40 amazing Twitter stats to inspire your social strategy Talkwalker

If you’re currently working on a Twitter marketing campaign and you want to measure the impact of your hashtags and plan a beneficial strategy, Talkwalker's platform will help you discover even more valuable insights from Twitter and across social media. This tool is ideal and profitable for marketers, PR professionals, small business owners, and corporate communication officers.

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Our Twitter stats highlights

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General Twitter stats

Demographic Twitter stats

Best marketing practice (+ tips on what you could do)

More engagement that works

Twitter has come a long way since its first tweet in 2006. Twitter’s initial purpose was to become an SMS-based communications platform but eventually came to be an information network alternatively. By 2012, more than 100 million users posted 340 million tweets a day. Now you might see why, with 500 million tweets posted every single day henceforth, getting the ideal level of visibility and engagement on Twitter isn’t so simple. In this article, we’ve gathered 40 thought-provoking and potent Twitter statistics to show how to use this platform to target consumers and increase brand awareness.

We’ve got a thrilling infographic with a selection of our favorite Twitter statistics. Or you can scoot down the page to see the full list.

General Twitter stats

• Twitter has 353 million monthly active users and 192 million daily active users 
• There are 500 million Tweets posted per day, that’s about 6,000 per second
• 143,199 Tweets were posted in a single second on August 3, 2013. As an outcome to viewers in Japan tweeting about an animated movie ‘Castle in the Sky’, as it was being aired. 
• There are approximately 48 million fake Twitter users (as of 2018)
• In 2019, Twitter shut down 70 million fake or suspicious accounts in 2 months. (May-July 2019) 
• The most liked tweet has 7.4 million likes and was posted by Chadwick Boseman’s family on his account concerning his passing, August 28, 2020. 
• In 2015, Caitlyn Jenner reached one million followers in 4 hours and 3 minutes  - a record 
• Barack Obama, former US president, is the most followed person on Twitter with 129 million+ followers. 
• The second most frequently used hashtag used to employ small businesses in 2020 on Twitter is #ShopLocal used in 162,591 Tweets.
• The most frequently used hashtag in 2020 on Twitter is #COVID19, followed by #BlackLivesMatter. The world continues to utilize Twitter to publicly advocate for political change. 
• BTS dominates the most tweeted musicians list. In February 2020, 17 million BTS related tweets were generated within 48 hours.

In a year of so much change, it's nice to see a few things remain constant.... like BTS dominating the most-Tweeted musicians list
1️⃣@BTS_twt
2️⃣@KanyeWest
3️⃣@Beyonce
4️⃣@Rihanna
5️⃣@justinbieber
6️⃣@iamcardib
7️⃣@BLACKPINK
8️⃣@Drake
9️⃣@ArianaGrande
@taylorswift13

— Twitter Data (@TwitterData) December 7, 2020

• “Tears of Joy” is the most used emoji on Twitter, with 225 tweets that contained at least one emoji per ten thousand tweets. Followed closely by “Loudly crying face”, with 175 tweets containing at least one emoji per ten thousand tweets. It has been used on Twitter more than 2 billion times. 
• During the 2014 FIFA World Cup Final, there were 618,725 Tweets posted in a single minute 
• The top tweet has over 4.1 million retweets and was tweeted by japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa in June 2021

ZOZOTOWN新春セールが史上最速で取扱高100億円を先ほど突破！！日頃の感謝を込め、僕個人から100名様に100万円【総額1億円のお年玉】を現金でプレゼントします。応募方法は、僕をフォローいただいた上、このツイートをRTするだけ。受付は1/7まで。当選者には僕から直接DMします！ #月に行くならお年玉 pic.twitter.com/cKQfPPbOI3

— 前澤友作┃お金贈りおじさん (@yousuck2020) January 5, 2019

• Most discussed TV series on Twitter worldwide is “Big Brother Brazil” 
• Most discussed TV series in 2019 was HBO’s Game of Thrones with an average of 5.3 million combined Facebook, Twitter and Instagram interactions per episode. 
• Every public Tweet ever sent is now stored in the Library of Congress.

