Twitter Facts

Twitter Facts Infographics

Twitter’s build was based on Ruby on Rails.

Ruby on Rails is a specialized Web-based application framework for the Ruby computer programming language. Also, its interface enables open adaptation and integration among online services.

Twitter emerged from the startup Odeo.

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams created Blogger, which Google acquired in 2003. With the cash that he earned from the acquisition, Williams then ventured into a new business with his neighbor, Noah Glass.

Odeo, Twitter’s origins, was meant to be a podcasting platform.

Williams and Glass worked on podcasting, a platform that supports what they perceived as the new radio. When Williams left Google, he tagged Biz Stone along, one of his co-workers and friends. Together, they secured funding and began working on Odeo, the podcasting platform.

The complete version of Twitter debuted in March 2007.

Twitter was first introduced at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas. Engineer Jack Dorsey joined the management team when Williams bought Odeo and started Obvious Corp. for further developments.

Twitter, Inc. was created as a corporate entity in April 2007.

With an infusion of venture capital, Twitter initially started as a free SMS with an element of social networking. Despite these Twitter facts, the platform lacked clear revenue, unlike sites that earn income from banner advertising or membership fees.

Twitter became an essential tool for amateur journalists.

From an idle hobby for an evolving wired world, Twitter dramatically turned into an up-to-date news source, transcending political borders. It might as well be the most notable milestone in Twitter evolution.

Twitter filed as a public company in September 2013.

In November, Twitter raised an initial public offering (IPO) of $1.8 billion, earning a market value of $31 billion. The corporation announced the news to the public in a tweet.

In March 2007, Twitter won the Best Startup award.

This recognition from South by Southwest (SXSW) gave the platform its first break into the mainstream.

In September 2009, Twitter brought Dick Costolo on board to help in profitability.

The new COO even tweeted a joke: “First full day Twitter COO tomorrow. Task #1 undermine CEO, consolidate power.”

Twitter’s instant feeds were meant to encourage sign-ups.

With this feature, new users can see tweets from public figures before registering. It is like a free trial before sign up. Moreover, Twitter struck a deal with Google to ensure that more of the platform’s content show up in search engine results pages (SERPs).

In 2015, loss of profit sparked rumors that Twitter would get acquired by another company.

Late January of that year heard whispers of Google’s intentions of buying the network. This rumor pushed the platform’s shares up 23% in just two weeks. By late April, Twitter turned out to be the 5th most expensive Internet stock.

The designer of the current Twitter logo made the project just 3 years after school.

In Twitter’s formative years, Art Center College of Design alumni Martin Grasser received a call to interview for a secret project. As it turns out, this job was for West – a new design agency that had Twitter as one of its first clients. It was only when he got the job that Grasser learned his first assignment was the redesign of the Twitter logo.

A hummingbird served as the inspiration for the puffed-up chest of the Twitter logo bird.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey wanted Martin Grasser to start from scratch instead of refining the cartoony bird on the old Twitter logo. A few studies and experiments later, Grasser chose the hummingbird for inspiration.

The Twitter logo consists of 15 different circles.

Grasser wanted to make each curve of the bird’s beak, head, chest, and wings uniform. Hence, the designer applied an unusual process of overlaying 15 symmetrical circles his sketch. As Grasser revealed, the circles symbolize the idea of Twitter democratizing information, giving everyone a voice.

The symmetry of the Twitter logo helps give it a neutral appearance.

In Grasser’s terms, the Twitter logo bears a design that can “sit next to the most serious news that comes out on Twitter and also some of the silliness or more lighthearted moments or euphoria or joy or sadness.”

The Twitter stock took a dive in the first 3 months of 2015.

In light of this crash, Twitter released new features to entice investors, but they failed to provide much lift. The new features included making phone calls or downloading an app through Twitter.

As a response, Twitter acquired TellApart for $533 million.

The microblogging site TellApart is a tech-based marketing firm. It also helps advertisers in targeting consumers across multiple devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

Twitter boomed when the platform purged around 70 million fake accounts in 2019.

This action is in response to the controversies that plagued Twitter in recent years. Issues include harassment cases and alleged role in U.S. politics.

