Quantcast Research on Twitter.com for Discussion One
By Way of Preface:
Reineke Reitsma recently spoke at the Esomer Shopper Insights Conference where she spoke about “how technology makes the market insights professional role more challenging in some ways.” She used as an example how “technology has made the world flat: The Internet makes it possible for information to travel fast, and it feels like we know everything about anything . . . [b]ut my point was that knowing doesn’t equal understanding.
Reitsma then writes about her recent witnessing of the latest events in Egypt, Morocco, and Japan where through the media of Internet and television she could “follow the news minute by minute via Facebook or Twitter” and then confesses to a “lack the context and local background to really understand what’s going on.”
She asks the poignant question “How will the intervention in Libya change the relationships in that part of the world? How will the earthquake and the issues with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant affect the Japanese economy?” She is very correct in stating that the world is flat, but we are still limited by our own horizons.”
Reineke Reitsma then begins to discuss what sort of impact this has on “market professionals” in regard to their And “these events influence or change consumer behaviors? How can and should we support our (internal) clients in a world that's changing every minute?” I would suggest that the same sort of thing occurred during the Vietnam War in a lesser technology. The world witnessed the horrific events in the safety of their living rooms feeling the frustration but lacking the full scope of genuine empathy.
Reineke then offers some advice to move cautiously be aware that our “our own mindset is one of the biggest enemies in understanding consumer behavior in other countries or regions.” I would extend this comment even further saying that the ability to understand regional and national consumer behavior is equally challenging.
Reineke Reitsma then makes a significant and insightful observation about psychology and human nature. “Our brain translates information into a context we are familiar with. By way of caution she urges the researcher analyzing information to “understand customer behaviors, make sure you include insights from people who truly understand the markets you're looking at: Take history lessons, talk to locals, and always realize that things may be different than they seem.”
I spent significant time and space on her comments because it is particularly relevant to my task at hand. What I witness in the Quancast.com website is information that I can only relate to in certain ways. One cannot go into the mind of the consumer through a percentage or index. But I can create some degree of understanding and knowledge that will lead to plausible forecasts regarding present and future consumer behavior.
It is with this in mind that I offer the following analysis of Twitter.com as detailed in Quancast.com.
All quotations are from Ms. Reineke Retina’s blog entitled Current Events and Market Insights: Knowing Doesn't Equal Understanding.” (Posted by Reineke Reitsma on March 25, 2011 http://blogs.forrester.com/reineke_reitsma/11-03-25-current_events_and_market_insights_knowing_doesnt_equal_understanding and opened March 30, 2011, 4:15pm by the author of this document).
Twitter.com has had a regular pattern of growth in the past. The upward movement indicates that Twitter.com has not yet stabilized and firmly established its branding and successfully targeted it’s target demographic.
According to CrunchBase, Twitter.com's chief completion is Digg, Pownce, ZYB, Jaiku, Zannel, mocospace, Chatterous, trymehere, Twitturly, TwitterFone, LetsProve, Plurk, Adocu.com, InGameNow, Posterous, Next2Friends, Hictu, kwippy.com, spotengine, Present.ly, Me2day, Xumii, Collecta, BlockChalk . CrunchBase describes Twitter.com as a company that “allows users to post text updates via SMS, instant messaging, email, Twitter’s website and third party applications. Users have their own profile page that displays their latest updates. In addition, users can become “friends” with one.” They have a post that is limited to a certain number of words. This is particularly effective when one considers the present trend towards hand-held devices. It allows users to get information quickly and concisely with a high degree of mobility. This perhaps is one reason why the trend indicated in the above chart is so promising. They presently rank in 90's in terms of ranking. LinkedIn is experiencing a similar rate of success by focusing on the professional audience target while Twitter remains more of a social networking tool for family and friends. None-the-less LinkedIn is taking some seriously aggressive steps to increasing the value they offer to their customers and may very well move from indirect to direct competition. An examination of Quantcast's chart of LinkedIn’s traffic trends suggests a similar aggressive pattern that may cause some readjustments on both these companies marketing strategies. (Source: http://www.quantcast.com/linkedin.com)
Based on this research which in no way complete I would suggest that .com sites that focus on quick and brief visitor comment sections while emphasizing advertising is proving to be a successful strategy.