Demographic Twitter stats

• Twitter has approximately 55 million daily active users in the US, which make up 28.6% of Twitter’s user base. 
• 18,000 estimated active Twitter users in China, despite it being blocked.
• 28.4% of Twitter users are between 35-49 years old, 26.6% are aged from 25-34 and 25.2% are aged from 18-24. Instagram and Snaphchat have attained the young demographic. Twitter’s appeals moreover, a mature audience. 
• Twitter is more popular amongst males rather than females, 61.6% of Twitter’s user base is composed of men and 38.4% being women. 
• Although women potentially tend to interact more with brands  
• 7.8% of Twitter users aged between 13 and 17 use Twitter. 
• Ashton Kutcher became the first user to gain 1 million+ followers  
• 73.9% of Twitter users get their news or news headlines from Twitter 
• The United States and Japan represent the largest number of users. The US represents 69.3 million users and Japan with 50.9 million users. 
• 80% of Twitter users are active on mobile devices   
• 83% of world leaders are active on Twitter (as of 2016) 
• Barack Obama remains the most followed leader AND most followed person on Twitter with 129 million+ followers. His tweet in 2017 reached 4.2 million likes and 1.5 million retweets.

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion..." pic.twitter.com/InZ58zkoAm

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017

Best marketing practice

• The ideal length for a Tweet is 70-100 characters. Tweets with 100 characters get 17% higher captivation rates than longer Tweets. 
• Tweets with images get 55% more leads. They bring attention to your tweet.
• 67% of Twitter users are more likely to purchase from brands they follow
• 33% of users follow a brand - that's 46,2000,000+ people!
• 58% of top brands have more than 100K followers
• 92% of brands Tweet more than once a day
• 60% of users expect a brand to respond to any customer service requests within one hour
• 76% of users are likely to recommend a brand if they’ve received friendly customer review on Twitter
• 47% of users who follow a brand are more likely to visit the company’s website 

What can you do to increase your Tweet interaction and visibility 

If you’re aiming for a profitable social marketing strategy, visual content allows you to share your Tweet and earn more visibility. It'll help captivate your audience’s attention. Twitter moves quickly, you may only have seconds to engage your audience. Using an image is proven to have a 35% boost on retweets and a 28% boost through videos. 

Including quotes in your tweets may serve as another advantage to your visibility. Quotes support influencer outreach, it’s one of the most effective ways to attract customers and clients. To make an impression and catch the attention of industry influencers. Using quotes can show credibility and are 53% more likely to be retweeted. 

Furthermore, adding hashtags to your tweets are proven to boost Tweet interaction and visibility by 16% as it facilitates grouping and categorizing tweets, allowing people to follow topics which have engaged their interest. Tweets with hashtags can increase engagement by almost 100% for individuals and 50% for brands. Using hashtags succour people to discover and engage with your content. 

And finally, using numbers and data in your tweets also works as a powerful advantage, boosting the tweet by 17%.

To quote Neal Schaffer, “Think about it this way: would you be more likely to click on a headline that reads ‘Learn how to make more money’, or one that reads ‘Learn how to make $200 in the next 8 hours’? Of course the second one, right? It tells you how much money you can make and in exactly what time frame.” Using numbers and data in your tweets increases the specificity and makes them stand out, in the typing uniform. 

More engagement that works

• Users are 26% more likely to retweet if the URL is in the middle of the Tweet
• Tweets with question marks receive 39-52% fewer click
• Tweets without links get 25.1% more retweets, favorites, and replies than those links
• Tweets with 1 hashtag are 69% more likely to be retweeted rather than those with 2 

Want to monitor your Twitter stats and see whether you’re reaching and engaging with your followers? Give us a shout and we can show you how!

You may also like: 40 Amazing Facebook Stats to Inspire Your Campaigns & 50 Amazing Instagram Stats to Fire up Your Marketing Campaigns