Why Are So Many Black People On Twitter?
There are a lot of black people on Twitter. The numbers, taken from the annual report on Twitter by Edison Research, don’t lie. While black people make up about 12% of the general population, they account for 25% of the population of users on Twitter. I always felt like this was true in my day to day use of Twitter and trending topics, but now I have confirmation. The question is why is such a large percentage of the Twitter population African American? There are a few conclusions that can be drawn here based on similar research.
The mobile arena is blowing up and blacks and Hispanics are at the forefront of this growth. 55% of Americans connect to the Internet wirelessly and, out of that 55%, 59% are Black/Non-Hispanic. Black people and other minority groups are just generally more likely to access the Internet via some type of mobile device. Taking that into consideration, Twitter is just about the most mobile-friendly social networking application out there.
Even if you don’t have a data plan, you can still use Twitter via SMS. I know many black households that may not have a computer or may not have broadband Internet access, but they definitely have cell phones in the home. Mobile devices solve the general problem of phone communications as well as providing basic Internet access to social media and business applications.
Another major factor is how quickly black celebrities have taken to Twitter as compared to white celebs. You have people like Ashton Kutcher going hard and promoting the service, but it seems there are many more black celebrities with active Twitter accounts. This includes musicians, athletes, actors, and organizations. It probably doesn’t hurt that Obama himself, the first black president of the US, popularized the service during and after his successful campaign.
According to this same report, Twitter is most popular among the 25 to 34 year old crowd. The median age for blacks or African Americans is about 31 while the median age for whites is about 40 according to the 2006 census. This means that blacks are younger on average and also mostly fall directly in the middle of the group that has the most interest in Twitter.
One last point is that Twitter users tend to be not only more educated, but more wealthy. On a related note, higher income African Americans are the fastest growing segment of web users. You have educated and wealthy black people getting online in droves. Even lower income blacks, while they may not have broadband at home, are still able to access Twitter on their mobile devices. At the same time, most of these people are right in the sweet spot for people being interested in Twitter and many of the celebs they follow are already on the service asking them to join.
I know many have seen this and have some strong opinions on the subject, so I encourage you to share them here. What reasons can you think of as to why so many black people are on Twitter? What are they doing with it?
via SFGate
Category: Featured, Social Web | Tags: blacks on twitter, stats, twitter
About the Author Rahsheen has been a certified geek since before it was the thing to do. He started programming and tinkering in the 4th grade. Now, Rahsheen mostly writes on various sites about technology trends in social media and mobile. . He is also a musician, singer, rapper, writer, and producer. @rahsheen - +Rahsheen Porter - coachrah.com
See all posts by rahsheen.
black people are innovative. Simple as that.
does a a lower median age really mean black people are younger? or that they don't live as long? a better measure of that might be % comp of an age break or even the mode of ages. something seems off about the pairing of the twitter age range and blacks vs. whites fitting into it.
i agree with other posters that sense of community is one of the strong drivers behind the large percentage of african americans on twitter.
Really loving the comments here. It's not about boiling Twitter down to a racial matter, it's figuring out why black people specifically have taken such an interest in Twitter. I agree that there is something in us that makes us draw together, which may be true for most cultures, but I think more true for us because of our history. Twitter seems to be one of those places where we are congregating in large numbers.
I think people with purpose definitely have time to use Twitter and it shows. Why respond to thousands of fan mails/emails individually when you can simply digest what your fans are saying and share your thoughts to all of them at once? As many other methods of organizing and mobilizing people of color have failed, maybe Twitter is more important than many might think.
It all depends on how key influencers (no pun intended) end up using it.
The question is not, what are black people doing with Twitter but what can be done with Twitter? With such huge issues facing the African American population (from health disparities, to lack of net worth, etc) how can this networking platform be used to organize, educate and inspire or will it be another form of surface entertainment with limited real world application?
The indie artist is a good example. The assumption is they are able to convert those samplings into ticket sales for their performances, which is probably a trackable metric. Do others have good examples of Twitter ROI opportunities to share?
Kevin, you said what I was thinking. We're all about community. But SMS alone doesn't let you enjoy Twitter, so people are definitely getting the data plans and using clients like Tweetdeck, etc to browse their streams. But there's huge ROI in this for artists that aren't getting any play in the mainstream. Indie artists can get music to their fans immediately, and let them know when they're coming to their area.
Why not? Twitter is nothing more than a very 'small' means of communicating. “What are ou doing?” is not a question that a person with a purpose has time to answer. What difference could color matter? Why does everything boil down to color, race, and/or culture? Think about the really important events in this world and just how unimportant these small matters really are.
The fact that the African American community over-indexes in mobile use is indeed a strong indicator of the extent our community has adopted Twitter. The inference was almost made in Rasheen's post that Twitter is very similar to SMS, and thus what cell carriers have seen in utilization levels of SMS by African Americans mirrors what we today see on Twitter. I think there is another element not yet examined in the post or comments and that is the tendency to be want to be networked and connected within our community. There is an inherent socialization that is readily enabled by the likes of Twitter and SMS. And in terms of what we've done with it, we are witness to how efficiently the tool is used to disseminate and exchange content of all types. Technology continues to commoditize this rapid dissemination of information. I'm not sure that the ROI opportunities will be as evident as we see how long it's taken even Twitter to come up with a monetization model that no one is even sure yet will truly be effective.
It's mobile friendly, as you pointed out. And they're using it to have the conversations that the mainstream media & their media outlets aren't having, for various reasons. We're all different, but the black experience has tons of similarities from coast to coast. This caught my attention a few months back when the #imfrom[your city name here] hash tag was hot. It was amazing to see how so many people got on to rep their city.
Your analysis of why we are on Twitter in such numbers is right on point. However, your closing question is even more fascinating: What are we doing with it? Are we doing anything different, better or specific to our cultural identity as African Americans? Does more usage equal more effective usage? Is there, or should there be, a quantifiable ROI for black individuals, communities, businesses, based on our greater Twitter participation?