10 Twitter Statistics Every Marketer Should Know in 2020 [Infographic]

If you’re just starting out with your ecommerce venture, social media is an avenue you’ll want to include as part of your marketing strategy.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat… these are channels that present a gold mine of opportunities with massive potential to increase coverage and awareness for your brand.

Of the social media platforms, Twitter marketing can be particularly complex, given its short life span and challenging character limit. 

So, to understand how to best optimize your Twitter strategy, you’ll first need to be equipped with the most important Twitter stats that answer questions such as:

• How many people use Twitter?
• How popular is Twitter among consumers?
• What are some Twitter demographics to consider?

Fret not. In this article, we’ll present to you 10 Twitter statistics to consider for your ecommerce brand’s social media marketing strategy. Let’s dive in!

1. Number of Twitter Users

One of the first questions that come to mind when considering a Twitter marketing campaign is probably: how many people use Twitter?

Twitter boasts 330 million monthly active users (as of 2019 Q1). Of these, more than 40 percent, or more specifically, 145 million, use the service on a daily basis (Twitter, 2019). 

This was the first quarterly growth in monthly active users for Twitter in a year, which had been falling since its peak in the first quarter of 2018. 

The platform has come under fire in recent years, especially given the harassment cases and its purported role in US politics. But Twitter has acted in response, with its cleansing of up to 70 million fake accounts last year. 

It’s rather difficult, for now, to predict if this growth trend can be sustained. And while it may still pale in comparison with Facebook’s statistic of 1.5 billion daily users, come rise or come fall, there’s no doubt that the reach of Twitter for any marketing campaign remains huge. 

Plus, consider the fact that roughly 500 million people access Twitter every month without logging into an account. That’s 1.5 times the number of monthly active users. Such Twitter statistics are a good reflection of the real reach of Twitter. 

2. Twitter Demographics: Age

Instagram and Snapchat may have snapped up the young demographic, but Twitter has its own crowd to appeal to. 

Approximately six of every 10 (63 percent) Twitter users worldwide are between 35 and 65 years old (theVAB, 2018).

This paints a pretty clear picture of Twitter’s appeal for an audience that’s more mature than those of Snapchat and Instagram.

The average adult Twitter user in the US appears to fall closer to the lower end of that range – with a median age of 40.

3. Twitter Demographics: Gender

In terms of global gender demographics, Twitter is more popular among males than females. 

66 percent of Twitter users worldwide are male compared to just 34 percent females (DataReportal, 2019), which puts the ratio of males to females at two to one.

This is also reflective of the gender demographics of Twitter users in the US, but with a smaller margin. Twitter demographics in the US show 56 percent are males, as opposed to 44 percent females.

Here’s another interesting statistic to ponder when building Twitter campaigns: women reportedly tend to interact more with brands on social media than men do. 

4. Average Time Spent on Twitter

The average time spent on Twitter clocks in at 3.39 minutes per session (Statista, 2019) – a statistic that shouldn’t surprise given the short lifespan (15 to 20 minutes) of a tweet.

Twitter’s popularity as an outlet for news has been on the rise, and it’s one of the top reasons people use Twitter.

It’s a popular medium to communicate breaking news. In fact, journalists make up nearly a quarter of all verified accounts on Twitter.

The bite-sized news in the form of tweets makes for easy and quick consumption. This explains the relatively short amount of time spent per session on Twitter compared with social media giant Facebook, whose average session is 4.96 minutes. And when it comes to time spent on Twitter, it also helps to know the best time and day to post on Twitter.

5. Twitter App Store Downloads

There were 11.7 million App Store downloads of the Twitter app in the first quarter of 2019 – registering a year-over-year increase of 3.6 percent (Sensor Tower, 2019).

It was also the highest number of app store downloads per quarter for Twitter since 2015. 

But despite the increase, the Twitter app is outside the top ten list of most-downloaded iOS apps. It ranks 16th on the list pretty far behind its main competitors – Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat.

The app isn’t doing too well either on the Google Play store, even failing to make the top 20.

6. Twitter Popularity Among B2B Marketers

If you need more Twitter statistics to convince you of the platform’s potential, here’s another. 

67 percent of all B2B businesses are using Twitter as a digital marketing tool (Statista, 2018). And given the number of active Twitter users, this figure really shouldn’t come as a surprise. 

Social media has given rise to the possibility of engaging personally with consumers. So much so that the brand-customer relationship has gone from one that’s uni-directional to bi- and even multi-directional. 

