95% of Twitter Users Have Less than 500 followers

After analyzing more than a billion tweets generated by over 20 million Twitter users, Sysomos concluded that 95 percent of Twitter users have less than 500 followers.

In fact, 32 percent of Twitter users have only 0 to 5 followers and more than half of Twitter users have between 5 to 100 followers. At least, the statistics did improve compared to last year’s.

At the other end of the spectrum, only 0.06 percent have more than 20,000 followers.

With over 300,000 new users joining the service daily, Twitter is facing an uphill battle to keep the community interconnected. A user is likely to be lost if he or she finds it hard to bond with the community. Social networking is only meaningful when you have friends to mingle with. Many new users don’t realize the need to create value for the community. Sharing great thoughts or links are just some examples.

Twitter’s algorithm wouldn’t recommend new users to its community. Only those who have proven that they add value to the community are suggested. The result is a vicious cycle formed. The influential users get more followers (through thought leadership and Twitter suggestions) while new users remain confused about Twitter. Eventually they give up and boldly state that Facebook is a better social-networking site. Of course, what was illustrated above is just a hypothesis.

So, are you one of the 95 percent? What are your thoughts on this?

P.S: For the fun of it, tweet this post with #FollowMePlease