Should Twitter be the Social Media Focus?

Perhaps brands should be focusing their social media efforts on Twitter users.

According to a study from Chadwick Martin Bailey, Twitter users are more likely to read brand tweets, as well as recommend and buy from brands that they follow. The study reveals that Twitter users are the most frequent Internet users, with over half of the Twitter-user respondents claiming that they go online more than once per hour, compared to 34 percent of Facebook users and 29 percent of overall online users.

The findings also conclude that Twitter users are more interactive with the brands they follow, with 79 percent following fewer than 10 brands, 75 percent never "un-following" a brand, 64 percent following a brand because they are a customer, 84 percent actually reading brand tweets, 23 percent tweeting about brands and 60 percent willing to recommend a brand after they have followed it.

And this Twitter "loyal-to-brand" trend may be in its early stages, because 38 percent of the survey respondents have only been on Twitter for six months or less. Additionally, 57 percent of respondents claim to interact with brands more this year than last year.

Further statistics reveal that Twitter users under 35 are more likely, at 26 percent, to follow brands than older users - compared to 17 percent of 35- to 49 year-olds and 13 percent of users that are 50 and older.

And while half of Twitter users are more likely to buy from a brand after following it, this doesn't mean brands can send out boring Tweets. So get your creative juices flowing, because 67 percent of followers are expecting unique content from the brands that they follow.