Twitter started trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Thursday at $26, and by the end of the day, the share price climbed by 73% to close at $44.90. All of this and Twitter has yet to turn a profit.
The success story of Twitter, which isn’t even a decade old, hasn’t fully played out yet, but stockholders and brands are crossing their fingers. In honor of Twitter’s successful IPO, let’s take a look at some statistics that put the Twitterverse for brands into perspective.
First, from the Brands on Twitter 2013 report from Brandwatch:
- More than 97% of major brands tweeted in 2013.
- U.S. brands tweeted an average of 221 times per week and U.K. brands tweeted an average of 30 times per week in 2013.
- 63% of brands have multiple Twitter accounts.
Next, here are some Twitter stats from HubSpot’s 2013 State of Inbound Marketing report:
- 36% of all marketers have found a customer through Twitter in 2013.
- 69% of brands use Twitter for broadcasting and engagement while 23% use it for broadcasting only.
- The average brand has a four-person Twitter team.
Finally, here are some March 2013 statistics from Digiday that give you some more perspective about the Twitterverse:
- The median number of brands that a Twitter user follows is six.
- Mobile users are 78% more likely to retweet a brand.
- Purchase intent increases by 58% after a Twitter user sees a promoted tweet.
- Brand tweets with price in a whole dollar amount have a 12% higher click rate.
- The engagement rate on Twitter ads is 1-3%.
And here is one more statistic that investors and brand marketers are likely to find interesting. According to calculations by AllThingsD, the cost for a brand to run a Promoted Trend on Twitter for one day in 2013 is $200,000.
Which brands rule on Twitter? According to the SocialBakers ranking which calculates both the number of Twitter users a brand profile follows and the number the brand profile is followed by to create a rating, the leaders are Samsung Mobile, Vine, and iTunes Music. If you only care about ranking brands based on number of followers, then TwitterCounter ranks YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter as the top three brands.
Only time will tell what the Twitter IPO will ultimately mean for brands. Many people are speculating, including Jennifer Polk, Research Director at Gartner who notes, “For the near term, we may see a slower pace of change, as Twitter works to avoid some public scrutiny or speculation.” In other words, Twitter’s not talking—yet.
What do you think?
Image: Hank Mitchell
Susan Gunelius is the author of 10 marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and technology books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, an award-wining blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com, and her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, TodayShow.com, and more.
She has over 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Today, her clients include large and small companies around the world and household brands like Citigroup, Cox Communications, Intuit, and more. Susan is frequently interviewed about marketing and branding by television, radio, print, and online media organizations, and she speaks about these topics at events around the world. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+.
