Psychographics of Active Twitter Users Needed.

By Lon S. Cohen

I read an article today on Mashable on the truth about the average Twitter user. Seems that only 21% of Twitter accounts are considered active by the criteria in a study from security firm Barracuda Labs. Ben Parr reports in the post that they “looked at around 19 million Twitter accounts (PDF) in order to figure out how people are using Twitter. It started with one assumption: an active or “True” Twitter user has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people, and had tweeted at least 10 times. By that definition though, only 21% of Twitter users are active users.”

Good info. But I had to agree with commenter, Chris Bell, who asked about the habits of that 21%.

I’d also like to see more about those active 21% of users. Isn’t it time for a true psychographic profiling of Twitter users with numbers to back them up? What are the psychographics of the active users? I want to know the details of the active users backed by real data. Who does what, when, how and why? Their habits and how they cross post and link. Who are their influencers and who do they influence? I know reports on the bits and pieces have been done but we now need a true overall picture segmented into possible advertising categories to deliver to agencies like beauty, travel, epicurean, etc. .

I tried to define some of the potential psychographics in my own Mashable post but I had no numbers to support it. I found this one post when I did a search on the subject. I’d like someone to get that data and turn them into a report about how people act on twitter, profile them and provide true numbers to back that up. Up to now it’s all speculation. I can’t believe that with all the collected data there’s no packaging that Twitter has done to offer to advertisers (or potential advertisers). I’d expect that Twitter already actually is compiling or compiled that data. Any media company would give you psychographics of their users/readers/viewers and Twitter should be no exception. It would be key to presenting to potential advertisers.

Companies need a comprehensive psychographic profile of Twitter users to decide if they want to jump into social media, how they should work with Twitter in that field and who to communicate with. Advertisers and Marketers need it if they want to advise clients on how to approach Twitter as an extension of their campaigns and branding.

And if Twitter wants to start really making money they need to integrate some advertising into the mix. Facebook is unabashed about their advertising and the data they use to market to users. I think that there’s enough usage, entrenchment and loyalty on Twitter to warrant a little bit of disruptive advertising. Don’t you?