WinWeb

Is Twitter the ‘Marmite’ of Social Media?

February 27, 2010

Twitter appears to be creating a social media storm, but it divides opinion massively; you either love it, or you hate it.

Last week The Telegraph reported that the Social Media platform, Twitter, is growing at an incredible pace; with Twitter users sending 50 millions tweets per day, which averages approximately 600 every second.

In 2009 Twitter had 18 million users, and projected an increase to 26 million users in 2010. Interestingly though, research conducted by Neilson which divided Twitter users in to ‘heavy users’- including those who spent over an hour a month on Twitter- ‘medium users’- those spending between 5 and 60 minutes on the site- and ‘light users’- users who spend up to 5 minutes per month on Twitter- suggests that of this number, only 7% of Twitter users account for 79% of time spent on Twitter.

Neilson’s research concluded that 79% of activities occurring on Twitter could be accounted for by those in the heavy use category, equating to just 7% of Twitter users. Interestingly it has been previously discovered that up to 60% of Twitter users abandon their accounts within a month of signing up.

I was, in fact, one of those 60%. I created a Twitter account, followed a couple of people I knew and could see no point in it at all. My personal Twitter revolution only came once I became a ‘SmartPhone addict’; and since then I have made many useful connections, both personally and professionally.

Which category do you fall in to? It seems not many are sitting on the fence on this one; Twitter appears to be the Marmite of Social Media- you either love it or you hate it- which camp are you in?