One of the Twitter facts from users is how they use Twitter as a news outlet.

Twitter’s popularity as a medium is based largely on breaking news. It only makes sense that out of all verified accounts on Twitter, around ¼ are journalists.

Of all Americans on Twitter, 71% use the platform solely to read the news.

Meanwhile, 12% of Americans gather news from Twitter, and 42% use the platform to discuss politics.

Twitter has a site referral traffic of 6%.

By the summer of 2019, Twitter ranks 5th among other social networks. Its rivals Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube remain on top, while Pinterest remains neck-to-neck with Twitter.

The most-used emoji on Twitter is the ‘face with tears of joy’ (😂).

Among the 3,000+ emojis on the Unicode Standard, this particular emoji has been used over 2 billion times. It shows a big smiley face, tears oozing out either side of grinning eyes, and mainly used to mean that something is funny or pleasing.

Statistics show that ¾ emojis tweeted are positive.

Emojis reflecting tweets in a state of joy appear to outnumber those that are sad, fearful, angry, and disgusted. Also, the amount of tweeted positive emojis increases towards the weekend. Fridays and Saturdays witness 77.7% of emojis reflecting a positive mode, and it is 1.9% higher than any other day.

The user with the most followers on Twitter is Katy Perry.

On June 16, 2017, Katy Perry was the first user to reach 100 million followers. Eventually, the pop star garnered 107,279,315 followers as of April 29, 2019, making her the user who has the most followers on Twitter up to present.

The title of the Most Twitter Engagements goes to South Korean boy band BTS.

The chart-topping group had registered 422,228 engagements on the platform as of April 29, 2019. Aside from their main account @BTS_twt, the boy band BTS has 3 other alternative Twitter accounts – @bts_bighit, @bts_love_myself, and @BTS_jp_official.

In total, the accounts have garnered 98,330, 66,753 and 34,785 engagements, respectively, as of the same date. All 4 accounts count among Twitter’s top 100 users for average retweets.

Twitter engagement refers to the total number of times a user interacts with a Tweet.

As per Buffer, these interactions include any clicks on the Tweet, be it for Retweets, replies, follows, likes, links, cards, Hashtags, embedded media, username, profile photo or Tweet expansion.

Caitlyn Jenner Twitter had the fastest time to reach 1 million followers.

Within only 4 hours and 3 minutes, Caitlyn Jenner was able to reach the number on June 1, 2015. The American TV personality sent her first tweet at 12:17 pm EST, then the account hit 1 million followers at 4:20 pm EST.

In April 2009, Ashton Kutcher had a Twitter feud with CNN.

This matter was a battle of whose account would be the first to reach 1 million followers. In the end, the actor won. At that moment, Twitter showed its social networking roots clearly for the first time.

Oprah Winfrey setting up her Twitter account led to record-setting rates of new user sign-ups.

On the same episode of having the Kutcher-CNN feud on the Oprah Winfrey show, the American personality also had then-Twitter CEO Evan Williams as a guest. Winfrey’s feat on the show was a big leap for Twitter.

The oldest Twitter user ever was 104 years and 324 days old.

The U.K. native Ivy Bean was born on September 8, 1905, and has lived on until July 28, 2010. After signing up for Twitter in May 2009, Bean was able to send over 1,000 tweets and gain around 56,000 followers before she passed away at 104 years old.

#TwitterBestFandom remains to be the most-used Hashtag in 24 hours on the platform.

From March 16 to March 17 in 2019, it garnered 60,055,339 uses. The #TwitterBestFandom served as a tool to enable the general public to vote in the 14th Annual Soompi Awards.

Soompi Awards hails home to global streaming service Rakuten Viki. Moreover, it is one of the largest and longest-running international awards in recognition of the best in Korean television and music.

The most retweeted tweet garnered 5,455,411 Retweets.

Verified on January 2018, Yusaku Maezawa from Japan achieved this Twitter facts numbers when he offered a cash prize to 100 winners. His online fashion retail brand Zozotown was earning amazing sales and was inspired to give a token gesture of appreciation. Hence, Yusaku pledged to give away one million yen in cash to 100 people, the total amounting to 100 million yen.

