Twitter has 126m monetisable daily active users

"Q4 was a strong finish to 2018 with revenue up 24% year-over-year, reflecting better-thanexpected performance across most products and geographies. We delivered GAAP net
income of $255 million, net margin of 28%, adjusted EBITDA of $397 million, and adjusted
EBITDA margin of 44%.
Our focus on improving the health of the public conversation on Twitter delivered promising results in 2018, with a 16% year-over-year decrease in abuse reports from people who had an interaction with their alleged abuser on Twitter, and enforcement on reported content that was 3X more effective.
We made a number of product improvements in the fourth quarter, including making it easier to see the latest Tweets when people want to see what’s happening in the moment.
Average monetizable DAU* (mDAU) were 126 million in Q4, up 9% year-over-year, with double-digit growth in five out of our top 10 global markets."
Source:  Twitter's Q4 & Fiscal Year 2018 Letter to Shareholders, 7th February 2019

More than 70,000 Twitter users are blocking major brands on Twitter

"More than 71,000 Twitter users have started blocking hundreds of major brands, including Nike, Pepsi, Uber and McDonald's, in a boycott aimed at putting pressure on the social platform to permanently ban Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracy theorist and InfoWars host, according to a report in Adweek.
Blocking brands could limit the reach of their promoted tweets and other ads from showing up on users' timelines. Other brands being blocked include Red Bull, Starbucks, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Visa and Capital One."

Source:  Marketing Dive, 17th August 2018

Note - If you block someone on Twitter you won't see their tweets, even their paid/promoted tweets.

Social media usage by American teens

Source:  Pew Research Center's Teens, Social Media & Technology Report 2018, 31st May 2018
Note - YouTube should not be included in this list in my view.  It's unlike the others in that you can use it without having an account

Amazon's ad revenue is the same as Twitter and Snap combined

"Advertising is still just a small piece of Amazon’s growing empire. But “small” is relative. In 2017, the company’s ad business generated $2.8 billion, making it bigger than the ad platforms managed by Twitter ($2 billion) and Snap ($800 million). Only three online ad platforms outrank Amazon’s: Google, Facebook, and Oath.
The bulk of Amazon’s ad revenue is generated by placements within Amazon.com. For example, sellers pay to appear in search results, or display custom banners above the results. Some, like toy company Melissa & Doug, shell out additional dollars for custom Amazon home pages. But the retail conglomerate has also started to explore ad placements across the wider web, as well as within Alexa and Prime Video. Marketers, drawn by Amazon’s wealth of shopper data, have been eager to experiment. Last spring, WPP acquired an Amazon-focused consultancy."

Source:  FastCompany, 29th January 2018

BuzzFeed's live morning show AM to DM is getting about 1m viewers each day

"Twitter’s making a big push into live video, with deals for pro sports, talk shows, network TV premieres and more. But what does a real newscast look like if you rethink it for Twitter? BuzzFeed’s AM to DM offers a possible answer — and it’s a fun one.
I should say up front that I’m super-biased here, even by the debased standards of media writing about media. One of the show’s hosts, Saeed Jones, was my roommate a few years ago, while the other, Isaac Fitzgerald, is a close friend. (He was the one who suggested that Jones and I should live together.)
Still, I was far from the only one watching after the show premiered last week. AM to DM was trending on Twitter, reaching No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 4 globally. In fact, BuzzFeed says the show averaged about 1 million unique viewers each day, with clips being viewed a total of 10 million times. And it’s a young audience, with 78 percent of daily live viewers under 35."

Source:  TechCrunch, 4th October 2017

Note - Not exactly sure of what counts as a viewer - would someone scrolling past a re-tweet count?
See AM2DM here

What happens in an Internet Minute in 2017

Source:  Created by Lori Lewis and Chadd Callahan of Cumulus Media, and featured in the WEF's blog, 31st August 2017

