A new report on Twitter says 24 percent of its U.S. users are black – meaning African-Americans are twice as well represented on the micro-messaging service as they are in the general population. (Why is Twitter more popular among blacks than whites? The study doesn’t say, though Business Insider has a few theories.)
The report – “Twitter Usage in America” — was published by Edison Research, which surveyed 1,753 Americans in February.
Here are some other interesting trends:
>> A shocking 87 percent of Americans are aware of Twitter, up from 26 percent in 2009 and just 5 percent in 2008 – a nod to Twitter’s surge in use and ubiquity. (Facebook awareness is 88 percent.)
>> As Mashable points out, however, that means more Americans are aware of the social networking phenomenon than have access to the Internet (85 percent of the U.S. is online).
>> Twitter trails Facebook in usage. Just 7 percent (17 million persons) actively use Twitter, while 41 percent maintain a Facebook profile.
>> Almost half (47 percent) of “regular Twitter users” update their feeds – though a majority of the same group update their status on Facebook and other social sites.
>> More than half (51 percent) of active Twitter users “follow companies, brands or products on social networks.”
Click here to access the full report.
[Image: Roots drummer Questlove, a prolific Twitter user]
