Amanda Palmer's 550,000 Twitter followers just help her raise $1.2 million on Kickstarter. But Twitter works better for some artists than it does for others. Part of the answer why is how each artist uses Twitter. But a new study shows that for others, the reason that Twitter works or doesn't may be that their fans simply don't participate in the 140 character social network.
A new Pew Internet survey showed that as of February 2012, 15% of online adults use Twitter, with just 8% doing so on their typical day. Overall Twitter adoption remains steady, as the 15% of online adults who use Twitter is similar to the 13% of such adults who did so in May 2011.
But there is hope for the future. The proportion of online adults who use Twitter on a typical day has doubled since May 2011 and has quadrupled since late 2010. At that point just 2% of online adults used Twitter on a typical day. The rise of smartphones may account for some of the uptick in usage since smartphone users are particularly likely to be using Twitter, says Pew.
