Source: LabourStart/CALM
The international trade union online news service, LabourStart, has conducted a survey of union activists asking who uses Twitter.
Twitter is a free online social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as “tweets.” Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers.
LabourStart’s survey got responses from 1,593 trade unionists around the world. The largest group of respondents came from the U.K. with 360, followed by Canada with 333, the USA with 305) and Australia with 270.
Fewer than a third of those responding had an account with Twitter (31.1 per cent). Only 9.1 per cent frequently send out tweets, while 15.4 per cent sometimes send them. Only 99 of the 1,593 respondents frequently tweet about union issues and double that number occasionally do.
Forty said they signed up to “Twibe”—the union twitterers’ group; 285 said they’d never heard of Twibe but quickly signed up, resulting in a sudden increase in twibers.
Only 5.1 per cent of the respondents frequently “re-tweet”—forward other tweeters’ messages. Only 1.8 per cent does this for tweets sent out by LabourStart. A majority—56 per cent—didn’t know if their union used Twitter. Thirty per cent said their union didn’t use Twitter, while fewer than 15 per cent say their union does.
The respondents use other social networks, including Facebook (75.7 per cent), YouTube (37.1 per cent), UnionBook (18.1 per cent) and Flickr (11.7 per cent). The number using other social networks like Bebo, MySpace, Delicious, Second Life and Digg was tiny—less than six per cent.