Marketing Pilgrim

Two recent reports illustrate the power of Twitter in two important metrics—driving visits and purchasing power. Hitwise analyzes overall downstream traffic for Twitter, while NPD Group takes a look at downstream purchases generated by Twitter.

Hitwise took a look at the most popular categories of downstream traffic for Twitter, comparing them with Facebook, Google UK and Hotmail. Nearly a quarter of Twitter’s downstream traffic goes to entertainment sites, and another ~15% went to social networks:

Source: Hitwise

Interestingly, Twitter also leads in downstream traffic to news & media sites, lifestyle sites and music sites—and, taken with a new study from NPD Group, that’s good news for the music industry. As Reuters reports:

active Twitter users buy 77 percent more digital music downloads on average than non-users. Additionally, 12 percent of those who have bought music in the last three months also report having used Twitter, versus 8 percent of overall Web users.

And that’s not all the good news for the music industry. NPD also found that:

• A third of Twitter users listened to music on a social network
• 41% of Twitter users listened to online radio—compared to 22% of all Internet users
• 39% of Tweeple watched a music video online—compared to 25% of all Internet users.
• Twitterers were more than twice as likely as average Internet users to visit MySpace Music or Pandora.

But is all that translating into revenue for record companies? Oh yeah:

• 33% of Twitter users bought a CD in the last three months—compared to 23% of all web users
• 34% purchased a digital download—compared to 16% of all Internet users
• On average, Tweeple purchased 77% more digital downloads—obviously, Twitterers spent more money when purchasing music.

Clearly, Twitter users are likely to click on music-related links and translate that action into purchases. What do you think—what should the music industry do to get more mentions on Twitter?

Image credit: Twitter bird