Let’s face it, most people are sheep. It is much easier to follow than to lead, and on Twitter it is no different. A full 80 percent of Twitter accounts have fewer than 10 followers, according to an analysis of seven million Twitter accounts provided to TechCrunch by Web security firm Purewire (which operates TweetGrade). What’s more, 30 percent have zero followers.
Does this mean nobody is using Twitter? Or that they are using it more as a one-way information consumption service?
The fact that an estimated 32 million people around the world visited Twitter.com alone in April certainly indicates that there is something going on there. It just may be that Twitter really isn’t as much about two-way micro-conversations as it is about one-way micro-broadcasting. Indeed, a recent Harvard Business School study suggested that the top 10 percent of Twitter users produce more than 90 percent of all Tweets.
Here is how Purewire breaks down activity on Twitter by number of followers, followings, and Tweets:
Followers
Accounts with 0 followers: 29.4%
Accounts with 1 to 9 followers: 50.9%
Accounts with 10 or more followers: 19.7%
Followings
Accounts following 0 people: 24.4%
Accounts following 1 to 9 people: 43.4%
Accounts following 10 or more people: 32.2%
Tweets
Accounts with 0 Tweets: 37.1%
Accounts with 1 to 9 Tweets: 41.0%
Accounts with more 10 or more Tweets: 21.9%
What stands out from this data is that about a quarter of all accounts are not following anybody, nearly 30 percent have zero followers, and more than a third have not posted a single Tweet. The problem with all of this data, however, is that it includes abandoned accounts (as most likely does the Harvard data as well).
Like any popular Web service, millions of people create a Twitter account, try it once, and never come back again. The Purewire data shows that about 40 percent of users have not sent out a Tweet since the day they created their accounts. You can compare this with the 60 percent abandonment rate claimed by Nielsen. But even these may not be the true abandonment rates. Just because you are not Tweeting does not mean you are not listening.
After getting rid of the dead accounts and spam accounts (24 percent of accounts follow nobody), what do we have left? All the activity on Twitter is coming from the remaining people who stick around—that 20 percent with more than ten followers and the 32 percent following more than ten people. If you look at active accounts—which Purewire defined as those with at least 10 followers, 10 followings, and 10 tweets—it shows that Twitter is still filled with sheep. Of those active accounts, 63.6 percent follow more people than they have followers (2.8 percent have the same number of followers as followings).
But that is what you’d expect. When only 22 percent of accounts have more than 10 Tweets, people who bother to Tweet on a regular basis will attract more followers than people who prefer to sit back and read. Twitter is no different than any other form of participatory media. A small fraction of users produce the overwhelming amount of content, even if it is just 140 characters at a time. Everyone else just drinks from the stream. Baaaa!
(Photo credit: Flickr/Stacie Brew )
Yay! I have more than 10 followers, in fact I have 296.
Follow me all!!
Nahhhh…
Not entirely sure the summation of the findings really leans towards people being sheep (I’m assuming you mean that people are mindlessly joining the bandwagon?).
Best time to sell twitter was yesterday
Just joking.
Seems most are fake. Doesn’t twitter have email contact importer and follow all those in single click??
They’re not sheep they are lemmings. 90% sign up to see what the stink is about, then rarely us the service. The other 10% are talking to themselves about themselves. Pathetic in the extreem.
nice i am having about 800 followers and i am following 1500+ people.
I’d like to see you and other follower-collectors define “follow.” Do you really read all the tweets from 1500 people on a daily basis?
http://www.twit...risntemail.com/
Correction! 100% of people on Twitter are sheep.
CLAIM!!!!!
ITT: people showing off their follow counts
If you want to know how to get 1000 followers in two days drop me a line.. it is not hard.. if you know what you are doing it is easy to get to about 1600 followers in about 5 days time.. not hard..
1000 people that trust, care and know you… or 1000 random accounts that are following everyone back?
I have 2,000+ followers and I’d say I have a stronger following than people with 20,000 ‘random’ followers, because I’ve built them up slowly since 2007.
I perfer to think of Tweeters as wolves in sheeps clothing…Waiting for a pack leader…
Since you say so, I’ll pass.
I for the life of me cannnot understand whats all this tweeting about.All you get from the followers and following is a buch of adds and links to offer you how to make money.This is a joke a bunch of stalkers and sales people thats what tweets are.
Per “top 10 percent of Twitter users produce more than 90 percent of all Tweets.”
Louis Gray has a most excellent post on how people participate on social networks.
