Twitter usage lags awareness

Earlier this month, the Pew Internet and American Life Project announced that Twitter usage had risen from 8% of US internet users in fall 2010 to 13% in May 2011, an increase in usage of 62.5%! In spite of being the phenomenon that it has been, actual Twitter usage only constitutes a small percentage of the overall awareness of the brand. A recent study by eMarketer shows the huge yawning gap between awareness and usage. Analysts have pointed out to the fact that the gap has actually been increasing over the years.

Analysts at Pipon Solutions have posited the possible inferences from these results:

1.      Since the actual Twitter usage is low when compared to the awareness of the brand, there is more room for Twitter to grow.

2.      Twitter’s official usage statistics state it has 200 million user accounts. Nobody knows how many accounts are actual unique users. Even otherwise, Twitter is still way behind the real Social Media behemoth Facebook – with its mammoth 500 million user accounts.

3.      Twitter has to quickly devise strategies to cover up the gap of potential accounts. Otherwise, it risks remaining all hype and no substance.

4.      Twitter has to find ways to monetise the large user base, or else its hopes of joining the other Social Media firms such as Groupon, Linkedin and Zynga in becoming a publicly traded company will remain a dream.

At Pipon Solutions, we’ve always looked at Social Media as a phenomenon that needs to be carefully watched and analysed. Indeed, Social Media has changed the way we communicate with each other and with brands. However, we believe that marketers need to quickly assess which components of Social Media to use in order to stay ahead of the game. This is precisely what we aim to do in our endeavour to attain excellence in digital marketing.