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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!)
Danish sports success triggers Twitter activity
Perhaps not that surprising, but an amusing statistic nonetheless: Twitter interest in sports increases with national success.
Danish blog Overskrift.dk has tracked Twitter activity related to the men’s handball team’s success in the European handball championship. And the stats connected to Twitter hashtag #emdk show that success and interest go hand in hand:
Throughout the first few matches, which Denmark lost, activity was quite low. But as the team got into the playoff, Twitter activity increased. During the final, Twitter in Denmark all but exploded with enthusiasm and national rejoicing.
Statistics compiled and presented by overskrift.dk
Norwegian crown princess joins Twitter
Norway’s popular crown princess Mette-Marit joined Twitter this Friday, having tweeted irregularly at the official crown prince and princess’ account @Kronprinsparet for over a year.
Crown prince Haakon himself announced his wife’s new Twitter presence from the @Kronprinsparet account, tweeting that “the missis now has her own Twitter account. Follow her!” on Friday.
12,000 followers in a day
And a lot of Twitter users have followed his lead – in the day since the crown princess announced her presence in the Twitterverse, she has amassed over 12,000 followers. She profiles herself as “a proud mother of three & dedicated book worm”.
Screen shot of crown princess Mette-Marit's Twitter profile page.
Tweets herself
Crown princess Mette-Marit says on Twitter that she does all her tweeting herself, and is already engaging in conversation with other Twitter users – and using hashtags. Today, she celebrated the 8th birthday of her daughter, princess Ingrid Alexandra, by tweeting her a link to the poem “A Note” by Polish poet Wislava Szymborska.
The Norwegian crown prince and princess have been using social media for their humanitary and royal duties for a few years, and hired a social media advisor back in 2010.
Any other Nordic royal family members or dignitaries on Twitter or Facebook? Leave me a hint in the comments section!
Twitter launches Danish, Finnish, Norwegian version
In a quiet tweet in the nighttime (Scandinavian nighttime, that is), Twitter has announced the launch of a Danish, Norwegian, and Finnish language edition:
I am trying to get my hands on a complete list over available languages, and will update this asap.
This adds to the growing list of social media services available in Nordic languages, following the inclusion of Swedish in the LinkedIn language community last month.
UPDATE:
I have been researching the reactions to the new Nordic Twitter versions from users.
Norway:
A few users in Norway are quite vocal in their dislike of the translation – or, rather, of the translation method.
The new translations have been crowdsourced, and terms have been suggested and voted on by the users themselves. This has caused some rather peculiar translations and frequent angloisms in the Norwegian version.
For instance, the “favorite” function (as in: @username just favorited your tweet) has been translated into “@username favoriserte din tweet”. (In Norwegian, the verb “favorisere” means something slightly different than “marking as a favorite” – it’s more or less the verb for giving someone special treatment.) Other important elements of Twitter, such as the Retweet function, haven’t been translated at all – it’s still called retweeting in Norwegian, when the term for forwarding something (the term used for emails) is suggested by several users as a preferable term.
A user who has been involved in the translation tweets that the crowdsourcing has been frustrating, and feels that several good suggestions for translations have been rejected.
“You’d think Twitter could afford to hire professional help,” tweets Pål Nedregotten, head of digital development at Norwegian media house A-pressen.
Other users are pleased with the Norwegian launch, but say they wish the “trending topic” list would add a Norwegian filter soon.
Denmark/Finland:
My Twitter network is much larger in Norway than in Denmark or Finland. But I have been on the lookout for user reactions to “new Twitter”. So far, reactions are neutral or non-existent, according to my sources.
“Not much talk about Danish Twitter yet, and reactions are mostly neutral,” tweets Danish new media journalist Ernst Poulsen when I ask.
I will update this post again if I come across more Danish reactions or hear from my Finnish contacts. In the meantime: Have you seen your local-language Twitter edition? What do you think of it?
@Sweden now controlled by the Swedish people
The people of Sweden have officially taken over the @Sweden Twitter account, according to Mashable. This is not the result of a digital coup, but applauded by the Swedish government.
The Swedish people - here represented by cheering soccer fans - now control their own Twitter destiny. (Photo: andregustavo on Flickr/CC-BY-2.0)
The @Sweden handle has been controlled by the national tourist agency, VisitSweden, since 2009. But through the project Curators of Sweden, the Twitterverse presence of Sweden is now handed over to the people. A string of different contributors will portray the national character online.
- No one owns the brand of Sweden more than its people. With this initiative we let them show their Sweden to the world, VisitSweden CEO Thomas Brühl said to Mashable.
The curators have been chosen because they represent Sweden’s values and skills, such as gay rights, fashion, design and innovation. Among the chosen are an ad agency founder who owns a farm, a suburban writer, a priest, a teacher and a coffee-drinking lesbian trucker.
I look forward to following the @Sweden account and will be sure to add it to my Twitter stream!
UPDATE: Swedish PR blogger Hans Kullin has made an exellent study of some of the recent content on @Sweden. Highly recommended reading – some of it is almost shocking, other items highly amusing.
