Twitter Study Shows Nearly All Tweets Come From 25% of Users

Twitter Study Shows Nearly All Tweets Come From 25% of Users

Twitter seems to be one of those social media platforms where you’re either all in and engaged constantly or never use the platform at all. There aren’t a lot of “casual” Twitter users who open the app leisurely to send a quick tweet call it a day. A recent study from the Pew Research Center backs this thinking.

Before we get into this new report, we want to highlight how many people are using Twitter today. According to another Pew Study earlier this year, 23% of U.S. adults use Twitter. This is much lower than the likes of some of the other big platforms.

Now Onto the Study at Hand

The biggest take away from this new study, which analyzed tweets from June 12 to Sept. 12, 2021, is that 97% of all tweets were published by the most active 25% of Twitter users. That’s pretty astonishing to see, honestly.

During the study, the most active 25% of users sent a median of 65 tweets per month on average. The bottom 75% of users, comparatively, sent a media of no tweets per month. 65 vs. 0 tweets per month. That’s a huge difference. It’s also important to note that these top tweeters follow nearly four times as many accounts (469 vs. 125) and have larger followings (230 vs. 29) compared to the less active group.

As can be expected, these most active users also are receiving a lot more engagement from other users. In a typical month, those in the top 25% of active users receive an average of 37 likes and one retweet. Relatively speaking though, most Twitter users receive very few likes and retweets.

So if you aren’t getting a lot of likes and retweets, don’t feel bad! You aren’t alone! In fact, you’re actually in the majority.

Other Key Findings

There are several other key findings that are a result of this study and we’ll do a speed run through a few of them. If you want to go into more depth, you can read the full study here.

Fewer Original Posts

One interesting point that this study produced is that these highly active tweeters produce relatively few original tweets. During the study period, only 14% of tweets from the top quarter of users were original tweets. The majority of posts were either retweets (49%) or replies to other tweets (33%).

Average Number of Times Users Visit Twitter

Two-thirds of twitter users state they visit the site at least once a week, while the remaining third do so less often. And 10% of the total users in the study use Twitter more frequently and cannot count the number of times in a typical day.

Reasons for Using Twitter

The reasons for using Twitter widely vary by age. At an overall glance, 42% of users report entertainment as the most important reason for using Twitter. This is twice as high as the next closest reason, to stay informed. It shouldn’t be a surprise that entertainment is the most important reason for the younger crowd while users 50 and older say its more to stay informed.

Increased Understanding of Current Events… and Stress

This data point that Pew highlights is an interesting one. While 46% of users say Twitter has increased their understanding of current events in the last year, 26% also say it’s increased their stress levels. Is it good that more people have a better understanding of current events? Yes. Is it bad that at the same time it’s also increasing their stress levels? YES! Too much information can sometimes be a bad thing.

Not surprising though is that 11% of users under 30 (who say the most important reason they’re on Twitter is for entertainment) say their use has decreased their stress levels. What’s the takeaway? Make social fun! The more social media can be a source of entertainment for users, the better!

There’s Much More in the Full Report

While we could detail every little data point the Pew study shows, we don’t want to write an entire book in one blog post. If this information is intriguing to you, we highlight recommend reading their full report here.

An Ongoing Trend for Twitter

Going back to the 97% of all tweets published by 25% of users.. While it may come as a shock for many, this is a trend that’s been around for a few years. In 2019, Pew released an identical study that showed very similar results. In tweets analyzed from November through December 2018, Pew found that 80% of tweets came from the top 10% active users.

It goes back to the all in or nothing mentality with the platform we suggested earlier.

Key Takeaways About Twitter from this Report

There are several takeaways we can gather from this report. One of the biggest, in our minds, is that Twitter usage really seems to be down compared to other platforms. When looking at the graph at the top of this blog, you can see that just based on number of accounts, Twitter is already near the bottom.

When you factor in the fact that 97% of all tweets come from only 25% of Twitter users, you’ve got to think that there really aren’t that many people using Twitter, compared to the other big platforms. 75% of users aren’t even sending a single tweet in a month! Who knows if they’re even opening the app and scrolling through their timeline at all.

Another key takeaway we got is the lack of original content on the platform. 82% of all tweets from all users are replies or retweets. Not too much original thought going into Twitter it seems. Even though Twitter has long been seen as the platform to express your original thoughts in a short tweet. This data really points to how the platform is mainly being used to amplify certain elements or thoughts through re-amplification of others.

The final takeaway for us is the lack of engagement on tweets. It seems crazy to think that the top 25% of highly active users, who send out an average of 65 tweets a month, are only averaging 37 likes and one retweet on those tweets. Like, what? That doesn’t seem right at all. If you’re getting more than that, congratulations! Even if you don’t think getting 35 likes on your tweets each month is a lot, you’re still in the top 25% of users.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this study backs up what we’ve been thinking for a little while that Twitter is definitely in a decline and not one of the most popular social media platforms anymore. Do we think it’s going to be non-existent any time soon? Absolutely not. But while the number of total accounts may still be high, the number of people actually regularly using the platform is on a decline.

What are your thoughts after looking through this report? What are your takeaways? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

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