“Twitter.com: 1% of all users are addicts, who drive upwards of 34% of total site traffic. An additional 25% of users are regulars, who deliver 40% of site traffic, meaning that the remaining 26% of traffic comes from the 74% of users who are merely passing by.” http://bit.ly/jJUwK
Yes. Twitter is the 2009 adult version of Pogs.
Wow, what a great reference!
“bwahhhhh” (that’s me making the sheep sound)
Oh yes, we are like sheep by nature – twitter or non twitter, people just like to follow.
One good thing going for mw is that I live on Maui and talk about Maui, and people love Maui, so they follow me
I like interacting with my tweeple friends too – so I have a lot of followers.
Thanks for an interesting post – bahhhh
Well, here’s one that really is a sheep (not just by nature):
http://twitter.com/fraands
He is a friendly sheep called FraandSheep (get it?)
They are not all sheep, they are simply readers !
?
Readers who use twitter like RSS can be strong leaders in the real life no ?
And people with hundreds of followers, is it a sufficient to call them leaders
Actually, it’s pretty symmetric usage, and relatively to other web 2.0 (sorry, social web) services like youtube, flicker, etc… the amount of participants among total users is quite overwhelming.
bahhhh…or as I always prefer to say when sheep come up, “Four legs good, two legs bad.” Though since I’m in the happy position of having more than ten followers, I suppose ought not to be baaahh-ing at all.
Fascinating article, and I’ve never felt so pleased about my following/follower statistics. Though this would all be much MORE fascinating if they broke down that twenty percent with more than ten. How many more than a hundred? More than a thousand? That would be fascinating to know too…
I have like 2 followers. (lol) I had more than that but it seemed like everytime I made a tweet about someone, or something, I’d get a couple spam followers, and that irritated me so I’d just block them.
Quality, not quantity.
Woops. Wrong entry in the twitter field.
whew, close one.
Why am I afraid to click on his twitter account, lol.
i hate when that happend..
You got a mail from twitter telling you, that you got a new follower and when you check out, is a freaking spammer :@
There are two effects that influence the finding significantly:
1. There is a lot account saving going on. And I am not just referring to brand names. There are numerous generic accounts created for later use.
2. There are more and more bots of applications that produce an endless stream of “information” of questionable value, adding noise to the stream for the sake of SEO.
Example: @QypeBerlin:
14 following
508 followers
32,257 updates
The interpretation of data is in my eyes misleading. There is much less sheep in the herd…
@susuh – AGree totally with #1 and I have done this for customers
Agree with #2 and witnessed a particular instance where one identical Tweet was issued by 30 different accounts and went to the same SEO stolen blog post.
I don’t think there is much pertinent data in the numbers of Twitter, only in the actual results of which I’ve seen many.
Yub! Discussion should focus on the bottom line.
Of course, that often delivers less attractive head-lines…
My two cents, as a fan and critic:
I have one very active account (north of 4500 followers, 8500 tweets), but also have two non-active accounts to cover my real name and another blog I operate. I have several clients who I’ve advised to ‘claim their names’ on Twitter, and they’ll start using those accounts as soon as they’re ready and able. Right now they’re dormant.
I think a number of people and brands are smartly claiming Twitter real estate for future or defensive use. Which means for every person active on Twitter, there might be an additional one, two or more accounts. I’m not talking about squatters, which is a different numbers story.
It’s accurate to say there are quite a bit less people on Twitter than the number of accounts indicate. And that a certain, smaller percentage account for a majority of tweet traffic and follow/follower connections. My question to EV, Biz and the boys: when will you take care of the auto software that enables one buttwipe to create dozens of niche spamming accounts that auto follow thousands of people?? My only guess is Twitter is happy to have inflated numbers to pump up perceived value to potential investors, even if the numbers are bloated by spammers.
Twitter will continue to grow at warp speed, and there’s no doubt millions of regular folks, brands of all sizes, and celebrities are coming on board. I just hope Twitter puts policies in place that enable quality growth, and filter out more of the kudzu-like spam crap I now have to block all the live long day.
You’re absolutely right, Jeff!
Messaging has practically already been rendered useless – I do not have the time to sift through the Auto-DM noise.
I spend a lot of time on providing value to the community, just to notice the MLM spammers to pass by without getting their hands dirty at all.
My hope is that the next version of Twitter search will value true commitment by considering reputation, persistency and content for the ranking of search results.
So people who spend all day sending out tweets are “leaders” not “sheep” — keep dreaming.
