Twitter keeps on growing like a weed, and there seems to be no stopping the much-hyped, heavily scrutinized Silicon Valley startup in its quest to turn its popular micro-sharing service into a veritable pulse of the planet. Twitter passed 50 million unique visitors worldwide in July, according to comScore, reaching 51.6 million UVs at the end of the month. But its biggest increase in traffic Twitter saw earlier this year, when unique visitors numbers gradually increased to reach 44.5 million in June, up from 19.1 million in the beginning of March.
Note that this traffic only accounts for members who are content with using the Twitter website, and doesn’t take into account the multitude of users who log on to third-party web services or desktop clients to access their Twitter streams. Either way you look at it, Twitter’s ongoing growth is staggering.
People information search specialist Rapleaf thought it’d be interesting to run some analysis on Twitter follower trends based on data it was monitoring closely for one of its clients, and the study gives us an interesting insight into how Twitter’s huge growth between March and June have affected following patterns of some of its most active users. We already learned most people on Twitter are sheep, but does that change over time?
Rapleaf recently helped one of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods companies identify the most influential and connected Twitter users within their customer list for a word-of-mouth marketing campaign. Part of the analysis that Rapleaf was commissioned to do involved researching how profiles of their client’s customers on Twitter changed between given periods of time, by closely analyzing the users’ following and follower count.
The company ran some numbers on their clients’ top 0.1%, top 1% and top 10% most-followed Twitter users within the company’s customer list and compared how these figures changed in nine weeks, from the beginning of March until mid-June.
Rapleaf will be releasing the numbers later today but was kind enough to give us a sneak peek.
Clearly, the catchphrase ‘the rich get rich and the poor get poorer’ is at least half true when it comes to Twitter users’ following trends. While the service’s growth understandably lifts the follower numbers of the average Twitter user along the way, there’s also an apparent popularity gap that continues to widen.
Based on the sample of 40,000 users that Raplead has analyzed – deemed active members because they have at least five followers, five friends or five updates – it seems that having lots of followers on Twitter means that you’re going to grow more popular more rapidly as the microblogging service continues to boom.
The top 0.1% of observed Twitter users climbed 275% in Twitter followers between March and June, while the top 1% increased only 146% in comparison, and the top 10% gained only 126%. Even when analyzing the median followers, the stats paint a clear picture: the top 0.1%, 1% and 10% of researched Twitter users saw their follower base grow by 78%, 65% and 59% respectively.
Could this be the Twitter Golden Ratio at work?
Looking at the difference between the popularity of the top 0.1%, the top 1%, and the top 10% during the month of June, Rapleaf’s study shows users in the top 0.1% have approximately 5 times as many followers as users in the top 1% and about 40 times as many followers as users in the top 10%. It’s unclear how many of them are spam, of course.
Also noteworthy: a user who barely makes the top 10% needs 11.4 times more followers to break into the top 1%, and nearly 55 times as many followers to enter the top 0.1%.
Wanna see how your popularity on Twitter is evolving? Check out TwitterCounter to get an idea. Not happy with what you’re seeing? Try tweeting more often.
cTwitterLike
http://www.ctwittlike.net
See twitter like someone else!
Just put the user and see twitter like him.
I wonder if those numbers include porn spam. I’ve heard porn is 20% of Twitter. That sounds high.
I’m sure spammers are easy to spot because of how much they get blocked…
Well porn seems to find its way into everything on the internet so Twitter will be no exception.
What is amazing about Twitter is that it is blocked in the most populous country, China, where it would simply go through the roof. With they way that users in China make use of their phones it would simply take off. When I am in China(Allot) I have to use VPN software to get through to Twitter but my China cell is of no use!
Not a single Tweeter on my follow list posts any updates via the web. Which makes this study and all other based solely on web traffic suspect.
Around 40%+ of Twitter users use the Twitter.com. It’s by far the most common way people access Twitter. I think Tweetdeck comes in second place with 15% of users but I’ll need to dig up those numbers.
It is true that Twitter grows, the purpose of using Twitter grows and it makes revolution in all the fields. But it is also true that Twitter has a decline in August in number of users. Twitter’s future is hard to predict.
I think twitters numbers have “declined” in August, because more people are using third party apps to navigate the service especially Iphone usersm not many use the ‘web’ which is where these stats are dervided. I think a study should come out on all user in twitters datatbase, if twitter decides to freely release this info..
Your findings from analyses like these depend greatly on the sample you’re studying. Were these primarily U.S. accounts or did they take into account the growth of Twitter internationally?
My research on the Top 1000 accounts shows a recent decline in follower numbers for some of the Most Followed accounts including @TechCrunch & @Ev (among others).
There isn’t just one trend in social networks but many trends, micro-trends & counter-trends. But it is interesting to see the results from their study. All of these examinations help us see a different side of how people interact online.
we’ve lost over over 1000 followers in the past few weeks when they clean out spammers…. might be that decline
How many of those 50 million used it once, realised it was rubbish and stopped? Is it still 90%+?
Which really just leaves freakoid celeb stalkers and journalists I suppose. Dead in a year, man. Dead in a year.
I love twitter, but it’s really hard for me to take them seriously as a company since the site itself *still* has a massive, rookie XSS security vulnerability they’ve been notified of and simply failed to fix or publicly acknowledge.
Until it is fixed, (and the site improved on generally) twitter is and will remain a messaging protocol.
How many proprietary protocols do you know that are inherently profitable and a business unto themselves?
My followers have leveled off….
Well I dont understand the basis behind these analysis as firstly how and what data used is not available in public domain, hence it upto the report provider whatever and to waht accuracy they provide.
The 80/20 rule still applies.
