Twitter is the fastest growing social platform
Twitter is the fastest growing social platform in the world by active users, and is being driven by 55 to 64 year olds, according to a new study by Global Web Index.
However, Facebook remains the world’s largest social network and has seen its total number of active users (defined by those who have used or contributed to the service in the past month) increase by 35% between Q2 2012 and Q1 2013.
Twitter has seen even faster active user growth at 44% growth in the same period, while Google+ grew by 33% between Q2 2012 and Q1 2013, the Social Stream Q1 2013 study found.
Global Web Index surveyed 31,779 consumers in 31 different countries, examining global social media behaviours during the first quarter of this year.
“The driving forces behind these impressive performances – especially interesting given the evidence of “Facebook Fatigue” we found couple years ago – are two key factors: mobile and older users,” said Brett Petersen, director of strategy consulting at Global Web Index.
Peterson noted that mobile is by far the larger factor, and since Q1 2011, the number of people accessing theInternet via a mobile phone has increased by 60.3% to 818.4 million across the 31 GWI markets.
“Further evidence to support the fact that mobile is driving social can be found when we compare the active social platform usage of iOS and Android users to the average. iOS and Android users are significantly more likely to use Facebook, Twitter and Google+ compared to the average Internet user around the world,” Peterson said.
GWI said that the impact of older user groups is more limited but still significant.
“Between Q2 2012 and Q1 2013, Twitter’s fastest growing age demographic was 55 to 64 year olds, registering an increase in active users of 79%. Both Facebook’s and Google+’s fastest growing age demographic was 45 to 54 year olds, growing by 46% and 56% respectively,” it said.
“Importantly, these trends have increased Facebook’s active user to accounts ratio to 82%, while Twitter and Google+ see their active user ratios at 62% and 60% respectively,” Peterson said.
GWI puts Facebook’s users at 860 million, with Google+ at 602 million accounts, while Twitter users were approaching 500 million, currently sitting at 476.5 million users.
Research provider, StatisticBrain, recently put Twitter’s total number of active registered users at 554.75 million, with 190 million unique site visitors every month and 58 million average tweets per day.
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