@all studying the #twitter phenomenon December 2009
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Comment this study To comment the study, tag your messages with: #twitterstudy To watch the live presentation, go to: talk.fabernovel.com Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 3
Summary What is twitter? What do people do with twitter? Why did twitter grow so fast? What business model for twitter? Who could challenge twitter? Conclusion Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 4
Meet the tweet. A tweet is a text-based message up to 140 characters automatically delivered to the author s followers. Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 5
You follow people you your friend Following someone means you get their tweets as soon as they post them. Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 6
And people follow you a huge fan of yours you your friend Your followers get your tweets in real-time : you become a media. Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 7
By default, everything is public on Twitter Unlike Facebook, you usually don t have to know someone to have a full access to their tweets. Twitter is a huge base of public data. Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 8
Twitter interface : simple and elegant What s happening for you? Write your tweet here you What s happening for your followers? You can read that here Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 9
To define what twitter is, let s see what twitter isn t twitter is not a: Is Twitter a blog The number of characters of a post is unlimited. One tweet is limited to 140 prints. Twitter is not a blog sms You can send both a tweet an a SMS from your mobile phone. But the tweet is posted on the Internet, and is public. Twitter is not a SMS social network In a social network, your profile is private. In twitter, everybody can follow you, you can follow everybody, and your profile is public. Twitter is not a social network chat A chat conversation is private, a twitter conversation is public Twitter is not a chat # Micro-blogging service? # Public SMS platform? # Public social network? # Public chat? Twitter is the SMS of internet era. Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / Atelier BNP - Paribas 10
Summary What is twitter? What do people do with twitter? Why did twitter grow so fast? What business model for twitter? Who could challenge twitter? Conclusion Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 11
Reputation: twitter in France Dear French Internet user, do you know... Yes : 60% Yes : 4% Yes : 1% Source : pour L Atelier Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 12
Reputation: twitter in France Incredible growth! % % % % % % Source : pour L Atelier Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 13
Usages: twitter in France Percentage of twitter members within our «aware internet users»? 9% Source : pour L Atelier Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 14
Reputation: twitter in France Who knows twitter in France? Source : pour L Atelier Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 15
Usages: twitter in France Who is the French twitter user? Source : pour L Atelier Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 16
Usages: the French case What publication client/device do you use? 30% twitter.com 39% PC / Mac client 31% Smartphone client Source : Poll launched by L Atelier on twtpoll.com november 2009 Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 17
Usages: the French case Tweeting, yes, but for what ideal purposes? 65% Creating and sharing a friend network 69% Having good deals & coupons 40% Recruiting an employee Source : pour L Atelier Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 18
Usages Tweeting, yes, but for what real purposes? 13% 7% 2% 8% 51% 14% 3% Source : Poll launched by L Atelier on twtpoll.com november 2009 Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 19
Usages: twitter in France Useless? < twitter < Useful? 63% 73% French Internet users French Twitter members Source : pour L Atelier Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 20
Who tweets? Individuals Typical user I m 31 years old, tech-savvy. And I do a lot of things with my phone. But 55% of users haven t posted any tweet on their account! Star Ashton Kutcher (aplusk) was the first twitter account to reach 1 M followers And he chats with Demi Moore... Blogger Pete Cashmore (mashable) has 1 M followers Mashable is a famous blog about social media Politician Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet frequently uses twitter Minister of Forward Planning, Assessment of Public Policies and Development of the Digital Economy in the French government, Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / Atelier BNP - Paribas 21
Who tweets? Companies & public institutions Media CNN and the New York Times are among the first 20 most followed twitter accounts. But...Ashton Kutcher has more followers than CNN! High-tech companies Google tweets to inform, Dell tweets to sell. Other companies The majority of Fortune 100 companies don t really get Twitter. 50% of the twitter accounts of Fortune 100 companies have less than 500 followers Public Insitutions The White House, l Elysée communicate via Twitter. L Elysée plans to tweet during Copenhagen Climate Conference twitter users are still a minority of tech-savvy people, companies and institutions who have prominent communication needs Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / Atelier BNP - Paribas 22
