Using Twitter can be a useful addition in the public communication mix of companies, only if the info of 140 characters is relevant for early adaptors. This is one of the key conclusions I draw from research Laurens Roos reported in the October 2009 issue of the Dutch Communicatie magazine.
Media analyst Roos (Publistat Media research) shared the results of his research of a sample of 73,000 Dutch tweets from companies and brands and content analysis of 4,600 messages of mobile phone companies in July 2009. Is Twitter a nice-to-use or must-use tool for companies? A few highlights:
● of the around 500,000 twitterers in the Netherlands only 35,000 (7 percent) tweet daily, according Tangram research;
● in the USA twitterers are on average 33 years old, have above average incomes, and work above average part-time (Anderson Analytics);
● products, companies and topics with high involvement and close to consumers are mentioned most in the Dutch tweets;
● the Apple iPhone was the absolute number one mentioned in tweets.
I searched the internet to get the proper links to all these research results. But unfortunately I could not find even summaries on their sites. Is that because these studies are commercially contracted work? Or is it just sloppiness of web editors of these companies?