Who uses twitter in Nigeria?

June 7, 2010 by Albert Njoku

I have been investigating the reach of twitter.com in Nigeria. The hype is too loud to ignore. Being on twitter is not only cool but can be very beneficial to a business. Twitter has not only been a service to use but an idea to copy or emulate as well. The evidence is in a plethora of Nigeria themed twitter clones. The 140 character blog platform is the rave of the moment.

The benefits of using twitter are too many to mention. Apart from being a massive means of cascading information quickly to friends, business partners and the general public, twitter is

1. an invaluable business tool - good for advertising, good for selling. Many affiliate marketers use twitter to promote their products. Amazon.com's affiliate arm - Amazon Associates allow members post links directly to twitter.

2. a means to earn a living. Blogs, apps, mashups, services etc. many of them have sprung up around twitter. For example, sponsored tweets, an advert platform, pays you to tweet PPC adverts to your followers.

3. Politicians, media houses, celebrities etc can use it keep followers or fans informed.

4. As said earlier building applications or blogging about twitter has provided work for many people.

5. Twitter can also be a real pain. Cases abound of people releasing certain information they later regretted.

Back to the topic. Who uses twitter in Nigeria? According to alexa.com, twitter is the 11th most accessed website in Nigeria behind the likes of facebook, Google, Yahoo etc. My findings helped me form a demographic analysis of the typical twitter user in Nigeria. They are:

Mostly between 25 to 45 years old. They mostly dont have kids yet (young and unmarried). They mostly access the internet at their workplace (or from cafes). Although the gender demarcation is not that much, more of them are women. Per day, they view an average 6 pages while spending up to 8 minutes at a time on the site.

Users By Age
Nigerian twitter users generally fall between 18 to 44 years old. The highest age group being those between 25 to 44 years. The elder citizens from 45 and above are not impressed by twitter. No surprise there. The pre dotcom age group find these online antics bewildering.

Users By Gender

The numbers are balanced here with the ladies having a slight edge. Quite a surprise to me.

Nigerians without children are most likely to tweet. This agrees with the first graph showing young people (not yet married) are most likely users of twitter.

Users by Location

People are most likely to use the office computer for their tweeting. Sending tweets from the mobile phone incures charges so they wait till they get to the free office computer. Could this also be bacause people most likely to have computer access only at the work place more than at home? Its still very expensive owning a broadband anc computer connection at home. Am assuming internet cafes have been grouped under the "work" category. The least likely place people tweet from is in the schools. No surprises there. Twitter on its own, for an under 18, may not be as appealing as youtube or facebook.

Time spent online
The average Nigerian twitter user spends around 8 minutes per day on the site. During this time, he browses through the equivalent of over 6 pages.