In other words, brand messaging is no longer a simple one-sided conversation whereby consumers only listen. They are now well-equipped to react, respond, and interact not only with brands and their messages but also with other consumers who are also engaging. 

That said, it’s become increasingly important for brands to not only be present on Twitter but also interactive and engaging.

In fact, 77 percent of Twitter users have a better impression of a brand when they respond to a tweet. And six out of ten users expect a brand to respond to any customer service requests within one hour.

Check out our guide to use Twitter analytics to improve your engagement. 

7. Tweets Statistics

Consider the following Twitter statistics:

• Half a billion tweets are sent out each day (Mention, 2018).
• That equates to 5,787 tweets per second.
• The average Twitter user follows just five brands.

Marketing on Twitter isn’t going to be a walk in the park, given the stiff competition. But that’s not to say it’s not possible.

When launching a social media marketing plan, keep in mind these Twitter statistics. More specifically, think about the ideal times to tweet to reach your key market(s).

Play around with your tweet schedule and analyze your tweets statistics to determine the best time to send out a tweet. 

Social media tools like Buffer and Hootsuite can lend a hand for scheduling and analysis of your tweets to figure out the best times to reach your target audience.

8. Twitter Popularity in the US

The majority of Twitter users come from the United States, with more than 47 million accounts. This is followed by Japan and the United Kingdom.

It’s one of the top five social media sites in the US and it is estimated that over 20 percent  of US internet users access Twitter on a monthly basis (Emarketer, 2018). 

As a matter of fact, seven of the ten most-followed Twitter accounts hail from the land of the free. These include the accounts of Katy Perry, Barack Obama, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Ellen DeGeneres, YouTube (the only brand in the top ten), and Justin Timberlake. 

If you’re wondering, Twitter comes in at 16th place with just over 56 million followers. 

Check out our guide on how you can get more Twitter followers. 

9. Most-used Emoji in Tweets

Of the 3,000+ emojis currently in the Unicode Standard, the “Face With Tears of Joy” emoji is the most popular on Twitter and has been used more than two billion times (Emojitracker, 2019).

A big smiley face with tears oozing out the sides of grinning eyes, 😂 is “used to show something is funny or pleasing”.

And far as Twitter statistics show, three out of four emojis tweeted are positive, with those reflecting a state of joy being tweeted more than sad, angry, fearful, and disgusted ones.

Unsurprisingly, the amount of positive emojis tweeted increases towards the weekend. 

77.7 percent of emojis used on Fridays and Saturdays reflect a positive mode – 1.9 percent higher than any other day.

10. Twitter Influence On Consumption Habits

If some of the abovementioned Twitter statistics still aren’t convincing enough for you to launch a campaign, how’s this to tip the scales: four out of ten Twitter users carried out a purchase after having come across it on the social media platform (Digital Marketing Institue, 2019). 

This is a great reflection of the increasing influence social media has on consumers’ purchase habits and highlights just how important it is for brands to be present on social media.

Getting your brand involved on Twitter, however, revolves around more than just being interactive and engaging. There’s also the power of social media influencers to consider.

According to Twitter, purchase intent of users increased over five-fold when were exposed to tweets from both influencers and brands, as opposed to 2.7 times with just brand tweets.

Getting involved in Twitter campaigns with influencers has clear benefits for your business and you may want to begin finding appropriate influencers as soon as possible.

Conclusion

If you have just one takeaway from these Twitter statistics, let it be that it is one of the most important social media sites that should form part of your brand strategy.

And with 330 million active users, there’s a huge pool of consumers to tap on and engage with. So if you’re not already on there, your ecommerce business may lose out because chances are your competitors are already there.

Summary: Twitter Statistics

Here’s a summary of the Twitter statistics you need to know in 2020:

1. There are 330 million monthly active users and 145 million daily active users on Twitter.
2. 63 percent of all Twitter users worldwide are between 35 and 65.
3. The ratio of female to male Twitter users is roughly one to two: 34 percent female and 66 percent male.
4. The average session on Twitter is 3.39 minutes.
5. There were 11.7 million downloads of Twitter on the App Store in the first quarter of 2019.
6. 75 percent of B2B businesses market their products and/or services on Twitter.
7. 500 million tweets are sent out per day.
8. More than 20 percent of all US internet users access Twitter at least once per month.
9. The “Face With Tears of Joy” emoji is the most popular emoji on Twitter and has been used more than two billion times.
10. 40 percent of Twitter users carried out a purchase after seeing it on Twitter.

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Ying Lin

Ying Lin is a journalist-turned-content marketer who is on a journey to help companies scale. She is also the co-founder of Dear Content, a content marketing boutique.