Record Twitter use in the Nordics

Recent statistics reveal near-explosive growth for Twitter in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. The social network might just get too big to ignore anymore.

Twitter has long been described as “small, but elite” – a networking tool for the chattering classes consisting mainly of journalists, politicians, and business professionals. Not so anymore:

• More than half of Sweden’s near 300.000 Twitter accounts have been created during the past year, according to the Swedish Twitter census released by Intellecta Corporate today. The number of accounts has tripled since the last census a year ago, and more than half of the accounts have tweeted in the last month.
• Twitter in Norway has doubled in size over the past two years, and now counts 11 percent of the population among the users. 410.000 Norwegians logged on weekly in the first quarter of 2012, according to stats from analytics agency TNS Gallup released last week.
• In Denmark, the number of Twitter accounts is almost doubled from late 2010 to the end of 2011, according to this beautiful infographic by Atcore and Overskrift.dk.

Swedish Twitter acounts over time. Graphics by Intellecta Corporate.

Kids lead the way

The statistics say little about possible reasons for Twitter’s growth over the past year. I can really only speak for the Norwegian Twitterverse, but my impression is that Twitter has gone mainstream. Younger users (under 30 y.o.) account for the majority of new users.

One contributing factor may be local celebrities’ use of the social network. National broadcasters NRK and TV2 have also embraced Twitter, particularly in their sports coverage. And national and international media have brought stories of Twitter as the arena for following international stars from various arenas – music, movies, sports, or politics.

Watch out!

Whatever the reasons for the recent growth spurt, Twitter is obviously a network worth keeping an eye on in the Nordics. I’ll keep my eye out for new data from Finland and Iceland as well.

In the meantime, enjoy this really interesting and fun graph from the Swedish Twitter census, where you can search for different Twitter users and see their place in the national Twitter hierarchy. Enjoy!

(Thanks to the wonderful Hanne Klintøe for sending me the Danish infographic!)