Urban Dwelling Minorities Most Likely to Use Twitter

It's 10 a.m. on a beautiful Sunday morning. You pour of fresh cup of java, head to your computer read the New York Times, and then, the 8% of you that find yourselves poking around on Twitter, look down at your hands to realize that you are probably Black...or Hispanic.

A study was released recently, by the Pew Center for Online Research that showed that Blacks and Hispanics were twice as likely to use Twitter as Whites. Furthermore, online consumers in urban areas were more likely to use Twitter than those in the suburbs or rural areas.

The study sought to answer two important questions in regards to Twitter usage: First, who is using the popular social media platform? And secondly, what are they using for? Check out some of the results from the study below.

Who is Using Twitter?

Minorities: Only 5 percent of White Internet users said they use Twitter, topped by the full 18 percent of Hispanic respondents and 13 percent of black respondents did.

Urbanites: Twitter is used by 11 percent of online consumers in urban areas, but only 8 percent of those in the suburbs and 5 percent of those in rural areas...



Two Income Groups: This was a weird one. According to Pew's data, Internet users with household incomes of less than $30,000 per year and those earning between $50,000 and $74,999 per year were most likely to be using Twitter, with 10 percent in each category using the service. Those earning between $30,000 and $49,999 as well as those earning over $75,000, on the other hand, weighed in at only 6 percent

Young adults: Consumers between the ages of 18 and 29 are much more likely to use Twitter than older adults are, the Pew report found. Specifically, 14 percent of the online users surveyed in that age group use the service, compared with just 7 percent in the 30-to-49 age group, 6 percent in the 50-to-64 group and 4 percent of those 65 and over. Not too surprising, considering that is the average age of the digital native- the early adopters of social media platforms.

Women: Ten percent of online women use Twitter, compared with 7 percent of men on the Internet. Again, not too surprising here.

College-Educated: Nine percent of college-educated consumers on the Internet use Twitter, compared with just 5 percent of those who have only a high school diploma.

What are people tweeting about?

• 72% of Twitter users say they post updates about their personal life, activities or interests.
• 62% post work-related updates.
• 55% use Twitter to share links to news stories.
• 53% use the service to retweet others’ material.
• 40% use the service to share photos with others, while 28% use it to share videos.
• 24% tweet their location.
• More than half of the Twitter users surveyed say they post "humorous or philosophical observations about life in general."
• 36 percent of Twitter users check the site "for materials posted by others" at least once a day.
• 48 percent of Twitter users check the site "for materials posted by others" "once every few weeks."

According to the center, this is the first time it has conducted research that focuses solely on Twitter users. This is because Pew typically looks into general online activities, as opposed to particular brands.

Does this mean that minorities have become the early adopters of the digital age? We can still see a large minority population on sites like Myspace.com or Tagged.com. And even some minority-based websites that have died down in popularity are still managing to staying afloat--can anyone say BlackPlanet.com?

It will be interesting to see the shift in online marketing as advertisers try and figure out how to target this population and meet the needs of this new social media majority.

What do you think? Have minorities become the majority, in the social media world? Share your thoughts and comments!