The most liked tweet received 4,586,103 likes as of April 23, 2018.

The 44th U.S. President Barack Obama quoted former South African president Nelson Mandela, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion…” Obama deemed the message appropriate in the wake of a racially charged unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.

Twitter had its bearings as an essential tool in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

Back then, Barack Obama dominated his opponent John McCain in terms of social media. The former has amassed nearly 4 times as many MySpace friends and over 20 times as many Twitter followers.

Since 2015, Twitter had the highest app store downloads per quarter.

In the first quarter of 2019 alone, the Twitter app had 11.7 million App Store downloads. Eventually, Twitter maintained a year-over-year increase of 3.6%.

In contrast, the Twitter app only ranks 16th on the most-downloaded iOS apps.

Its main competitors Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat lie too far ahead in the game. Despite the aforementioned increase, the Twitter app even failed to make the top 20 on the Google Play Store.

On January 15, 2009, Twitter bore witness to the US Airways Flight 1549 accident.

Commuter ferry passenger Janis Krums tweeted and broke the story of the unfortunate water landing of the aircraft on the Hudson River in New York City.

Twitter promptly crashed as thousands of users attempted to view an uploaded photo at once.

A camera phone image hastily snapped passengers as they disembark the half-submerged aircraft. Then, it was uploaded to Twitpic.com – a photo-sharing service by Twitter for Twitter users.

The question of who owns Twitter was only cleared in April 2009.

Back then, Jack Dorsey was launching a media campaign to cement his status as the inventor and founder of Twitter. The campaign had Dorsey traveling with tech entrepreneurs to Iraq as sponsored by the U.S.

This was also part of Silicon Valley leaders’ effort to provide the new Iraq with government advice on how to create a tech-friendly atmosphere.

Twitter once delayed a planned server maintenance procedure in June 2009.

Iranian protesters were actively using the platform to stage post-election demonstrations. Prior to that, the U.S. State Department officially emailed the company to encourage the delay for the important event.

Twitter proved its role as a powerful information dissemination tool in January 2010.

It followed the tragic earthquake that struck Haiti. Aside from that purpose, Twitter also became an effective fund-raising platform. The Red Cross brought to Twitter the launch of a mobile giving campaign, surpassing all expectations.

Red Cross raised over $8 million within 48 hours through Twitter.

Within 48 hours of the fatal Haiti earthquake, high-profile users helped by tweeting about the drive. Furthermore, several followers tweeted and re-tweeted the message, which helped Red Cross raise millions for the cause in 2 days.

Twitter started with a star symbol, also known as the favorite button.

However, the company replaced it with a heart symbol in November 2015. Numerous patrons criticized the change, saying that it was a copycat of Instagram’s very own heart button.

Global gender demographics show that Twitter is more popular among males than females.

As per DataReportal 2019 statistics, 66% of Twitter users are male while only 34% are females. It easily places the ratio of male to females at 2:1. However, women tend to interact more with brands on social media than men.

Males outnumber females in the U.S. Twitter user gender demographics as well.

A smaller margin covers the country, of course. In the U.S. Twitter demographics show that 56% of users are males, while 44% are females.

Among Americans, 13% of Twitter users keep their accounts private.

On average, people with private Twitter accounts tweet more often and favorite more tweets. These users tend to be mostly women as well.

The United States is home to the majority of Twitter users.

The country houses over 47 million accounts. Following this number is Japan and the United Kingdom.

92% of the U.S. population, including non-users, is familiar with Twitter.

While Twitter has never reached the vastness of its competing major platforms, it consistently plays a significant role in media and culture. More specifically, people with jobs involving communication see Twitter as an effective tool.

Among the adult population in the U.S., 22% use Twitter.

This percentage has maintained a steady streak over the recent years, following a slight drop from 24% in 2016. In comparison, this rate has been fairly consistent among the other big social media network sites.

44% of the Gen Z population in the U.S. use Twitter.

This group consists of people aged 18-24. Compared to the other age groups, Gen Z turns out to be the majority of Twitter users. In contrast, only 26% of the 30-49 year-old age bracket use the platform.

