Pear Analytics published the results of a study they conducted in August 2009 that sought to bring some clarity to what people were tweeting about on Twitter.
They randomly sampled the public timeline between 11:00 AM and 5:00 PM Monday to Friday for a two week period.
They analyzed a total of 2,000 tweets and found that they fell into six different categories:
- News – from mainstream sources, such as CNN, Fox, and others (niche news sources were not counted as part of this group
- Spam – these were the agonizingly common “See how I got 3,000 followers in one day” type of tweets
- Self‐Promotion – businesses tweeting about their products, services, and Twitter-specific promotions
- Pointless Babble – the “I’m going to meet my friends for some drinks after work today” type of tweets
- Conversational – everything from genuine “instant messaging” style tweets between people to efforts to engage people with questions or polls
- Pass‐Along Value – these were retweets
The following chart shows what percentage of tweets fell into each category.
Breakdown of the Content of Twitter Tweets
Personally, I was a little surprised to see the low numbers for spam and self promotion. Although, in the case of the former, it seems that many spammers attempt to target their “victims” directly by using direct messages.
The lack of self promotion may be a function of the fact that many businesses are still dismissive of Twitter as a business tool and still others haven’t quite figured out how to use it as a business tool.
Where would you say the majority of your tweets fall?
And if you are part of what seems to be a Twitter minority – businesses using it for self promotion – how, exactly, are you using it and how is it working for you? Please share your feedback in the comments section.
I’d also be interested in hearing about key categories that you feel are missing. Some of the surprises for me were: humour, how-to, events, and so forth. What surprised you? Please share in the comments section.
And if you’d like to improve your “score” in the pass along value category, one great way would be to retweet this post (and it might also be good karma to bookmark it…lol)!
Author: Dawson Barber, Internet Marketing Specialist
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I’m more of a Tweeter that passes along value myself and use it to connect with people that way.