Twitter's Q2 ad revenue fell 8% Y-o-Y; Ad engagements rose 95% Y-o-Y

"In Q2, product contributions to Twitter’s engagement and audience growth continued to increase. Monthly active usage (MAU) increased 5% year-over-year [to 328m] and daily active usage (DAU) increased 12% yearover-year, marking the third consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.
• Underlying business fundamentals also improved. We saw an improvement in the year-over-year growth rate for total revenue (relative to Q1), driven by accelerating year-over-year growth in our data products, continued strong growth in video with a very strong debut at the 2017 Digital Content NewFronts, and an improvement in the yearover-year growth rate for owned-and-operated (O&O) revenue.
• Finally, we achieved greater operating efficiency. Our GAAP net loss was $116 million. Excluding a $55 million cost-method investment impairment charge, we would have made progress toward GAAP profitability and further reduced our GAAP net loss. We also delivered better-than-expected adjusted EBITDA margins in Q2, despite the yearover-year decline in revenue.
Specifically, in Q2, we achieved the following results:
• Q2 revenue totaled $574 million, a decrease of 5% year-over-year.
• Advertising revenue totaled $489 million, a decrease of 8% year-over-year.
• Data licensing and other revenue totaled $85 million, an increase of 26% year-over-year.
• US revenue totaled $335 million, a decrease of 7% year-over-year.
• International revenue totaled $239 million, a decrease of 1% year-over-year.
• Total ad engagements increased 95% year-over-year.
• Cost per engagement (CPE) decreased 53% year-over-year."
Source:  Twitter's Q2 Letter to Shareholders, 27th July 2017

#NuggsForCarter is the most Retweeted Tweet of all time

"It’s official. Carter Wilkerson’s (@carterjwm) call for a year’s supply of free nuggets from @Wendys has become the Tweet heard around the world. With 3.42M Retweets, it has officially surpassed Ellen’s infamous selfie as the most Retweeted Tweet of all time."
Source:  Twitter blog, 9th May 2017

Top 3 - 

Nuggs For Carter - 3.6m

Ellen Selfie - 3.4m

Louis Tomlinson - 2.5m

Estimated ARPU from advertising for Google, Facebook, Twitter & Snapchat

"Following our recent analysis that Facebook is closing the gap on TV advertising, Ampere research also suggests that Facebook is also approaching Google. Across the various global online advertising players, Google is closest to TV on the ARPU measure, currently making about $7 each quarter for each monthly active user (MAU) from advertising on its sites. Thus, it really isn't far behind TV, where the average viewer is responsible for between $10 and $11 of advertising revenue per quarter.
In contrast, Twitter has been struggling to grow its revenue per MAU, which is fairly stable at about $2. Snapchat has been the big success story of recent quarters. Although it lags other players in terms of revenue per MAU, Snapchat been very active in beginning to monetise its customer base more aggressively. It has increased revenue from practically $0 per quarter per MAU to $0.70 in less than two years.
It may be in second position now, but when it comes to ARPU, Facebook advertising has been rapidly closing the gap on Google’s lead. In Q1 2015, Facebook made $2.3 per MAU. Google made about $5. By the end of 2016, Facebook had more than doubled its number to nearly $5 per MAU in advertising revenue."
Source:  Blog post from Ampere Analysis, 4th May 2017

Hashtags appeared in 30% of Super Bowl ads in 2017, down from 57% in 2014

Hashtags appeared in 30% of Super Bowl ads in 2017, down from a high of 57% in 2014 https://t.co/84rr0dWFV6 https://t.co/A4kw8sp7u7

— Techmeme (@Techmeme) February 7, 2017

6.8m people watched President Trump's Inauguration on Twitter

6.8M unique viewers tuned in to Twitter and PBS @Newshour's #Inauguration livestream https://t.co/1LvYc6VU1j

— Twitter Government (@gov) January 24, 2017

The #Inauguration was a top global trend on Twitter with 12 million Tweets sent and peaked at 58k Tweets per minute at 12:02pm EST.

— Twitter Government (@gov) January 24, 2017

The broadcast peaked at 377,000 concurrent viewers at approximately 12:15 p.m. ET as @POTUS took the oath of office.

— Twitter Government (@gov) January 24, 2017

More than 2m people watched the first live NFL Twitter stream

"The NFL just released numbers on last night’s debut of NFL’s Thursday Night Football on Twitter, and they are pretty damn good.
More than 2M people watched the game on Twitter, compared to 48M who watched it on TV. The average user also spent 22 minutes watching on Twitter, compared to 25 minutes watching on TV (which is the only stat that is almost identical).
More specifically, an average of 243,000 people were watching on Twitter at any given time, compared to an average of 15.4M watching at once on CBS and NFL Network (the two networks showing the game on cable).
While the numbers seem low compared to cable, it’s actually a pretty big win for the network, which was able to show investors and the rest of the industry that at least some people will actually watch a live streamed game on Twitter.
But perhaps even more important than the numbers was the very positive reaction almost anyone had that watched the game. Thousands of people (including myself) took to Twitter to share how impressed they were with the quality of the stream – even over LTE or 4G. At certain points Twitter’s stream was even more current than cable, which can lag behind 10 – 15 seconds. Many also commented that the Apple TV viewing experience (which put a timeline next to the stream) was a great way to watch the game."
Source:  Techcrunch, 16th September 2016
Update - Viewing numbers are going up - The week after's game got 2.6m

