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24 Twitter Demographics That Matter to Marketers in 2024

An understanding of Twitter demographics is key to connecting with an audience who is ready and waiting to read and engage with your Tweets.

Alyssa Hirose September 20, 2022
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Twitter’s small-but-mighty word count has had a grip on us since the platform first launched in 2006. The microblogging app is not only an effective tool for communication (and memes), but also for business: a single ad on Twitter has the potential to reach 436.4 million people.

But who are those users? Demographics matter. Where do they live? How much money do they make? Are they old enough to rent a car or legally buy fireworks? All important questions to ask when using the platform for social marketing, especially if you’re some kind of pyrotechnic carshare startup. (That’s my idea, no one steal it.)

These statistics reveal everything you need to know about who is using Twitter–and who is not using it. From demographics on age and gender to lovers and haters of the platform, we’ve got you covered.

Bonus: Find out what people really want from brands on social—including why they follow, engage, buy, and even unfollow them—in The Social Media Consumer Report.

General Twitter user demographics

1. Twitter is the world’s 15th most-used social media platform.

Sandwiched between Pinterest (the world’s 14th most-used platform) and Reddit (in spot number 13), Twitter is much lower on the list than Facebook and Instagram—but this is a lineup of giants. It’s kind of like an Olympic swimmer getting 15th place: they’re still one of the best swimmers in the world.

most used social media apps
Source: Digital 2022

2. Twitter is the 12th most popular term searched on Google.

Despite having its own app (and, you know, bookmarking existing) people are still searching “twitter” on Google often—even more often than Netflix.

top google search
Source: Digital 2022

3. Twitter.com is visited 7.1 billion times per month.

That’s based on data from Statista—there were 7.1 billion visits in May 2022, which was up from 6.8 billion visits in December 2021.

4. Ads on Twitter have the potential to reach 8.8% of all internet users.

There’s 4.95 billion total internet users, so 8.8% is nothing to sneeze at. Maybe it’s time to start researching how to use Twitter for business.

advertising audience overview

Source: Digital 2022

5. The number of worldwide Twitter users is expected to grow to 497.48 million by 2025.

That’s almost five hundred million, if you’re counting (and we are).

forcasted number of users

Source: Statista

6. 82% of high-volume Twitter users say they use the platform for entertainment.

A 2021 Statista study found that 82% of frequent Tweeters (those who Tweet 20 or more times per month, dubbed “high volume” in this data) use Twitter for entertainment. 78% said they use the micro-blogging platform as a way to stay informed, and 77% said they used it as a way to express their opinions. Not surprisingly, only 29% of low-volume Twitter users (those who tweet less than 20 times per month) said they use Twitter as a way to express their opinions… after all, you can’t really express yourself on the app if you’re not tweeting or retweeting.

reasons for using Twitter

Source: Statista

7. When it comes to using social media sites for news, Twitter is the most popular source.

That’s true in the United States, anyway. In 2021, 55% of Americans reported that they regularly get news from Twitter. That makes it the most-used social platform for news—Facebook follows at 47%, then it’s Reddit (39%), Youtube (30%) and TikTok (29%).

using for news
Source: Statista

8. Plus, 57% of people who get news from Twitter say the platform has increased their understanding of current events over the past year.

This is from another American survey. 39% of Twitter news consumers said that they learned more about the lives of celebrities and public figures, 37% said it increased how politically engaged they feel and 31% said it increased their stress levels.

news and stress levels
Source: Pew Research Center

9. Only 0.2% of Twitter users only use Twitter.

In other words, nearly all of the folks on Twitter have accounts on other social networks too. The largest overlap is with Instagram—87.6% of Twitter users also use Instagram. Social media marketers should keep that in mind when designing campaigns (for example, there’s far less of an overlap between Twitter and Snapchat users, so selecting those two platforms may result in reaching a wider target audience).

overlap of social platforms
Source: Digital 2022

10. A majority of Twitter users don’t really understand their privacy settings.

Yikes. According to a 2021 Pew Research survey, 35% of Twitter users said they either had a private Twitter handle or weren’t sure about their privacy settings… but of those users, 83% actually had a public Twitter account. (Psst—if you’re not sure about your own settings, check out these best practices for optimizing Twitter settings).

privacy settings

Source: Pew Research Center

Twitter age demographics

11. Most Twitter users are between the ages of 25 and 34.

Worldwide, 38.5% of Twitter users are 25-34, making it the largest age group using the app. So, if you’re trying to increase brand awareness in this age group, Twitter is a great fit.

