NPR has released the results of a survey of its Twitter followers, which also incorporates the results of its earlier survey of NPR fans on Facebook. The NPR Twitter survey was fielded between August 25 and September 9, 2010, promoting it through its main Twitter accounts. A total of 12,227 respondents began the survey and 10,244 of them completed it. Among the respondents, 54% were women while 46% were men; with a median age of 35, respondents skewed younger than both NPR radio listeners (median age: 50) and NPR Facebook fans (median age: 40).
Amongst other findings, the survey shows that NPR’s Twitter followers tend to be more avid consumers of news on a variety of digital platforms:
- NPR Twitter followers interact with NPR content on a daily basis, in ratios similar to those of Facebook fans.
- NPR Twitter followers get most or all of their news online – even more so than NPR Facebook fans. 77% of respondents in the Twitter survey said they get most or all of their news online; 61% of Facebook fans answered the same way.
- NPR Twitter followers want more hard-hitting, breaking news. Respondents were asked whether they wanted to see NPR posting more content related to various topics. On Facebook, the topic that got the highest percentage of people wanting more of it was “offbeat news,” followed by “hard news/breaking news,” “events that are in progress,” “international news” and “stories about interesting people.” Among Twitter users, however, “hard news/breaking news” rated the highest, quickly followed by “events that are in progress.” In contrast, “offbeat stories” came in at third place on Twitter, compared with first place on Facebook.
- NPR Twitter followers listen to NPR over the radio a little less than its Facebook fans, but more of them use NPR’s digital services platforms. 39% of Twitter followers use NPR podcasts, compared with 29% of Facebook fans. 32% of Twitter followers use the NPR iPhone app, compared to 19% for Facebook. For Android phones, it’s 11% among Twitter users and 5% on Facebook. And for the NPR iPad app, it’s 7% of Twitter users vs. 3% of Facebook users.
NPR’s summary of the survey & SlideShare presentation.