What does the average user do with twitter? Follow and discuss news or live events 41% of URLs tweeted are news. A majority of users use twitter as a news aggregator. Strategic Intelligence Users follow mainly people who have the same kind of business Gossip Asthon Kutcher, Britney Spears and Ellen DeGeneres are the 3 most followed twitter accounts Compared to other communitydriven websites (facebook, MySpace, etc.) twitter is more business and gossip oriented. Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 23
What do bloggers do with twitter? They increase the ranking of their blogs Twitter has become one of the main sources of traffic (eg : 10% of TechCrunch traffic ). Being on twitter increases your Google ranking. They do link journalism Bloggers use twitter to analyze events in real time Bloggers use twitter to rapidly pinpoint interesting links They carry on a continuous relationship with their readers Followers get directly informed when a new post / a new tweet is published. twitter is a way, for bloggers, to explore new editorial areas, mainly link journalism & real time analysis Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 24
How do companies use twitter? They monitor in real-time competitors, reputation and improve business intelligence They sell and market their products New sales channel (Dell) New marketing channel (Pizza Hut) To evaluate consumer satisfaction and take into account their feedback Crowd sourcing innovation to users (Zakos) Conducting surveys on existing products (GM) Gathering feedback on experimental products (Dunkin Donuts) Customer service (@MicrosoftHelps ) twitter is an efficient marketing tool, both for companies and customers: good knowledge of customers & free marketing opt-in channel Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 25
How do public institutions use twitter? Emergencies Eg: @SF-311 for emergencies in SF Police Eg: West Midlands Police (UK) Governments Eg : Downing Street (UK) twitter is an efficient communication and reporting tool for public institutions Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 26
Who is the most followed on twitter? Ashton Kutcher 3.9M CNN 2.8M Barack Obama 2.7M Dell Outlet 1.4M TechCrunch 1.1M Number of followers Majority of accounts < 50 twitter is much more a one-way communication channel than a social media network Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 27
Twitter usage is similar to wikipedia 90% of the content is produced by 15% of users 90% of the content is produced by 10% of users More unidirectionnal than peer to peer communication Few contributors, many readers A community lead by hyperactive users Few actual tweople The more follower you have, the more you tweet A typical power law distribution applies to content creation and usage Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 28
Summary What is twitter? What do people do with twitter? Why did twitter grow so fast? What business model for twitter? Who could challenge twitter? Conclusion Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 29
What is the history of twitter? 2006 launch 2007 fame 2008 development 2009 success twitter is publicly launched. twitter won the blog price at SXSW Interactive* twitter raises $22M and opens its API, developers create twitter applications. twitter raises $35M and has a growth of 1,300% in a year** twitter s growth is amazing: in 2009, twitter is the fastest community driven growing-site. * South by Southwest Interactive is one of the best festival in the world for creative technologies ** Feb 08- Feb 09 Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 30
twitter benefited from the rise of mobile Internet The number of US mobile Internet users grew by 170% in two years* The rise of mobile Internet users was a tremendous accelerator for twitter The 140-char format is adapted to mobile situations People were already used to SMS People can also tweet and be followed by using SMS. * Feb 07- Feb 09 (Nielsen) Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 31
Thanks to an early adoption by celebrities and media, twitter reached a big audience rapidly Celebrities Most-followed accounts ever : twitter star system and verified accounts have spurred its adoption by a non-geeky audience Media Media coverage on Twitter before other major medias Ideal tool to cover live event in real time difficult to censor twitter became THE real time news channel Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 32
As a generic platform, twitter s growth has been user-driven API (opened in 2008) developers New uses: #, @, RT, etc. New applications users New functions : RT, lists, etc. Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 33
A strong community of developers It is very difficult to compete with twitter, because a new-comer has to create a more powerful network than twitter s one. Picture by Thenextweb.Com Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 34
What are the prospects for twitter? By the end of 2009 By the end of 2013 25 million users 1 billion users Q3 2009 : $400 000 Q4 2009 : $4 000 000 How? $1.54 billion in revenue, $111 million in net earnings Source: TechCrunch, July 09 Whereas twitter grows very fast, its business model remains unpredictable Twitter Study December 09 fabernovel / L Atelier de BNP - Paribas 35