NPD: Twitterers Buy More Music

By  |  Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 2:06 pm

TwitterTo all those dismissals of Twitter as a worthless Web site, the music industry might beg to differ.

A new study by The NPD Group found that Twitterers purchase 77 percent more digital music downloads than other Web users. Put another way by NPD analyst Russ Crupnik, “Twitter users are simply worth more to record labels and music retailers than those who are not using Twitter.”

Not that NPD’s research is all great news for the music industry: Only 23 percent of Web users bought a CD in the last three months, and 16 percent said they bought a digital download. At least there’s a silver lining in the habits of Twitter users, 33 percent of whom bought a CD and 34 percent purchased a music download.

Is there something in the atmosphere of the Twitterverse that beckons the sweet sound of music? Perhaps not; correlation doesn’t imply causation, of course, and NPD avoids suggesting that Twitter is breeds more music buyers.

What NPD does suggest is that Twitter is fertile, yet delicate, marketing ground for the music industry.

“There must be a careful balance struck between entertainment and direct conversation on one hand, and marketing on the other,” Crupnick said. “Used properly Twitter has the power to entertain — and to motivate music fans to purchase more new albums, downloads, merchandise, and concert tickets.”

It’s not clear how the music industry can get on the ground floor of such an operation. There are already plenty of options for sharing music through the service, and none of them are discussed in NPD’s press release.

If the music industry knew which external services were helping generate sales, maybe record labels could help those sites flourish. That’s a better strategy than suing everyone, at least.

 
7 Comments


Read more: ,

7 Comments For This Post

  1. no Says:

    So trendy hipster idiots who use a trendy hipster idiot web service tend to buy more music. So what?

  2. Harry McCracken Says:

    >So trendy hipster idiots who use a trendy hipster idiot web service tend to buy more music. So what?

    I’m not trendy or a hipster, and I like Twitter. Two out of three ain’t bad…

    –Harry

  3. idaho beef Says:

    i don’t like twitter, but i’m a trendy hipster…twitter is a fad, kind of like all of those bands that came and went in the 1960s. here today, gone in about a year…

  4. Josh Says:

    Twitter is the best thing to come out of the intertubes. Just think about it: sending a one-line message to gaggles of fawning groupies! That’s just mind-boggling. Forget e-mail, mailing lists, forums, IRC, instant messaging, SMS, blogs, etc. When Jesus comes back, I’m sure he’ll tweet up a storm.

  5. Chris Cheeks Says:

    Man I love twitter. I make great music with software like http://www.sonicproducer.com/?hop=treklub . and put it on twitter

  6. meditation Says:

    Get iTunes plugin , share music Soundcrank is the best site to get lyrics and album artwork, find out about new music releases, and get music recommendations. Get iTunes software downloads ,http://www.soundcrank.com/

  7. Roberto Says:

    I am actually starting up a blog; can you give me any pointers?