The smallest age group is 13-17 (6.6%), which is probably for the best.

worldwide users by age group

Source: Statista

12. 20% of 18 to 34 year olds have a favourable opinion of Twitter.

In fact, it seems like opinions of Twitter have an inverse relationship to age—younger people tend to have a favourable opinion and older people tend to have an unfavourable opinion. It’s exemplified in the Statista graph below: the light blue (“very favourable”) chunk gets smaller as the age group increases, and the red (“very unfavourable”) chunk gets larger as the age group increases.

favourable opinion USA age

Source: Statista

13. Since 2014-15, the number of teens who use Twitter has decreased.

According to a PEW Research study, 33% of U.S. teens reported using Twitter in 2014-15, but only 23% of teens reported using the platform in 2021. There was also a decrease in teen interest for Facebook, while Instagram and Snapchat saw an increase (52% to 62% and 41% to 59%, respectively).

teen usage

Source: Pew Research Centre

14. Twitter has one of the smallest age gaps in users of any popular social platform.

This means that the difference in age between the youngest Twitter users and the oldest Twitter users is smaller (35 years) than other apps—for example, the age gap in Snapchat users is 63 years. While Twitter’s age gap is small, it’s not the smallest (that award goes to Facebook, which has an average age gap of 20 years).

user age gap

Source: Pew Research Centre

Twitter gender demographics

15. Worldwide, 56.4% of Twitter users identify as male.

And 43.6% identify as female.

worldwide users by gender

Source: Statista

16. 1/4 of all American men use Twitter.

That’s only slightly higher than the stat for women—22% of American women are on the app.

by gender USA

Source: Statista

17. 35% of American women have a favourable opinion of Twitter, and 43% of American men have a favourable opinion of Twitter.

According to a 2021 study by Statista, 43% of American men have a “very favourable” or “somewhat favourable” opinion of Twitter—and 35% of American women feel the same way.

favourable opinion USA adults by gender

Source: Statista

Twitter location demographics

18. The United States is the country with the most Twitter users, with 76.9 million.

Following the U.S. is Japan (58.95 million users), then India (23.6 million users), then Brazil (19.05 million users).

countries with most Twitter users

Source: Statista

19. Singapore is the country with the highest eligible reach rate for Twitter ads (53.9%).

That means ads and promoted Tweets have the potential to reach just over half of Singaporeans, and it’s the country with the highest eligible reach rate. After Singapore is Japan (52.3%) and then Saudi Arabia (50.4%).

advertising reach rate
Source: Digital 2022

20. The U.S. has the largest advertising audience on Twitter.

Because America is the country with the most Twitter users, it’s also the country with the largest advertising audience. Ads on Twitter have the potential to reach 27.3% of all Americans over the age of 13.

ad reach ranking

Source: Digital 2022

22. 26% of U.S. adults have a “somewhat favourable” opinion of Twitter.

This is according to a 2021 Statista survey. The same data reports that 13% of American adults have a very favourable opinion of Twitter, 15% have a somewhat unfavourable opinion of Twitter, and 18% have a very unfavourable opinion of Twitter. In other words, opinions are mixed—but whether they’re love-scrolling or hate-scrolling, they’re still scrolling.

favourable opinion USA adults

Source: Statista

Twitter income demographics

23. Only 12% of Americans who make under $30k a year use Twitter.

The numbers are larger in higher-income groups. 29% of Americans who make $30,000-$49,999 per year use Twitter and 34% of Americans who make 75k or more per year use Twitter.

income and education statistics

Source: Pew Research Centre

Twitter education level demographics

24. 33% of Twitter users have a college education.

In fact, those with post-secondary degrees are the largest percentage of Twitter users—26% have completed some college, and 14% have a high school degree or less. Scholars, unite.

education level USA

Source: Statista

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By Alyssa Hirose

Alyssa Hirose is a magazine editor, playwright, comedian and comic artist based in Vancouver, B.C. She attributes her great sense of humour to 9 years of braces and good ol' elementary school bullying (unrelated, unfortunately).

Read more by Alyssa Hirose

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