Twitter users in the U.S. have a specific class demograhic.

They also tend to have more education and more income than the rest of the general population of the country. Also, Twitter user demographics in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity mirror the general U.S. population.

Democrats make up the majority of U.S.-based Twitter users.

Statistics show that 36% of that group are Democrats while only 21% are Republicans. Indeed, the platform has gained its reputation of being the most political among all social media platforms. Even world leaders have grown to use Twitter.

10% of Twitter users send out 80% of tweets from the U.S.

A median user tweets twice a month on average. On the other hand, more frequent users tweet an average of 138 times. These are yet to include ‘institutional’ non-human accounts like businesses and organizations.

7 out of the 10 most-followed Twitter accounts are from the U.S.

Some of the said accounts are that of 44th U.S. President Barack Obama, TV personality Ellen DeGeneres, singer Katy Perry, singer-actor Justin Timberlake, singer-actress Lady Gaga, singer-actress Taylor Swift, and video streaming platform YouTube.

The 2009 Time’s 100 Most Influential People included Twitter executives.

However, only Evan Williams and Biz Stone made the cut. Jack Dorsey was not on the list.

Fortnite Twitter was under fire when #RIPFortnite became trending on Twitter.

In recent times, the game underwent numerous changes in the skill-based match-making that dismayed a lot of players. They decided to voice out their discontent as their concerns grow, thus, the dissing Hashtag for the Fortnite Twitter.

In 2017, the Donald Trump Twitter account was deactivated by a Twitter employee.

Gone rogue on their last day on the job, the Twitter employee thought that deactivating Donald Trump’s Twitter would not go through. The mistake lasted for 11 minutes. While the president did not comment even upon returning to the platform, co-founder Dorsey apologized for the incident.

Skip Bayless' Twitter account had over 2 million followers and 0 followings.

Still, the longtime ESPN anchor announced that it is not an accident, therefore admitting that the Skip Bayless Twitter numbers are intentional. He is currently co-hosting “Undisputed” with Shannon Sharpe on Fox Sports 1.

Andrew Yang announced his run for presidency through Twitter and Youtube in February 2018.

His campaign slogan bears the letters MATH, an acronym for ‘Make America Think Harder.’ Had Andrew Yang succeeded, he would have been the first Asian-American U.S. president in history. He dropped out from the presidential race in February 2020.

A risque Elon Musk Twitter message resulted in $40 million fines from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

A tweet from Elon Musk Twitter expressed how the engineer/entrepreneur secured funding to take Tesla private and remove it from the stock market. While the agenda is not true, the message was enough to move the market and swing share prices. Hence, the consequential fines were placed to ensure that nothing of the sort would happen again.

Elon Musk Twitter had sent out risky messages more than once.

Among them are tweets saying “Tesla stock price too high imo” and another vowing that he would sell his possessions. The esteemed carmaker immediately wiped $14bn (£11bn) off his value, $3bn off his own stake in Tesla, and had investors bailing out of the company. No one would have thought that less than 280 characters could cause that much damage.

Ben Shapiro has one word for the President’s tweets: STOP.

Editor-in-chief for the Daily Wire, Shapiro was a strong supporter of Trump’s policies. However, he made it a point in a Tweet that he is critical of the president’s governing style and Twitter habits.

Ben Shapiro commented on the first negative U.S. oil prices in history.

Despite being a ‘conservative commentator,’ Shapiro sent a tweet calling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “absolutely asinine.”

George Conway released ads as part of the Lincoln Project.

Anti-Trump Republicans formed independent political group Super Pac. More importantly, George Conway Twitter was a crucial part of it, and he is also married to senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.

The political ad that George Conway started said ‘Mourning in America.’

The classic riff off Reagan’s 1984 reelection ad was critical of Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. From the side of Donald Trump Twitter, the ads spurred name-calling, angry tweets, deriding his critics as the ‘loser types.’

Rick Wilson also expressed criticisms of the Trump administration through Twitter.

Following a Twitter rant from the president to the ‘Never Trumpers,’ Wilson described the breakdown as “a display of how weak Donald Trump is as a president.” Trump went on to label Rick Wilson as ‘Crazed.’