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
The great thing about technology is how it changes and is applied in unexpected ways. A social network like Twitter ends up being used as a broadcast medium. That’s fine. This may make it more useful in the long run as that aspect is taken advantage of.
http://www.twitterbacklash.com
“Or that they are using it more as a one-way information consumption service?”
Yes.
Oh, and I have 1,044 followers.
feel free to follow me ;D
Nothing wrong with being part of the sheep pack. I would hope that most of the leaders are in fact there to follow others first and to gain the following of us sheep second.
In fact my biggest draw to twitter is that it is what I wanted RSS to be. RSS feeds got to be were they where pushing too much content and getting to link’y and web’y, and just too goofy and functionaly annoying. Maybe I just never found the right RSS client. I just wanted breif text with a link if there was more info that I was interested in.
Twitter’s simplicity and 140 character limit has actually replaced most of my RSS feed needs.
No need to have followers, but it is nice to recognized for your thoughts and content.
For some reason I have more than 10 followers, so ya.
Thanks…
1000 words to say "duhhhhhh" ?
Seriously. Why do they do that? What’s the point? If anyone tries to follow me who doesn’t have many followers, I immediately block them. I don’t need any mute people watching me.
The end Result of this article is very true i must say:
“Everyone else just drinks from the stream. Baaaa!”
Most of the people using Twitter just for fun or bcoz its popular (the follow and unfollow routine), not to participate like the pro’s.
Social sites have very specific Participants.
The Kings. The top 10’s
Let’s not forget that many people still don’t understand how to use Twitter and many may get it but just not have the patience and or time
Not sure that makes people sheep. Lots of many valid reasons to have/ want smaller networks.
i am following 68 and the truth is only about 20 or so of them update at least once daily. i do think folks are getting bored with twitter.
It’s a lot of work and a big commitment to find *quality* things to talk about daily. Unless you want constant updates about people’s eating, tv watching and bathroom habits, there’s not much value in Twitter 99% of the time.
But doesn’t fit in with the report about SplashCast the other day, where CEO said
“What we found, however, is that very few users are willing and able to make an ongoing commitment to publishing and distributing content. Lots of users test; few stick with it.”
Same thing…… and ’cause its free a lot of people try it out without thinking about its use before.
But without it I wouldn’t have found the good TC articles
just my 2ct
alun
The CEO of SplashCast is perhaps the most straight-talking CEO in Silicon Valley. I’ve read other things he’s stated, and he often sounds more like a thoughtful analyst than someone promoting a business.
Thanks, Phreddy. Truth is, one of the best way to promote a business is to be transparent about the challenges of promoting that business. Some good things come easy or via luck, but most come through struggle, trial, error, and then success.
Oops, he’s in Portland, OR. No wonder he’s a straight talker.
That is probably because most people are mindless, boring clones working for “the man,” chasing the American dream but they are just another rat in the rat race.
Who’s going to win the rat race? A rat. No thanks.
Most people are still consumers and not creators, especially with the celebrity boom on Twitter.
I prefer not to think of myself as as sheep. I’m just new to Twitter. Help me out of the herd…any suggestions or followers are welcome! – Rudy
interesting information but i though people in twitter was very active, in fact all my followers updating everyday :O and I have more followers than following XD
ok ok I’m a Black Sheep:
1,355 Following
1,538 Followers
22,858 updates
Thanks for this great article, it’s validation for me taking IMPERFECT ACTION and launching http://www.twit...tipsonvideo.com – I am by no means a “social media expert” but it seems that my friends, fans, and followers are all “sheep” and really just want to know how the heck to use Twitter – so I hope that I can shed a bet of light. I’ll definitely share this article for sure!
That ratio is much higher than I expected. The big hidden news about blogs when they were first popularized some 5 years ago was that the median number of readers per blog was only about 3:1.
Which suggests to me that there are a lot more people following others who aren’t even looking at what’s in their feed.
sometimes, following too many people makes it annoying.
Seriously. Someone who claims they’re “following” more than 1000 other people is lying. That’s like having 1000 pen pals. Who’s got that time or attention span? They’re likely “following” so they can be followed in a quid pro quo arrangement. For most people, the number of followers is not a reflection of value but of ego.
well said!
According to the American Sheep Industry Association there are around 6.1 Million sheep living in +70k farms in all 50 states. Twitter is just that popular.
Some fascinating numbers. I knew there weren’t many people using Twitter even with all the hype. But I had no idea the numbers were so high. I personally have several accounts and have more than 10 followers. Great info thanks.
