Twitter: Our Mobile Users Are Younger, More Active & Follow More Brands

Twitter says its mobile audience is more engaged than the average user by following more brands, interacting more with tweets and spend more time using the service.

The company has released a host of statistics from a study it did with Compete — one that will surely be music to a lot of advertisers’ ears because it paints a picture of Twitter’s mobile users as an ideal audience for their messages.

According to the study:

• Twitter users that primarily access via mobile devices are 96 percent more likely to follow 11 or more brands, while the average Twitter user only follows five or more brands.
• Twitter’s primary mobile users are 58 percent more likely to recall seeing an ad.
• They’re more engaged: 63 percent more likely to click on links, 78 percent more likely to retweet and 85 percent more likely to favorite a tweet.
• Primary mobile users are 169 percent more likely to use Twitter while shopping and 301 percent more likely to use it when commuting (“before and after attending a movie” is the text used in Twitter’s blog post).

The study also found that 18-34-year-olds are 52 percent more likely to use Twitter primarily via mobile device, and Twitter’s primary mobile users are 86 percent more likely to be on Twitter several times per day compared to the average Twitter user.

Twitter faces stiff competition for mobile ad dollars. One recent estimate suggested that it earns more via mobile than Apple and Facebook, but only a fraction of what Google earns. Facebook, which has the most popular mobile app in the US, is also focusing heavily on mobile and recently reported that mobile accounted for 23 percent of all its ad revenue.

Postscript, February 18: Twitter’s UK team has now released similar data related to how UK-based users are engaged with Twitter via mobile devices.