I suspect the 80/20 rule in this case is that 20% of users use it and the other 80% use it for two weeks and then don’t return.
Is this business retaining users? That is the only real question for its future staying power.
But i know the bright boys and gals at Twitter will be fizzing on this issue, to build in some retention, somehow.
There are now 58 twitter users with over 1 million followers and more are joining the 1 million club every day.
Ashton Kutcher has over 3 million now!
We have the top 150 followers, following and updaters over at twitrank on twittown.
http://www.twit.../topfollowers_1
I think the more important question is how much of the top 1% did “Twitter choose” through its recommended user section. I am not sure how much these stats reveal the influence of that more than actual user behavior. If left to their own without Twitter’s influencing the process, I do not think you would see such gaps.
I think that is worth noting.
I think they could do a study on new accounts to see the correlation between who they choose to follow.
What’s the point of maximizing your followers for average non corporate user?
i used twitter to communicate with my family and to receive selected news [slashdot/digg/timoreilly/theeconomist/]
I don’t want any donkey followers ! and there are many.
Twitter is amazing social bookmark, its very simple,easy to join, update, follow with another.
And Twitter can make your taffic to your blog/site very tons. Its great tools to making money for you.
I’m sorry, but can we get some decimal consistency in this article?
Is it 0,1% or 0.1%? What continent are you posting from?
grammar nazi.
Europe. Thx for the heads up, fixed now.
The important thing to twitter about is that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990.
you disagree, or don’t understand another point of view on the political spectrum and that’s the best you got? What a simple mind you have
Not really surprisingly, Twitter is basically another voicepiece for the celebrity and/or journalist and/or worthless tech blogger. It isn’t a venue for normal people.
ya people either follow already famous celebrity or company. Or some bloggers who happen to make themselves famous online. Maybe sometimes niche famous figures like folks in the startup world.
i am Crima.
I am Existentialist.
I think, therefore I am Crima.
Go away, interloper.
I think people just have tendency to follow popular figures.
Either it’s celebrities (or companies) who are already popular offline.
Online nobody somehow made themselves into somebody, mostly by good contents and interesting engagements.
Or lastly popular characters in a specific niche e.g. lots of startup people in the startup world I guess in this category
Isn’t it always the case that people are followers more than leaders. The British are Kings at getting in a queue just because others are doing it.
I think the real question is how much are those followers engaging in activity with the people they are following.
The point for most businesses is to connect with people so unless these users are interacting, it can become a fruitless exercise.
Although if you look at the response rates of email, maybe you just need to get 2MM followers.
Then when you spam out an offer it reaches .10% of recipients which on an absolute basis, makes sense!
I can’t really imagine a use for it, Twitter I mean. shitmydadsays is amusing for a minute, but that’s just like a blog. I don’t get what Twitter is useful for. Maybe it’s just hype, people do like to follow trends. Hmm.
+1
How about some extra rows in that chart for how many “auto-follow” bots exist and how many twitter users are actually active, and another detailing how many are getting updates (as opposed to simply following).
I still need much more followers to go to 0,1%
And lets not forget that 1/3 of Twitter could be bot driven.
All these numbers are spurious at best. No one says what we are actually measuring.
For instance, where is the hub bub about the Facebook one user account policy in order to legitimize the business model…? We all know thats not reality.
social media has nothing to do with “adding value,” “conversations” or “engagement.” [It’s] all about…EGO. @briansolis post on FriendFeed
So true, the comment above that is.
As much as these figures would like you to believe, I still think that it’s pretty much useless.
You mentioned a thing about the ‘rich getting richer’, I think that is true for content as well. The top provides some quality, while the bulk of it is just meaningless drivel.
Here’s a good article on why Twitter is “gay”.
What is the point of having thousands of “followers” who are inactive on Twitter? It’s a nonsense, because your Tweets are disappearing into a black hole in cyberspace. The point of Twitter is to actually be communicating with real people.
You do not improve your credibility on Twitter by posting a #FollowFriday for someone whose page no longer exists or who hasn’t tweeted for three months.
Every week, I unfollow anyone who has not updated their account in the last 30 days. Out of 7,000 “followers”, that can be as much as 15% of them – because so many people start and then quit. Take out the “bot followers” and the porn machines and you end up with a fairly stable following of real people and fresh interaction.
It might never put me in the top 1% but at least I know my Twitter community is real and active.
Glad to be in the top 0.1%.
Yeah for Twitter! Keep getting popular!
The Recommended User list has to be put into play in these statistics, since us normal users are not placed on that list, we have an inherent disadvantage trying to get followers. On top of that, it doesn’t matter if you are tweeting out stuff that will cure cancer. If you aren’t at a certain level of followers certain people won’t tweet you. Twitter is the only social networking site I’ve seen that is run like a caste system.
In two years, Twitter will be what MySpace is today. We’ll move on, and nobody will really care.
This is the expected pattern in any social network. It arises from the fact that the more followers you have, the more likely you are to get new followers. It would be quite strange if Twitter *didn’t* follow this well-established pattern.
The title is cool. Interesting article.
You know when you first sign up for Twitter and they have that list of “recommended Tweeters” or whatever? I think that should be a random thing instead of listing out the top users or whatever. That’s why they have so many followers is because those who just joined automatically follow them if they click ‘next’ without reading.
I like that “Rich get richer, poor get poorer” quote. My followers seem to level off. Doesn’t really move up or down y’know? It’s always X. One day it’s X-2, the next day it’s X+3 but it’s always around X. If that makes sense…
Gr8 pic of Fonzie eh!!!
But as for twitter I see it just growing each day may be will stop in about 2 yrs when something new comes along.