About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leader in online competitive intelligence. Contact Hitwise to maximize your online marketing programs.
Subscribe to RSS Feed via Feedburner Subscribe to Email Feed Subscribe to Twitter Feed

Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - North America

Analyst Weblog

« Facebook Users Prefer Broadcast Media | Facebook Visitors Come Back Again and Again »

Twitter and News and Media Websites

March 16, 2010

A couple of weeks ago, I did a follow up post on my blog entry, "Facebook Largest News Reader?". The entry illustrated that Facebook users prefer Broadcast Media while Google News readers prefer Print Media. Several readers requested that I add Twitter to the mix.

Twitter.com accounted for 0.14% of upstream visits to News and Media sites last week. (Note that we are measuring website visits from Twitter.com only.) This compares to 3.64% from Facebook and 1.27% from Google News. Facebook was the #3 source of visits to News and Media websites last week. Google News was the #11 site and Twitter.com ranked #39.

Twitter has enjoyed explosive growth, nearly tripling share of US Internet visits year over year last week. However, News and Media companies have not seen similar growth rates in upstream traffic from Twitter. Upstream visits from Twitter.com to News and Media sites have grown by 54% over the past year. Compare this to upstream visits to All Categories of websites, for which visits from Twitter.com have more than doubled (138%).

So where are all those Twitter.com visitors going? As illustrated in the chart below, the majority (60%) are going to Social Networks and Entertainment sites (mainly photography and video sharing sites).

Downstream from Twitter 2.png

For those interested in which News and Media sites receive the most traffic from Twitter. Here is a table showing the top 10 downstream News and Media sites from Twitter.com last week.

Downstream news and media from twitter.png

Posted by Heather Hopkins at 11:43 AM | (11) | (8)
In Categories News and Media

TrackBack

TrackBack URL:
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/1425.

Links to weblogs that reference this entry:

Comments

key, key ödemeleri, key sorgulama, konut edindirme, konut edindirme yardımları, key listeleri, key haberleri

Posted by keysorgulama.net | March 16, 2010 04:27 PM

Hi Heather,

Thanks for posting this data. For comparative purposes are you able to post/provide any downstream Twitter data to news websites in the UK (or outside North America)? It would be interesting to see what geo specific domains creep into the top 10 outside of North America.

Regards,

Tom

Posted by Tom St.John | March 16, 2010 05:21 PM

Hi Heather,

Given that most links posted to Twitter are run through URL shortening services like bit.ly, it would be interesting to see what the traffic from that to these websites is like.

Posted by Tom walter | March 16, 2010 05:58 PM

I believe that the popularity of third-party Twitter applications renders this data completely pointless.

You should make note of the fact that tweets "via web" (using the Twitter website) account for only a small minority of all posts. If I were to guess, I'd say that the real Twitter generated traffic volume is probably five times what you have mentioned.

Posted by Canolli | March 17, 2010 01:40 AM

What type of multiplier are you using for Twitter traffic? If 80% of Twitter users are mobile, and accessing the stream through a non-web based app, what does that do to your numbers?

Posted by Phil Buckley | March 17, 2010 01:01 PM

Curious to know whether your figure for twitter to news sites includes traffic from third party clients like tweetdeck. Thanks.

Posted by patrick syms | March 17, 2010 07:49 PM

This stat isn't relevant at all. People who use Twitter a lot don't use Twitter.com. They use 3rd party apps on their computer or phone.

Posted by Will Paccione | March 19, 2010 12:31 PM

these stats considering that URL enshort systems are used? bit.ly, ow.ly, tinyurl, etc...

the twitter referers are very complicated to track, all the power users use suites and 3rd part apps, all with URL short commodities.

ragards,

Posted by logela | April 7, 2010 04:15 PM

I don't think Twitter its relavant at all lots of people use Twitter for social networking but they never use Twitter.com for sharing news.

Posted by Online Jobs | May 26, 2010 07:18 AM

if you’re a brand, you simply cannot afford to sit on the sidelines any longer. This is the reality: People are going to talk about you regard­less of whether you’re in the room. So you might as well get with the pro­gram, start by listening, and start understanding what people are saying about you, your industry, your products and your competitors.”

That spot-on summary in a nutshell comes courtesy of Maria Ogneva, director of social media for Biz360, the social media monitoring provider acquired by Attensity last month.

Posted by linda lone | May 27, 2010 04:07 AM

Hi Heather, Very useful post. I think that most visitors check Twitter for social purposes and not so much for news updates, but still, this is very useful. Thanks

Posted by Adam Ross | June 1, 2010 03:54 AM

Post a comment

If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry.

 
Image of Heather Hopkins

Heather Hopkins

Senior Online Analyst, Hitwise

Archives (view all posts)

Categories