Record-breaking Twitter traffic: Danish election in social media
The Danish election a week ago gave us a new Danish record: Twitter traffic was driven to new hights, according to the Overskrift.dk blog.Election day, the Danes sent an impressive 28.000 tweets:
Danish Twitter stats in the 30 days leading up to the national explosion, with a new record on election day. Graph courtesy of Overskrift.dk.
The Danish stats also reveal that social democrat leader Helle Thorning Schmith was the subject of more tweets than her rival Lars Løkke Rasmussen. She ousted him as prime minister in this election.
While I don’t automatically believe that the fact that more tweets mentioned “Thorning” than “Løkke” leading up to the election should be interpreted as an indication of the outcome (Thorning-Schmidt was also way ahead in polls), it is certainly an interesting correlation.
Tweets mentioning "Thorning" before the Danish election. Graph: Overskrift.dk
Tweets mentioning "Løkke" before the election. Graph: Overskrift.dk
Thanks to Stefan Bøgh-Andersen for letting me use their wonderful graphs!
Politicians say they love social media – without using them?
Yesterday’s local elections in Norway reveal an interesting little something about the country’s politicians:
Social Media - a dialogue. Photo by US Coastguard on Flickr/CC-BY-2.0
While most politicians say that social media are important parts of their campaign toolboxes, another study reveals that they may not have been using them much at all: Only one in five local candidates say they have used Facebook, and less than 15% report using Twitter (press release in Norwegian).
(There seem to be some irregularities in the numbers quoted in the press release, and I have tweeted the agency responsible in hopes that they will help me understand. I will update this post if I get a response.)
Lots of talking, less dialogue
Having studied the campaign from the sidelines, I must say that my impressions coincide with the survey revealing the less-than-eager attitude from politicians. A lot of them seem to talk about the importance of social media. But I just don’t see a whole lot of dialogue going on.
However, I don’t believe Norwegian politicians are bluffing. They probably do think that social media are very important tools, they are just not that used to actually putting them to use. And, like the CEO of agency Agendum says in the press release, many politicians probably don’t quite get the amount of work social media take to get any kind of dialogue going.
Also, many politicians may feel that their campaign has a stronger presence in social media than their personal efforts reveal, since local party organizations may be running campaign initiatives online.
Talk the talk or walk the walk?
So I don’t think the two polls really contradict one another, they just showcase that it’s a long way from talking the talk, i.e. recognizing the value of social media for political campaigns, to actually walking the walk.
These two blog posts about the Norwegian election have been based on smaller surveys. There was a “serious” seminar on the topic at the University of Oslo this PM, and I hope to get details from the research on social media use in the election presented there soon. And, of course, we are eagerly anticipating the Danish election in two days!
Norwegian election: Social media very important to candidates
While the full impact of social media on Monday’s local elections in Norway remains to be explored, the candidates themselves certainly rate Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging among their most valuable tools during the campaign.
Eight in ten see benefits of social media
80 percent of mayoral candidates say that social media are valuable campaign tools, a recent study by PR agency PR-Operatørene and research agency YouGov reveals.
Local Labour party leader in Tana, Finnmark: Per Ivar Henriksen.
- It is very difficult to reach the public with all your viewpoints through the local newspaper, there are limitations to what they will print, says leader of the local Labor party in Tana, Finnmark, mr. Per Ivar Henriksen, to Norwegian website Kampanje (article in Norwegian).
Young voters targeted in social media
According to Henriksen, young candidates and young voters are the most eager users of the local party’s Facebook page. But also a very local candidate in his fifties uses social media to communicate with voters.
The survey by PR-Operatørene and YouGov shows that young voters, particularly first-time voters, are still the main addressees for political activities in social media.
Facebook rules Twitter as political tool
Facebook is the dominant social media for local political parties. Although some candidates are very active on Twitter or blog regularly, 70 % of mayoral candidates think Facebook is more valuable to them than Twitter.
The Tana Labour Party Facebook page has 360 fans, according to Kampanje – that’s more than 10 percent of the population in the municipality, which has 2,900 inhabitants.
- Although Twitter is even better suited for dialogue than Facebook, the Norwegian general public has not quite embraced Twitter. It’s not surprising that mayoral candidates prefer Facebook. Also, many candidates are new users of social media, and Facebook may appear less intimidating than Twitter, says PR advisor Thomas Olsson to Kampanje.
Public or private in social media; a headache for politicians
Perhaps surprisingly, half of the candidates in the survey believe that they can use social media as personal communications tools. This is surprising since Norway has seen several smaller and bigger political “scandals” due to politicians’ use of Facebook.
Most recent is a case where the deputy mayor in a small municipality made racist remarks about Norway’s Eurovision contestant, Stella Mwangi, on Facebook. The politician was rejected as mayoral candidate for her party in Monday’s election after the incident.
The local Labour Party organization in Tana has imposed guidelines for candidates’ social media use.
- We want to make sure we don’t go against party policy, and we want to avoid personal attacks on candidates from other parties, local party leader Henriksen says to Kampanje.