The following passage discusses people’s behavior patterns by offering a breakdown of indexes and averages for Twitter.com with what I consider to be their direct and indirect competition..
Quantcom.com offers for the term 'index.'
“The “index” represents the delivery of a specific audience segment compared to the Internet average of 100. Composition, which is represented by the % of audience figures on the left side of the chart, represents the percentage of a property’s total audience that meets a specific demographic criteria.”
The data shows that females have a slightly larger use of this site from males coming in at 55% representing 55% of the market over-indexed at 106 while the under-indexed males stand at 92.
The age demographic is 28 to 34 over-indexed at 153 representing 45@ of the market, followed by 13-17 representing 14% of the market over-indexed at 1122 and surprising to me the 35-49 representing only 24% of the market at 87. The 50 plus market is 14% of the market significantly under-indexed at 58. Interestingly the 3-12 year olds hold only 4% of the market yet are indexed at 62 which is slightly higher than the 50 plus.
The figures representing Afro-Americans is interesting. They represent 16% of the market with a significantly high index of 184. I would suggest that this represents a number of repeat and chronic users of the site. Hispanics represent a mere 11% of the market while over-indexed by 129. Caucasians represent 69% of the market demographic while under indexed by 88, a figure lower only that Asians who hold 3% of market with a 77 index.
Interestingly and in regards to having and not having children the with no kids have a larger-part of the market demographic while have lower index shares than those with children. It is worth noting that those with no kids 0-2 hold the lions share of the market at 84% and are under-indexed at 93 while those with kids 0-2 hold a mere 16% while being over-indexed at 152 superseded by those with kids 3-12 hold 32% of the market with an over index of 116. This says tome that while the 3-12 category market share is 16% higher, their index is 36 below the 0-2 category indicating a larger number of unique visits while the 0-2 represents a smaller group of repeat users. What is it that drives the user back to the site more frequently?
The average income of site users is spread fairly with the only group slightly over-indexed is those earning $100k plus coming in at 107. Why are the monetary demographics spread so evenly? Because the site is offering a service that is commonly used among all financial demographic groups perhaps?
In regard to education it is interesting to note 108 over index that those with no college representing 49% of the market share while those with college represent 38% of market share (visits) and are indexed by 94. Even more fascinating Graduate Schools comes in last at a 13% share with under-indexed at
n terms of what other sites a visitor to Twitter is 9.8x more likely to seek regional news is Spiegel (http://www.spiegel.de/international/) I visited this site and found the news content to be somewhat edgy and alternative in its message. This is consistent with the lifestyle of this audience who is 5x more likely to view politics and commentary. Note that they are only 3.8x more likely to visit music sites that says something about targeting an audience for a firm like mine through social networking on twitter. In fact I visited several other sites including MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook all of which indicate that it's audience is less likely to have an affinity to music sites. YouTube visitors are likely to have a strong affinity to videos. MySpace visitors have a 3.2x affinity towards music. However, given MySpace’s strong corporate ties to music one would think this number would be better. A look at their traffic explains much of this. I believe this decrease in traffic is based on recent changes n the site regarding music. They have recently removed a special page dedicated to musicians. All these individuals must now make a regular site. There has been growing discontent among musicians in this regard. See: http://www.quantcast.com/myspace.com#traffic i
A Summation of the Above
Twitter.com and its competitors are rapidly developing new product for its customers who lead busy lives and want their information in a quick and concise fashion as I stated earlier. They share this sense of value. The basic function and character of Twitter is more social. So it seems that their high traffic with parents with children may represent a core value of connecting family and friends who are spread throughout the country. Twitter seems to be very popular with Afro-Americans and Hispanics. Their high index number suggests that the visitors to this site show a certain sense of community in that they are most likely frequent visitors.
