Top Brand Activity On Twitter

How top brands use Twitter 

Twitter has grown significantly as a medium in the past few years. Currently there are 645 million registered users on Twitter, with an average of 135,000 new users signing up every day. There are 9,100 tweets posted every second and 2.1 billion Twitter search engine queries daily. Twitter is also one of the most popular platforms among global companies, with 98% of the Interbrand top 100 brands managing an account on the platform. Such a significant presence by such leading companies indicates that there may be some value to the platform as a means of spreading awareness. This article investigates how top brands use Twitter:

Daily Tweeting is Very Popular

One of the most important observations is that most top brands tweet daily, at the least. In Q4 of 2013, 42% of top brands tweeted anywhere from 1 - 5 times per day and 19% of top brands tweeted 6 - 10 times per day. 31% tweeted more than 6 - 10 times per day, and all together 92% of top brands tweeted once per day. These figures indicate a strong preference for daily tweeting by top brands.

Adding Links Pays Off

Tweeting with links appears to pay off. Tweeting with no links generated only 79% brand engagement in comparison with the brand's average, which was engagement set at one tweet per link.  Engagement for tweets with two or more links generated 150% engagement in comparison with the brand's average. This reaffirms the efficacy of the widespread use of links in tweets.

Top Brands Make Up Most of Engagement

The top ten brands made up 60% of engagement from followers. This happens despite the fact that the top ten brands only have 38% of the user base. One possible factor contributing to user engagement could be the brand's level of engagement. For example, Pizza Hut only had 673k followers, yet 78% of McDonalds' engagement, a company with around 2 million followers. Pizza Hut issued 34k tweets in Q4 2013 in comparison with McDonalds' 2k.

Brand Engagement by Industry

There seem to be clear discrepancies between industry and level of engagement. Ebay and Amazon, which are only two companies, created more engagement than any industry. The industries which trailed retail were restaurants, media and technology, in order of engagement, from highest to lowest.

Conclusion

The data from Q4 2013 suggests that tweeting daily, adding links and being engaged with your followers pays off as far as growing and / or engaging your following. The data from this quarter also indicates that the industry which top brands fall under are correlated with engagement levels. Now that brands have been profiled, it would be interesting to compile statistics of top brands' user base to see if there are any patterns which can be used to augment following or enhance engagement.

Sources for Top Brand Activity on Twitter: 

1) How Top Brand Marketers Use Twitter. January 2014. Simply Measured.

2) Twitter statistics. Statisticbrain.com.

3) Twitter Logo Image - Larry si è tagliato i capelli e guarda in alto: vi piace?. paz.ca