter has exploded from 5 percent in 2008 to 87 percent in 2010, launching it into the same stratosphere as Facebook (88%) in terms of awareness in the U.S. In fact, a larger percentage of Americans above the age of 12 know about Twitter than have access to the Internet (85%).

The other side of the coin is that despite the nationwide recognition, the percentage of the population that actively uses Twitter is 7 percent, approximately 17 million users. Again, in comparison, 41 percent of Americans currently have a profile page on Facebook.

It seems that most Americans are still unsure about how to best utilize Twitter or if they have a need for it at all, but the study also reveals that the majority of those who do use it (51%) follow specific companies, brands and products. Edison also determined that nearly two-thirds of active Twitter users access social networking sites via their mobile phones.

Other findings from the Edison Research Twitter Usage in America report include:
•    Twitter users are three times more likely to follow brands and companies on Twitter than on other social sites
•    47 percent of Twitter users post status updates
•    70 percent of those users post updates to other social sites as well
•    39 percent of Twitter users own three or more computers
•    25 percent of the Twitter population is African American

First-timers Comprise 80 Percent of Business Blog Traffic

Linc Wonham — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:45:00 GMT

Contrary to the widely held belief that the majority of business-related blog traffic is made up of loyal audiences, a recent study reveals just the opposite. Marketers must develop blog and social media content for first-time visitors in order to be effective, according to the survey conducted by Compendium, an enterprise platform for social media and search.

In data gathered from 266 companies about blogging traffic, visitor trends and Twitter usage, the Corporate Blogging and Social Media Trends Survey found that almost three-quarters of respondents from companies selling directly to consumers reported more than 80 percent of all blog traffic was from first-time visitors. More than half of those companies said 41 percent or more of the traffic came through searches.

“A keyword-optimized blogging and social media content strategy geared towards first-time visitors is a valuable tool for marketers to increase conversions,” said Compendium co-founder and CEO Chris Baggott. “More traffic is being driven to corporate blogs through organic searches and more first-time visitors are landing on blogs.”

Of the business-to-business companies surveyed, 64 percent said that between 61 and 100 percent of visitors were first-timers. The study also revealed that less than half of the companies surveyed (approximately 43 percent) had established a Twitter account. The B-to-B companies had the highest reported Twitter usage with 87 percent maintaining an account.

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'Net Features : Twitter usage

The State of Twitter: U.S. Awareness Far Exceeds Use

First-timers Comprise 80 Percent of Business Blog Traffic