Twitter is suspected of shadow-banning tweets from Scott Adams.

The cartoonist and creator of the popular Dilbert comic strip believed that it was possible for political reasons. If the shadow-banning claims are true, it means that the platform prevents Scott Adams’ tweets from reaching all 124,000 of his followers.

Shannon Sharpe tweeted that LeBron James is more powerful than Michael Jordan.

The sports analyst pushes that the Los Angeles Lakers superstar empowers his teammates and that the Chicago Bulls legend is not able enough to do that. He makes it a point to express is via his Twitter.

Terrell Owens contradicted the Shannon Sharpe Twitter views.

The Former NFL wide receiver disagreed with Sharpe’s assessment, claiming that there is no doubt that Jordan is the best in NBA history. Owens further dunked Shannon Sharpe Twitter by saying how the first 2 episodes of ESPN’s documentary series can further prove it.

Delta Air Lines once became a subject of Anne Coulter Twitter.

The conservative commentator was dismayed over a changed seat assignment which Anne Coulter Twitter began berating one Saturday. Coulter booked an aisle seat but got a window seat instead, to which Delta responded by refunding the reservation fees she paid on Sunday night.

Anne Coulter also got dissed by Donald Trump on Twitter.

For the lawyer/columnist, the president tweeted: “Wacky Nut Job Ann Coulter, who still hasn’t figured out that, despite all odds and an entire Democrat Party of Far Left Radicals against me (not to mention certain Republicans who are sadly unwilling to fight), I am winning on the Border.”

Erik Larsen officially quit and deleted Twitter after receiving extreme embarrassment for his tweet.

In March 2015, Erik Larsen sent demeaning comments on female superhero costumes for which the public shamed him nonstop. He sent the last tweet saying, “I’m done here. This is redundant,” before confirming his deleted account on Facebook. For Larsen, the latter was a far more reasonable platform for discussion than Twitter.

Daniel Drezner's Twitter thread compiled evidence of how Trump’s staff coddle the president.

He also tweeted, “I’ll believe that Trump is growing into the presidency when his staff stops talking about him like a toddler.” Daniel Drezner may have surpassed Twitter’s threaded tweet capacity as his thread is now at 166 tweets.

Twitter also serves as a digital marketing tool for B2B businesses.

Around 67% of the said group count among the active Twitter users worldwide. Twitter facts like this further prove the platform’s effectiveness as a marketing platform as well.

A brand would have a better impression on 77% of Twitter users when they respond to a Tweet.

Moreover, 6 out of 10 Twitter users expect a brand to respond to any customer service inquiry or requests within an hour.

4 out of 10 Twitter users act on a purchase after coming across an ad on Twitter.

These Twitter facts reflect on the increasing influence of the platform on consumers’ purchase habits. Also, it highlights the importance of brand presence in social media.

There's an increase in user purchase intent when exposed to tweets.

Exposure to influencers’ and brands’ tweets see a five-fold increase, whereas brand tweets alone only does 2.7 times. In other words, Twitter campaigns with influencers pose benefits for businesses.

Inclusive and transparent brands have better chances among Twitter users.

Twitter and IPG recently conducted a study that revealed that 50% of people think inclusivity can make brands more culturally relevant. This number hikes to 60% among Twitter users. The study shows that 47% of Twitter users prefer culturally relevant brands. In comparison, the number is at 39% among the general U.S. population.

Twitter launched Promoted Tweets in April 2010.

This new highlight features advertisements. It could appear in search results as per the intended primary revenue source.

Twitter Advanced Search is only available when logged into the platform.

The specialized Twitter search enables users to tailor search results to specific date ranges, people, and more. Through Twitter Advanced Search, users can combine fields for more specific search results, making it easier to find specific items.

The app lacks a video download feature.

Should users wish to perform a Twitter video download, they can still use a third-party Twitter video downloader which is available online or in the form of other apps.

A Twitter algorithm determines Twitter trending topics.

By default, Twitter trending is based on who the user follows, their interests, and their location. Also, the said algorithm identifies the current popular topics over topics that have been popular for quite a while or on a daily basis.