I don’t want to be a sheep, I want to be a wolf. I tweet on all things creative.
http://twitter.com/BlairFrench
Blair
This is pretty humorous spin: Twitter has a serious problem in that most people don’t tweet, and whose fault is it? The users, for being sheep! Erick, do you think you would have so many followers if you had a normal day-job? This all has nothing to do with leaders versus sheep.
You guys are omitting the real story here. There are a LOT of people on Twitter who WANT more followers — that is, who do not want to be sheep — but you CAN’T get any followers because the service is poorly designed, and because the medium itself is not suitable for two-way conversation. The medium is another outlet for journalists; hence its popularity among tech bloggers.
I always tell people they need to jump into Twitter by following a lot of people. Sites like WeFollow.com make it so easy now. A lot of people just sign up, follow 10 celebrities, get bored, and go back and take a What Kind Of Farm Animal Are You? quiz on Facebook.
How can you have less than 10 followers with all the porn spam bots following everyone they can find? I’ve got about 40-ish followers on Twitter though the number reduces when I clean out porn bots and then goes back up overnight.
+1
Really? Because I get hardly any porn bots trying to follow my account. My strange followers are people who apparently searched a keyword and then followed everybody they found in the search.
(For example, I made a crack about a Libertarian guitarist at a coffee shop a couple weeks back, and picked up 8 followers in a few hours, all of whom seem to be musicians or Libertarians. None of them seem to have noticed that I was making fun of the Libertarian guitarist. Half of them have dropped away since then, presumably after figuring out that I’m neither a Libertarian or a guitarist.)
Maybe you’re just tweeting about something that makes you look porn-receptive?
True, even my totally inactive accounts get new followers daily. And presumably, randomly.
It looks like I’m in the majority then.
These stats don’t surprise me. Look how many people are on Facebook and Myspace that never check their accounts. Twitter is a similar beast.
Yes, everyone was a’twitter over Twitter, but instead of tweeting (or at least bleating) their interest was fleeting, and ultimately defeating as they went from Twitterer to quiterer.
nice i am having about 800 followers and i am following 1500+ people.
Follow me and please subscribe to mu blog, please.
Please write something that’s not a waste of time, please.
eff twitter. its a spam-bot-marketing-seo-laden-socnet now with a few celeb tweeters tossed in for good measure. twitter is so dead to me right now.
I’d like to see a graph that plotted followers/followees on two axes.
I would like such a graph too. where does he get the data?
I get at least one "check out my pics
" spam account a day! I prefer FF
There is spam, but that comes with the territory on community sites. These sites are just like sports, some people like football, other people like hockey, some like basketball. Whatever floats your boat!
Can you say “Power Law”??? You’re talking about a social network, thus, it would only be interesting if you did NOT find this kind of distribution.
bob wyman
I didn’t know where to comment, in terms of placing a reply to some one or starting a new stream (That’s what I did) and fully expect a few follow ups.
From here, I think a few people have started to follow me, because I say interesting things sometimes. As for followers, I like followers but am trying to keep my “subscriptions” to a minimum because I can’t keep up… RSS is all good but not too much information, rather too many people sending blasts and I can’t keep up.
How many sheep are wolves underneath?
But how does this relate to Twitter?
You might define “nobody” 20% of Twitter users is a lot of people
These figures are pretty damning for supposedly the hottest phenomenon in communications. Imagine if 40-60% of cell phone users never made a call or canceled their service. Maybe this will convince TechCrunch not to devote umpteen articles every single week to Twitter. It’s a fad, not a trend.
Duh. You needed a study to tell you this?
Are those stats surprising? The web follows the 80/20 rule too, actually it’s probably closer to 95/5. 95% of the content on twitter is produced by 5% of users. I expect better from HBS…
How much cred can you really give to this data? Since it is a random sampling of users, it’s totally inconclusive.
It could be easily swayed in either direction. 7 million users represents what, maybe 60% of the user base?
That’s a 40% margin of error, my friends.
Tim,
Um… never took statistics at school eh?
A 60% sample size is absolutely enormous. Look at your normal statistical analysis and it’s based on a sample of anywhere from 5 to 20% of the population concerned.
The percentage of unsampled population has nothing to do with the “margin of error” and generally follows the same percentage or ratio trends as the majority 60%.
The “margin of error” has nothing to do with the percentage of the sampling.
When you flunk math you really shouldn’t give others lessons… my friend.
ouch
Ay Caramba
Finally a meaningful Twitter post.
Totally agree