We came. We saw. We Spoke.

Editor’s Note: Spoke social media wingman and l’enfant terrible, Mark Pannell, returns to the guest blogger perch to report the results of our homegrown Twitter Use Survey. After spending some quality time with our data, skip on over to TechCrunch to parse some enlightening results captured on the ever fickle teen demo. Salut!

Ask and you shall receive. As part of Spoke’s launch, we asked Twitter users to participate in a brief survey about their daily usage habits. The response was solid, with over 100 completed surveys to date. Some of our findings were a little surprising while others were exactly what we expected. See for yourself. Without further delay, the Get Your Twitter On survey results.

The first question we asked was to determine how many hours users spent on Twitter in an average day. Not surprisingly, 67% of our survey-takers said they spent more than an hour per day with the little blue bird. What was surprising was that over half said they post less than five tweets per day. Only 5% reported that they post more than twenty tweets on a daily basis. There’s a Turkish proverb that says, “If speaking is silver, then listening is gold.” It appears that many of those responding subscribe to that same notion.

Next up: using Twitter at work. These numbers speak for themselves:

Wow. We can only assume that a good chunk of these surveys were completed at work too. But we’re not here to judge. No, no. We’re merely sharing the data. You can almost hear the echoes of TGIFF: Thank God it’s #FollowFriday. Speaking of which...

Ringing in the weekend, 62% said that they’ve posted a #FollowFriday list at least once, but only 8% responded that they participate in the meme weekly. But Micah Baldwin’s efforts were not in vain. A substantial 68% claim that they’ve followed another user because of a #FollowFriday recommendation.

So, we’ve established how often you tweet and where you do it, but how do you do it? A hefty 78% use a method other than the Twitter website. The big winners were third-party applications like TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop, and HootSuite, accounting for 60% of the responses. Taking the party on the road, 15% rely on a mobile app as their primary means of giving us the bird.

Speaking of third-party apps, picture sharing has clearly made its way into the mainstream. Two-thirds of our tweeps use a service to share photos on Twitter, with 17% of the total users also contributing some video love. This question brought to light an interesting trend: While some users post photos, but not videos, none of those surveyed share videos without also sharing pics. It seems as though picture sharing is a gateway drug to video sharing.

A staggering 89% of those surveyed use a URL-shortening service to share links. That’s a lot of characters banished to the Island of Misfit URL’s. And characters weren’t the only ones banished. Over 90% of our tweeps have unfollowed another user at least once. Auf Wiedersehen! And don’t expect our survey-takers to follow you just because you follow them. Eight out of ten said that they don’t follow back all of their followers.

Next, we moved into the science of followers vs. following. Surprisingly, the results were pretty even across the board. Take a look:

The majority of users either follow more people than they have following them or their ratio is nearly equivalent. With that in mind, it’s understandable that 65% of those surveyed said that the number of followers they have is not at all important to them. Only 6% acknowledged that it was very important. I think this shows how differently people use Twitter. Some like to share content; others like to peruse it. To each their own.

How important are looks? 72% of respondents occasionally change the aesthetics of their profile page. While this could be a holdover from their MySpace days, it’s more likely that folks just like to have a presence on Twitter that’s as unique as they are. But how unique are they? 46% of those responding have used a Twitter grading service on themselves to find out. Ironically, only 33% have used one on another user. I can’t think of a funny word that combines narcissism and Twitter. Insert your own here.

To wrap up the survey, we wanted to discover the other ways that Twitter users utilize the social web. While its popularity is not in question, an incredible 95% of those responding also have a Facebook account. Maybe even more remarkable is the fact that 78% also use LinkedIn. The network (which is more geared toward professional use) outpaced MySpace by more than double. Social sites outside of the “Big Three” also topped the one-time juggernaut, further signaling the sharp decline of MySpace’s popularity.

That “Other” category likely includes social bookmarking sites like Delicious, StumpleUpon, and reddit. Six out of ten tweeps use those services at least occasionally, with over a quarter indicating that they contribute linkage frequently. Last, but not least: blogs. Three-quarters of those surveyed maintain a personal blog or website. Of those responding, 49% update their blogs frequently. Feedburner has its hands full.

To close things out, we asked, “Is there anything else you’d like to share?” Many of the comments were kudos on the launch of the Spoke website. But beyond the much-appreciated kind words, there was some delightful commentary. One user wanted to learn more about Twitter grading services. Personally, I use Twitter Grader frequently, but their methodology in determining a “score” is a little hazy. For more detailed analytics, Twitter Analyzer and Twitalyzer (two different services) offer more stats than you can shake a stick at. To get a better look at how frequently a user tweets, who they’re tweeting, and when, take a peek at TweetStats.

Another friend of Spoke asked which Blackberry application we would recommend for updating both Twitter and Facebook. As none of us are Blackberry users (the others at Spoke frequently remind me of their iPhones’ superiority to my Windows Mobile device), I redirected the question to the most Blackberry-usin’, tweetin’ Facebooker I know: Mashable’s Events Director, Brett Petersel. Presently, Mr. Petersel is using SocialScope for all of his mobile updating needs, so I’d say it’s worth a look.

While the survey was intended to educate us, it looks like we weren’t the only ones learning from it. One user said, “Yikes – just realized that I’m not at all using Twitter to its max potential. Thanks for quantifying that!” I think that’s true of most of us. If the survey brought that to light, we’re glad we could help!

If there’s one thing we know about the social web, it’s that everyone perceives things differently. One person remarked, “Isn’t this survey skewed by defaulting each question to the first choice?” Another offered, “You really know your Twitter user. I almost didn’t have to change anything.” While I’d love to take credit for having a deep understanding of the average Twitter user, the truth is much less glamorous. The service we use to generate these surveys requires that one radio button be selected by default (in compliance with W3C specifications, although all rules have exceptions). But it is a good example of how differently we view things.

Finally, Spoke would like to thank everyone who participated in the survey. You’ve given us a peek inside the minds of a Twitter user, which is much akin to opening Pandora’s Box. Thank you also for your interest in our findings. If you’re reading this at work, we apologize for interrupting your Twitter time.

Feel free to download all results in graph form: Spoke_TwitterSurvey09.doc (1.3Mb)

by Mark Pannell