In a recent comment on our facebook fan page, one of our followers admitted they are confused about the different audiences of Twitter and Facebook. It is hard to keep up with social media trends as the mediums are constantly evolving – so we thought we would spend some time doing some research and pulling together some current statistics that compare Facebook and Twitter on some key metrics that might be of benefit to readers of our blog. This information is particularly relevant when you are considering using social media as a marketing tactic for your business.
Numbers of Total Users
Ok, so we’ll start with the big numbers. In Australia, Facebook is well ahead of Twitter with around 10.03 million users (58.92% of the Australian on-line population) compared to around 2.5 million using Twitter. Facebook is actually the second most popular website overall in Australia (behind Google) and represents almost 1 in every 5 pages viewed on the internet by Australians (during Sept 2010). In the 18-24 demographic, Facebook is the number one website ahead of Google.
Demographic Profiles – Age & Gender
Facebook attracts a younger demographic than Twitter with 28% of users falling into the 18-24 age group. Facebook is also strong in the 25-34 demographic with 28% of users in that segment. For Twitter, only 16% of users are under the age of 24 with 30% aged between 26-34, closely followed by 27% aged between 35-44 years.
In terms of gender, both Facebook and Twitter have a slightly larger female user profile with 54% of Facebook and 52% of Twitter users being female.
Frequency of Updates
Twitter leads the charge with 52% of users updating daily and only 12% of Facebook users updating their profiles daily.
Method of Access
30% of Facebook and 37% of Twitter users use mobile devices to log-in to their accounts. This trend is no surprise considering that 35% of Australia’s mobile population use smartphones and this figure is expected to rise to 50% by the end of 2011.
Average Session Times
Facebook users spend on average 23 minutes and 21 seconds per session on Facebook and Twitter users spend 13 minutes and 10 seconds on Twitter.
So what can we conclude from this information? Well we can safely say that Facebook dominates that social media scene in Australia, in particular consumers between the age of 20-29 years of age. Facebook users spend more total time on the website, but Twitter users update more often and are an older demographic. It can also be said that users engage with Facebook for longer but not as often during the day. Twitter users spend less time on the site but checking it more often during any given day.
We hope you find this summary useful. If you have any other links that offer more data around Facebook and Twitter, please feel free to link them in the comments section below.
Sources:
http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/australia
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/alan-long/2010/10/12_things_you_need_to_know_abo.html
Chris Dale
Chris Dale is the founder and managing director of MarketingHQ. He loves to help businesses of all sizes get more out of their marketing – and by more he means more sales! Find out more about him here or feel free to connect with him on Twitter and Facebook.
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