The Truth About the Average Twitter User

A study from security firm Barracuda Labs provides some interesting insights into the state of the Twitterverse. Unfortunately for the microblogging

startup, the stats say that most of its users aren’t very active.

The study looked at around 19 million Twitter accounts in order to figure out how people are using Twitter. It started with one assumption: An active or

“True” Twitter user has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people and had tweeted at least 10 times. By that definition though, only 21% of

Twitter users are active users.

There’s a great deal of interesting data in the breakdown. Only 26% of Twitter users had 10 followers or more, while only 40% were following 10 people or

more (in fact, a majority of Twitter users, 71%, were following less than five people).

In terms of tweets, the report estimates that 54% of Twitter users hadn’t tweeted even once, while a whopping 73% of Twitter’s users tweeted less than 10

times. That means nearly all of the tweets on the social network were coming from about one-fourth of the userbase. Power users dominate.


By Tony Rocha @RealTonyRocha via MediaMemo