Our Twitter Data Dive

To make this a fair test, we calculated the percentage of Tweets per capita for each location to determine a percentage ranking per capita. This prevented larger cities from taking the ‘Top Tweeters’ title purely based on their size – that’s right; we always give the little guy a chance. By quantifying the value of the Twitter data per capita, we could see who had the loudest mouths on Twitter based on the percentage of Twitter engagement compared to their population.

Top 10 Tweeters

Cambridge take the title of the location who can talk for Britain! With 27,404 Tweets in 24 hours, Cambridge saw the highest Twitter ranking per capita. Shockingly, their most-used device bucked the iPhone trend, as this ruling UK Tweeting location opted for sharing their thoughts and opinions via the Twitter website, direct from desktop.

Hot on their tails were kings of the North, Manchester. This industrial powerhouse sent out an eye-watering 553,230 Tweets, with #mufc and #mancity being their most used hashtags.

Next in the running were Oxford, unlucky for them Cambridge pipped them to the post once again! However, all is not lost in this Oxbridge rivalry for Oxford as they beat the ‘Bridge in average Tweet length with an average 116 characters per Tweet – perhaps suggesting that Oxford Tweeters provide a better quality of Tweet?

Liverpool secures fourth place and also demonstrate their dedication to their football team with #lfc topping the trending hashtags for the Scousers. Surprisingly, Norwich takes the fifth position with #trump dominating their conversations.

With 229,700 Tweets, Brighton secure sixth place, including a high rate of retweeted content. Retweets amounted for 41% of Brighton’s Twitter activity, could this demonstrate a lack of original ideas? Or a location concerned with sharing relevant and trending content?

The Scots come into the game at position seven, with Edinburgh sending 55,331 Tweets, amounting to approximately one tenth of their population Tweeting. Could Edinburgh be the vainest Tweeting location? They just love talking about themselves, with top hashtags being #Edinburgh and #Scotland. Patriotism to the core.

Bristol swoops in to take the eighth position, and they’re pretty concerned about #covid19 – perhaps the most relatable hashtag of 2020. Then bringing up the rear in ninth and tenth position were some unexpected areas. Motherwell showcased their Scottish power with their Tweets per capita taking ninth place, and Redhill has a Twitter storm among their 34,000 residence, beating the likes of London, Birmingham and Glasgow.

As for the other UK capital cities, the big smoke delivered a massive 283,416 Tweets in 24 hours, making them the largest volume of Tweets – but, with a population of nearing 9,000,000 this is hardly surprising. However, per capita, 0.03% of Londoner’s Tweeted during our analysis.

Unfortunately, Cardiff must have been asleep during our data analysis as we only detected 370 Tweets!? What’s up Cardiff? Stranger still, Belfast only delivered 23 Tweets, a totally baffling statistic which spun the analysis team into a whirl.

But who’s the most popular location to follow?

Manchester win the title of most popular location with an average following of 10,236! Do you think they deserve the title of most popular location? 

The shortest Tweet length was found in York, with an average character count of 72. On the flipside, southern heartlands Oxford and Cambridge battled it out for longest Tweet length ranking 116 and 109 average characters respectfully – clearly the essay length writing isn’t just confined to university.

The league table showed a stark North/South divide, adding an interesting insight into the stereotype of Southerners stringing out their sentences!

Twitter verification means a user is of “public interest” and tend to have a large following of users who actively engage with the verified user’s Tweets. The data analysis indicated that Northern locations have a higher percentage of verified accounts, with Halifax and Harrogate taking the top positions with 4.8 and 4.2 per cent of verified accounts. This was a massive increase on London, which held just 1.40 per cent of verified account among its users.

Twitter isn’t renowned for being a social imagery sharing platform, but with the new Fleet update perhaps this is all about to change. However, ahead of the Fleets update, some areas were ahead of the curve and included imagery in their Tweets. The most visual area being Guilford, with 24% of their Tweets, including an image – seems fitting for this beautiful English town.

The Apple Vs Android Battle

The battle of Apple vs Android is fought across the country, and our data analysis adds some more fuel to the fire as there was a clear device user preference when it comes to Twitter.

The data analysis showed the majority of Tweets come from iPhone users across the UK. iPhone reigned supreme as the chosen device of Tweeters in all but 3 of the sampled cities, with a massive 525,992 Tweets being sent from an iPhone device.  This amounts to 44% of all UK Tweets being sent from an iPhone. Android, in comparison, saw just 29% of UK Tweets being sent from their devices.

This trend goes against Statista’s 2019 review, which indicated that Android had a slightly higher market share of 50.15 per cent against Apple, proving that the race for top position is very tight. However, with Twitter users overwhelmingly choosing Apple, does this signify a shift in the device popularity race? Or, perhaps Apple is the preferred device for social media users?

So, who were the 3 anomalies? Well, Chelmsford are going to be in Android’s good books as this Essex town was the only area where Android topped the table. Of Chelmsford’s 2,529 Tweets 906 came from an Android device, making them Android’s biggest UK Twitter fan.

As for the other two outliers, they bucked the trend completely. Oxford and Cambridge, the two locations synonymous with British tradition and education, accessed Twitter predominantly through the web, suggesting a preference for desktop usage.

The power of a direct @ for Twitter users to contact their most loved, or most hated, accounts is one of the best features of this social platform. Our data analysis showed that the most ‘at-ed’ account was… you guessed it…. Twitter’s most begrudged user – Donald Trump.

Us Brits are clearly drawn into the American political whirlwind, with 7,492 Tweets being sent to @realdonaldtrump from UK Twitter accounts. As for our own political storm, @borisjohnsoncomes in at ninth place with 3202 mentions. This proves that Twitter’s original aim of creating a social media focused on current affairs commentary remains strong. 

In any other year, it wouldn’t be surprising to see two northern football powerhouse clubs, Manchester United and Liverpool FC, ranking highly in the top trending British hashtags. But 2020 hasn’t been any other year. In the year where our worlds were turned upside down by the uncertainty of COVID-19, the British public still did not lose sight of what keeps so many of us ticking – the beautiful game. Our analysis into trending conversations across the UK shows that COVID-19 has not defined us, and in true ‘keep calm and carry on’ fashion, British Twitter has stuck to what it loves and knows best; showing that our love of football trumps the fear of COVID.

Sticking to what we love is a theme which continued in this hashtag analysis with #nowplaying and a tag to the American Music Awards dominating our conversations and demonstrating our connection with music. Better still, #ns10v10, a community hashtag linking to No Signal, a radio station dedicated to playing black artists took the third highest position – yet again, beating the topic of COVID-19. This analysis shows that at the heart of British conversations lies shared interests, hobbies and communities bought together by the arts and sports to unite in the face of uncertainty.

How do you feel about your UK Tweet Your Heart out location ranking? Tell us on Twitter @AbsoluteDMedia

For more information, call a member of our expert team today on 0800 088 6000.

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