What strikes me curious is the low number of graduate students to twitter. I would suggest that their schedules simply do not allow for this particular luxury. I would suggest however that as these graduate students move into their professional life their use of twitter would significantly increase. What strikes me as a curiosity with graduate students is their high use of Netflix. This could mean that these students share a similar desire for attainable and cost-effective entertainment. The 50 year olds and over don't seem quite as interested in services like Twitter. This could be because this age group simply wasn't raised with the omniscient laptop and Internet None-the-less they typically share a love of family and I would suspect that their grand children will play a part in getting this group up to speed. What the visitors to this site experience if the value of community and family. As the technology grows so grows the possibility of older and younger visitors visiting this site for the first time and returning once a certain comfort level is reached.
There seems to be a trend away from traditional email to live platforms such as Twitter. This same trend can be witnessed in Facebook. LinkedIn is rapidly turning into or always was a medium for people to get news quickly and in as close to real-time as technology will allow. Twitter visitors share a desire to keep informed without having to watch the TV news for instance. I would refer the reader to the top of this discussion in terms of the world becoming flat. Does the visitor to these sites want to keep a comfortable distance from the various paradoxes of life and yet still be aware? Is their desire not for understanding but data?
Also of interest is that of the economic demographics. It appears that interest in this site is evenly spread among all income levels. This most likely has much to do with the cost of the hand-held devices becoming more affordable to all demographics. I worked as substitute teacher in an economically deprived area where there was a proliferation of hand-held devices despite their economic situation. This indicates that the visitor to this site and others like it are willing to 'invest' part of their meager finances into this media. This translated into loyalty. I believe this is a lifestyle that any number of individuals share with some exceptions.
The final question regarding the various forms of media used by Internet is as follows. I break the media down into the following sections: Internet laptop and desk computers linked into the Internet, hand-held devices, television, and what I would define as the intra-internet. The first section includes the traditional desktop and laptop computers. In this form the user interacts with others through the website in a fairly traditional way. These computers may be used for travel (laptop) and office (desktop) although I note a general tendency of individuals to simply carry their laptop to their office and plug into their server. This is quite common for teachers who use mac laptops to develop lesson plans while having the benefit of safety (virtually eliminating the concern of theft) and convenience (being able to take their work home with them.)
The second media I discuss includes the various forms of hand-held devices such as iPods, iPhones, and iPads. As you can see the Apple company has spent a great deal of time and effort in this area. AT&T just recently release a new cellular phone that has the ability to plug into a full keyboard thus making the cell phone a convenient version of a laptop that is easily carried as a standard cell phone. The technology is new and runs with Microsoft and Android. The recent success of Netflix in moving from the computer and laptop to the hand-held device is one example of this. Netflix has also moved into the area of interfacing with television that is for my next discussion. Twitter has now become a standard software option on hand-held devices. Again this underlines the behavior and psychology of its target demographic in regard to the customer's desire for convenience as well as the desire to keep on tops of things. This same sort of principle guides Linkedin.com.
One of the most interesting media develops for me is the intra-internet. This is where various platforms now share their software protocol. For instance, if I visit my Twitter.com there are links provided for me to share with Facebook.com and Linkedin.com. It is now very frequent to see any number of platforms embedded in each other’s platform. This move was initiated by Facebook when it made the controversial decision to 'open up its package' to direct and indirect competition such as Twitter.com and Linkedin.com.
My final choice of media for Twitter.com concerns television advertisements. In a commercial that is now being played regularly on cable channels the customer is invited to tweet past satisfied customers for testimonials. Facebook is running a similar campaign.
I have mentioned in this writing how certain groups are more likely to visit other sites. For instance, there is a more-or-less high probability that the visitor will click to get to the New York Times page or other sites. This to me is an example of intra-internet as well. What I wonder about and will be pursuing is what percentage of the visitors to Twitter.com, for instance, choose the on-line version of newspapers and magazines over the hard copy. This is for a future writing.
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