Indian women increasing owning the free space provided to them on platforms like Twitter to get involved in a diverse range of topics and subjects. According to independent research by Twitter, the participation of women on the platform to talk about things from their passion points to shared challenges has drastically surged.
The survey, ahead of International Women’s Day, has 700 women on Twitter in the sample size. The quantitative and qualitative curation and analysis of their tweets (which nearly totalled 5,22,992 tweets) were carried out. The survey examined Twitter accounts of women across 10 Indian cities between January 2019 and February 2021.
And, according to the research findings, there are nine dominant conversational themes that have emerged in the Tweets by women for conversations. The following data lets you have a deep insight into the female tweet interests and topics.
- Tweets surrounding the theme of Passion points and interests came out to be classified as the top conversation theme. This particular section of tweets accounted for an enormous 24.9 per cent share of the conversations.
- After tweets on personal interests, women on Twitter talked about current affairs, making the subject account for 20.8 per cent of the total tweets.
- The tweet data was followed by themes like celebratory moments (holding 14.5 per cent share), communities (having 11.7 per cent share) and social change (holding an 8.7 per cent share).
The report states that even though the highest engagement was observed in conversations around Everyday chatter and Celebratory Moments, themes such as Passion Points and Interests, shared challenges, and Communities held the tag of the most Retweeted categories led by women in various cities. When we talk about “highest engagement”, we mean it in terms of an average number of Likes and replies secured by each Tweet on the platform.
To give you a geographical idea of Twitter spread, I might quote that Chennai had maximum conversations under the category of Celebratory moments and Everyday chatter while Bengaluru was the leader in tweets about Communities, Social change as well as Shared challenges. On the other hand, Guwahati dominated conversations around Passion points and Current affairs. Interesting, isn’t it? It is just not only the men and women who think differently and give different weights of importance to multiple topics but the same holds true also for women from different regions and geographical backgrounds.
Another wide data to look at is the timing of tweeting.
- Nearly one- third or 33 per cent of women claimed to use Twitter while commuting
- As many as 29 per cent use it while having their breakfast
- 24 per cent of women use it as soon as they wake up
- While the remaining 22 per cent used just before hitting the sack.
Now that we have done the geographical and time analysis of the usage, I would like you to dig deeper into the matters of the tweets. What is it that women talked-about the most? What are the most popular conversation themes among women of India on Twitter?
1. Passion points and interests:
Guwahati, Lucknow and Pune leading the pack of women users in this category with tweets ranging in a wide variety of conversations from K-pop to cricket. Women from these regions openly discussed their interests and passions on the social media platform.
Let’s further categorize the tweets in this category.
- The most popular topic under this category was fashion holding a share of 30 per cent
- Followed by books holding a share of 28 per cent
- Beauty with a share of 25 per cent
- Movies and TV with a share of 21 per cent
- Music with a share of 18 per cent
- Food with a share of 18 per cent
- Technology with a share of 17 per cent
- Art with a share of 17 per cent as well, and
- Sports with a share of 14 per cent
Interestingly, as many as 41 per cent of total female users of Twitter said that they discovered a new passion or interest on the platform.
2. Current affairs
Women on Twitter had not been behind in engaging themselves in everyday global, social, economic, and political issues by trying to stay informed and keeping themselves updated with current affairs. This segment of tweets was led by women from Guwahati and Delhi with 20.8 per cent of users claiming to use local and international news sources to stay informed. In this category, tweets were dominated around topics such as #StudentExams, #COVID19 (related updates) and #DelhiElections2020.
3. Celebratory moments
When it came to Women tweeting about the little joys and enjoyable moments in life, Chennai, Kolkata and Madurai dominated the lists. This category had multiple tweets talking about moment from professional as well as personal wins.
As many as 14.5 per cent of women said that they enjoyed sharing their celebratory moments on Twitter through hashtags. Some of the trending hashtags in this category were #WomenWhoWin, #SmallWins, #TheMomentOfLift, and #EverydayJoys.
4. Communities
Many Women also connected with others sharing the same community as their using hashtags such as #WomenInScience, #WomenInTech, #WomenInMarketing, or #GirlGamers.
- Nearly 11.7 per cent of women are now engaged in building virtual communities
- 41 per cent of women looked after seeking advice or tips or recommendations on any kind of service
- 37 per cent of women were involved in giving out advice or tips or recommendations to others
- Other 32 per cent of women reported gaining real-life friendship(s)
5. Social change
As many as 8.7 per cent of women were the pioneers in initiating leading conversations on topics such as social change on the platform. They did this through participating in widespread online movements some of them being #TimesUp and #SheforShe.
Again, women from Bengaluru, Guwahati, and Delhi were the dominant participators in these discussions around critical matters.
6. Shared challenges
The last but not the least category was of everyday challenges where women tweeted about matters related to #Parenting to #WorkingFromHome. They somewhat shared their emotions and experiences seeking solace in online tweets and conversations on the platform.
This category was led by females from Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Mumbai who were reportedly the most open about the challenges they face in their everyday lives.
According to the report, nearly 6.9 per cent of women in India tweeted about their everyday challenges from work from home with kids to struggles of being a single mom.
For Indian women, Twitter has been more than just an entertainment social media platform as they used it not only to share their feelings but also to showcase their creativity. Creative hashtags such as #Art, #CulinaryArts, #Photography, and #Dance were trending in the domain of personal conversations. There were also tweets about #ModernDating and mental health issues. The hashtag #LockdownRecipes also became a popular trend during the lockdown.