This setting helps users discover the hottest and newest topics being discussed on the platform.

Twitter trending also considers the number of Tweets related to the trends.

The Twitter trending algorithm groups trends and hashtags that are related to the same topic together. For instance, #MondayMotivation could represent variations such as #MondayMotivation and #MotivationMonday.

A Promoted Trend refers to a 24-hour high-impact takeover of the Twitter Trends list.

Users explore Twitter trending to see real-time events. Hence, using Promoted Trends to launch something new or connect to current events is an effective way of using the platform’s potentials.

Twitter has an open-source emoji called Twemoji.

These Twitter emojis cover every user’s need to project emojis. Moreover, the latest Unicode emoji specification supports Twitter emojis. Twemoji features a total of 3,245 emojis, and all are available for free.

Twitter emoji acquires critical attribution from a legal, practical, and motivational perspective.

The CC-BY 4.0 licensed the graphics of Twemoji, and it includes a good guide on best practices for attribution.

Twitter Hashtags mark tweets relating to a topic.

Some trends feature the # sign before the word or phrase. These Twitter Hashtags allow users to follow the conversation in search.

Tweets with Twitter Hashtags get 100% more engagement.

However, too much of a good thing can be bad, and that saying also applies to these Twitter facts. One or two Hashtags are enough, as more than that can have a reversed effect of engagement decline instead.

Twitter Hashflags refers to a tweet with Hashtag and Twitter emoji as part of the tag.

Social media network Instagram already supports Hashtags with emojis. However, Twitter has yet to support emojis being part of the standard Hashtag on Twitter.

The first documented use of Twitter Hashflags was for the 2010 World Cup.

Still, it was only in 2014 when Twitter first introduced Hashflags as a tool for brands to inject a unique and fun character into their Twitter marketing. Twitter Hashflags also provided big brands like Coca-Cola with a way to incorporate Twitter-friendly emojis into the standard Hashtag to draw brand attention.

A Twitter username or handle begins with an “@” symbol.

Each account has a unique handle as it appears in the profile URL. The Twitter Handle serves as a log in information and is visible when sending and receiving tweet replies and Direct Messages as well. Moreover, people can conduct searches by using the username.

The Twitter display name can't be blank.

It also serves a personal identifier but is separate from the Twitter Username. Unlike in Facebook, the display name can be updated anytime and can be a real name, a business name, or something more playful. Further, it appears next to the username in tweets.

Changing a username or display name has no effects on the account.

Such changes have no effect on the user’s existing followers, Direct Messages, or replies. Followers of the account would simply see a new username next to the profile photo once updated.

The More button on the Navigation Bar shows how to change the Twitter handle.

Under Settings and Privacy, users must go to the Account. From there, they can easily see how to change the Twitter handle listed in the Username field. However, a take Username would prompt the user to choose another one.

Settings and Privacy from the drop-down menu under the profile icon shows how to delete a Twitter account.

Under the Account tab, the users must click on Deactivate your account at the bottom of the page. Still, the user must enter the account’s passwords and confirm the action before they can click the Deactivate Account button.

A deleted Twitter account is still available for restoration for up to 30 days after deactivation.

Once deactivated, a Twitter account including the display name, username, and public profile will cease to exist on Twitter.com. The same changes apply for Twitter for iOS and Twitter for Android.

The blue badge on Twitter indicates that an account is verified.

While this recognition lets people known that an account of public interest is authentic, verified Twitter accounts are susceptible to hacking or phishing campaigns. Nonetheless, a verified badge does not indicate that an account is endorsed by Twitter.

An account of public interest qualifies for Twitter account verification.

This includes accounts handled by users in fields of media, politics, religion, sports, and other key interest areas.

Twitter has the power to remove verified badges at any time.

Moreover, previously verified accounts may not be eligible for verified badge restoration. Twitter Terms of Service lets users learn of these Twitter facts. Also, a verified account might lose its badge once it changes its profile settings to modify the account’s initial purpose.

How to get verified on Twitter would not work at the moment.

Twitter currently places the verified account program on hold. Even if users learn how to get verified on Twitter at the time of writing, the platform is not yet accepting any new requests.