Twitter has 313m Monthly Active Users

Rising just 3% year on year
Source:  Twitter Q2 2016 earning slides, 26th July 2016
Note - Other stats here in their shareholder letter

Snapchat 'has more daily active users than Twitter'

"Roughly 150 million people use Snapchat each day, making the messaging app more popular than Twitter, according to a Bloomberg report Thursday.
Twitter, by comparison, is estimated to have less than 140 million active daily users, the report said. Bloomberg used an average of analysts' estimates to make the comparison.
Snapchat, which had 110 million daily users in December, is seeing its user base rise because of its popularity with young people, according to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter.
Snapchat didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Twitter declined to comment on the report."

Source:  CNet, 2nd June 2016

The Gates Foundation donated $10 per RT of their Tweet for Red Nose Day

Don't have a red nose? That's ok! For every RT we'll donate $10 toward ending child poverty. #RedNose4Kids pic.twitter.com/pFgi2CrSOx

— Gates Foundation (@gatesfoundation) May 19, 2016

Note - it was to a limit of $1m, and they added an extra $500k

Wow! Thanks for your support! We hit our goal so quickly, we've decided to add an additional $500K (for a total of $1.5mill) to this effort.

— Gates Foundation (@gatesfoundation) May 20, 2016

Twitter's Quarterly Revenue rose 37% Y-o-Y in Q1 2016

Source:  Twitter's Q1 2016 Results, released 26th April 2016
Shareholder Letter
Charts

Instagram has more advertisers than Twitter

"2015 was a big year for Instagram’s advertising business. It rolled out new ad formats that could contain links, expanded the length of its video ads and, most importantly, made it easier for advertisers of any size — and increasingly anywhere — to buy its ads and target those ads.
Seemingly as a result of all those moves, Instagram now claims more than 200,000 active advertisers as of February 2016, the Facebook-owned photo-and-video-sharing service announced on Wednesday. That number may pale in comparison to Instagram’s parent company — Facebook claims more than 2.5 million advertisers — but it trumps Twitter, which had more than 130,000 active advertisers as of the fourth quarter of 2015.
The comparison between Instagram’s and Twitter’s advertiser numbers isn’t an entirely fair one. Twitter has built its advertising business on its own, while Instagram has been able to stand on Facebook’s shoulders. For example, advertisers can buy ads on Instagram using the same self-serve tools from Facebook that they use to buy ads on the larger social network and with the same level of targeting Facebook offers. But still, at the end of the day, more advertisers is more advertisers."

Source;  MarketingLand, 24th February 2016

A third of US Pizza Hut orders during the Super Bowl were made on mobile [+ other stats]

""Pizza Hut enjoyed record-breaking sales on the day of the Super Bowl, with orders coming from mobile devices representing approximately one-third of total sales, underscoring consumer demand for on-the-go food purchases during major sporting events.
The quick service restaurant chain reaped the rewards of the growing shift toward mobile ordering during Sunday’s big game, with smartphone-enabled sales accounting for one-third of total sales. Pizza Hut’s single-day digital sales record bodes well for its competitors, especially if food and beverage brands are wise enough to market to consumers during significant cultural or sporting events that typically involve plenty of get-togethers."

Source:  Mobile Commerce Daily, 10th February 2016

Other Super Bowl 2016 stats:

82% of Super Bowl searches happened on mobile

Flurry looks at app usage during the game - (lowest when Beyonce performs as people put down their phones)

2nd highest overnight ratings for CBS

Big drop in number of tweets and Facebook engagements - boring game?

Twitter has 130,000 active advertisers

"In Q4, we reached 130,000 active advertisers, up almost 90% year over year, driven by our small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) initiatives. We expect that SMB growth will continue as we improve our product, making it faster and easier to run campaigns and improve our direct response tools. "
Source:  Twitter's Q4 2015 Results statement, 10th February 2016

Twitter's US Monthly Active Users fell in Q4 2015

Source:  Twitter's Q4 2015 earning slides, 10th February 2016
MAUs