29 Twitter Stats That Matter to Marketers in 2023

Former U.S. President Obama has held the top spot for a few years, with over 133 million followers. Longtime popular users Justin Bieber, Rihanna, and Katy Perry still rank in the top five but new for 2023 is current Twitter owner Elon Musk in the #2 spot with 127 million followers.

In a recent survey of mobile users, 52% of Americans engaged with the Twitter app during the study period, placing it in sixth.

Twitter has held steady in the seventh spot since 2021.

The percentage of people ages 16-64 who say each of the top 10 platforms is their favorite has remained relatively constant, though rivals Instagram and WhatsApp have dropped slightly since 2022 Q1 — 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively. In contrast, Twitter’s popularity has risen by 0.2% throughout 2022.

It’s no secret Musk’s leadership is a divisive topic for Twitter users, with some applauding his decisions and others disagreeing.

But, a February 2023 survey has found Musk’s public approval rating as CEO has increased to 34%, up from 30% before his purchase of Twitter was complete. Though there was also an almost-equal 5% jump in those who disapprove.

Source: YouGov

For comparison, only 18% of Americans currently approve of how Congress is doing its job.

Twitter user statistics

Sound the alarms: Gen Z doesn’t hate Twitter.

42% of Americans ages 12-34 now use Twitter, compared to only 29% in 2020 — a 36.6% boost over two years. Comparatively, Instagram adoption only increased by 5.7% during the same period.

Source: Edison Research

The oldest Gen Zers are about 25 in 2023, so this Twitter stat may be skewed at the higher age range by those pesky Millennials in the mix. Still, it offers food for thought.

The lesson here is to ensure data is guiding your social media marketing strategy. We’re exposed to so many “Gen Z only cares about TikTok” thinkpieces, it’s easy to take it as fact. While your particular Gen Z audience may not be on Twitter, make sure to test that hypothesis first, Dr. Viral.

People who post more than five Tweets per month follow an average of 405 accounts, whereas those who posted less often follow an average of 105 accounts.

This survey didn’t report options for nonbinary people, so it doesn’t capture the full spectrum of gender for all Twitter users. However, it does illustrate the wide gender gap on Twitter.

Source: Statista

That gap is only getting wider in 2023. In 2022, 56.4% of Twitter users identified as male and 43.6% identified as female — a much closer ratio.

Again, these statistics only represent those identifying as either male or female, without including other options. But it’s helpful to see these figures compared to other popular social platforms to understand more about Twitter demographics.

Source: Statista

A combined total of 41% of users 18-34 view Twitter either “very favorably” (16%) or “somewhat favorably” (25%). While this age range doesn’t exclusively represent Gen Z, a large portion of it does.

The age group with the second highest total is users age 35-44, where a total of 38% view Twitter “very favorably” (11%) and “somewhat favorably” (27%).

Both age brackets include hefty helpings of Millennials, so ensure you’re optimizing your Twitter strategy for this highly aging engaging population.

Job title or industry is the most popular thing U.S. adults say about themselves in their Twitter profile bio, with approximately 1 in 4 users including this information.

Other popular profile mentions include hobbies (12%), family relationships (8%), and political views (6%).

Source: Pew Research

Twitter usage statistics

Twitter’s appeal has always been its short-form, real-time nature and that’s still true today with 61.2% of people saying Twitter is where they go to stay up to date with news and events.

Brands can capitalize on this by live-tweeting from conferences and creating event hashtags in order to retweet from, and start conversations with, attendees.

Almost half (45%) of Americans say they have Tweeted about a political or social issue in the last 12 months, but for 23% of the user base, political Tweets are a lifestyle. A study analyzing the content of over 1 million Tweets found approximately one-third, or 33%, were political in nature.

A recent study reports users spend an average of 1.1 hours per week on Twitter, equating to 4.4 hours per month. While that may seem small compared to TikTok’s reported 9.8 hours per week, the average demographics and audience of Twitter are vastly different from that of TikTok.

Not sure if your ideal audience is on Twitter? Find out with the latest Twitter demographics stats for 2023.

Source: Statista

Two-thirds of the links shared by prominent Twitter users pointed to print, TV, and wire news media, whereas only 5% of links shared on alternative platforms — such as Truth Social, Parler, and more — did.

Perhaps this is due to Twitter itself also being a mainstream network, though the wide gap suggest an underlying ideological difference.

Source: Pew Research

Makes you long for the halcyon days of 2013’s double-digit engagement rates, eh?

Not to fear: It’s easy to beat 0.05% with the right Twitter content strategy, networking efforts, and time. (And, hey, you can always run ads for a lil’ boost if needed.)

Source: Statista

Not sure what your average engagement rate is? Find out with our free engagement rate calculator, or try Hootsuite and let it crunch your numbers and tell you how to improve — automatically.

While not exclusive to Twitter, this is a fundamental shift in how people use the internet to make buying decisions. For decades, SEO reigned supreme as we relied on search engines like Google to solve the mystery of everything from “Should I get this mole checked out?” (ew and yes) to “What’s the best social media scheduling tool?” (Hootsuite).

For the first time in history, it’s raining men…tions?

Dubbed “social SEO,” the practice of turning to social networks instead of search engines isn’t limited to Gen Z. Millennials follow close behind with almost half using social the same way, and over a third of the 45-54 crowd does, too.

Wanna cash in? Step one: Be on social. Duh. Step two: Always use ALT text. It improves accessibility and serves your “social SEO rankings” well, too. You can add ALT text in Hootsuite when scheduling posts.

Oh, step three? Read Social Trends 2023 for more key strategies.

No, Twitter’s ad reach isn’t the biggest, nor is the platform the right fit for all types of businesses. But if your people are on Twitter, so should you.

Less marketers means less competition in everything from organic reach to brand building activities. Learn the ins and outs of the Twitter algorithm and how to create a winning Twitter marketing strategy to push your business to new heights.

Source: Statista

Many brands are still working to establish themselves on social “new kids” like TikTok, but don’t forget about tried and true Twitter.

When surveyed about plans for the next 12 months, almost a third (28%) of marketers said they’re planning to use Twitter more.

Twitter advertising stats

mWhat? Twitter defines a monetizable user (mDAU) as an account that has physically logged in on a daily basis and isn’t a bot. These users are monetizable because they see Twitter ads after they log in.

This figure is expected to keep rising as Twitter continues to develop new advertising and ecommerce features in 2023.

That’s a 12% jump in 2022 Q3 from 2022 Q2, or an increase of 58 million people, and a total increase of 24.7% year-over-year.

Broken down further, this equals 6.8% of the total global population, and 8.7% of everyone 13 and older. Population counts estimate there are about 5 billion people over age 15, so that means ads on Twitter could reach about 445 million of them.

Single digit percentage ad reach may not look impressive, but 8.7% is a massive 50% increase — representing about 145 million more people — since 2020, where Twitter ads reached only 5.8% of those 13 and older.

That’s 91.7 million Americans, though by no means the largest reach percentage compared to other countries. Twitter ads reach a whopping 60.4% of Japanese people 13+ and 38.% of people 13+ in the United Kingdom.

Earlier, I mentioned that almost 63% of Twitter’s audience identify as male and 37% identify as female in 2023. Twitter ad reach is even more skewed toward male users.

Twitter ads reach up to 74.3% of male users, but only 25.7% of female users.

Why the even larger divide? We’re not sure, though you can target Twitter ads based on gender (currently only male or female options) for greater precision.