Hudson County has the highest concentration of Twitter users in New Jersey, says a first-of-its kind report.
Hudson County’s “Twitter Density” is 6.51 users per 1000, closely followed by Essex County, which has 6.31 users per 1,000, according to the “Twitter New Jersey” report released Monday.
Twitter Density shows the concentration of registered Twitter users in a certain geographic area.
The study was conducted by Jaffe Communications (www.jaffecom.com), a communications, political consulting and publishing firm that specializes in social networking.
The report also looked at municipalities in New Jersey with the highest concentration of Twitter users. Milford Borough in Hunterdon County had the highest Twitter Density with 64.1 users per 1,000 followed by Cape May City with 35.8, the Princetons with 33.8 users per 1,000, Hoboken with 28.6 and Flemington with 24.6.
“This study for the first time gives us a sense of where Twitter is being used most heavily in the state,” said Bruno Tedeschi, a principal of Jaffe Communications, who analyzed the data and wrote the first-annual report. “It makes sense that the highest Twitter Density would be in the state’s urban areas with large populations of young people. But the results of the study also defy that conventional wisdom.”
For example, several of the towns with the highest Twitter Density are located in the more rural Hunterdon County. Stockton, Clinton and Lambertville are all ranked in the top 20 for Twitter Density in New Jersey, according to the study.
While Newark has the largest number of Twitter users, including Mayor Cory Booker — one of Twitter’s most followed – it does not have the highest Twitter Density in Essex County. Orange had that distinction with 16 per 1,000, followed by Montclair with 12.2. With 2,483 users, Newark ranked 31st statewide, with 8.9 users per 1,000.
Jersey City, New Jersey’s second largest city, ranked 35th, with 2,010 users, or 8.3 per 1,000. New Brunswick, home of the main campus of Rutgers University, has 459 users, or 9.0 per 1,000, ranking it just ahead of Newark.
There appears to be little correlation between wealth and Twitter Density. The state’s five wealthiest municipalities have relatively low Twitter Density. Alpine is ranked 125th, Mantoloking 271th, Saddle River, 49th, Far Hills 38th and Essex Fells has no Twitter users whatsoever.
“The report has important implications for marketers and advertisers as well as municipal governments who are interested in using Twitter to target audiences,” Tedeschi said. “At this point, Twitter is probably not the best way to reach high-income residents in the state or the most efficient way to reach residents in most of the state’s municipalities.”
Twitter recently has sought to capitalize on its user base by allowing companies to pay to have their “tweets” come before other search results. But Tedeschi said more demographic information about users, such as age, sex, income and educational attainment, will make Twitter more attractive to advertisers.
“Advertisers want to know who they are tweeting to,” Tedeschi said. “Other web sites, including Facebook, allow advertisers to target users. Twitter would be wise to follow in that direction.”
There were 28,787 Twitter users in New Jersey on April 25, 2010, according to Twellow, a director of Twitter users. The directory contains only the users who self reported their location. New Jersey likely has thousands of other users who either did not report their location, or reported it as Metro New York, or used other names, such as Brick City for Newark.
The following chart shows Twitter Density in New Jersey by the top 50 municipalities, ranked from most dense to least.
| MUNICIPALITY | COUNTY | Population | Twitterers | Per 1000 |
| TETERBORO BOROUGH**** | BERGEN | 17 | 5 | 294.12 |
| MILFORD BOROUGH | HUNTERDON | 1186 | 76 | 64.08 |
| CAPE MAY CITY | CAPE MAY | 3686 | 132 | 35.81 |
| PRINCETONS* | MERCER | 30829 | 1042 | 33.80 |
| HOBOKEN CITY | HUDSON | 40577 | 1159 | 28.56 |
| FLEMINGTON BOROUGH | HUNTERDON | 4277 | 105 | 24.55 |
| STOCKTON BOROUGH | HUNTERDON | 546 | 13 | 23.81 |
| CLINTON TOWN | HUNTERDON | 2544 | 50 | 19.65 |
| PENNINGTON BOROUGH | MERCER | 2656 | 52 | 19.58 |
| RED BANK BOROUGH | MONMOUTH | 11866 | 209 | 17.61 |
| ANDOVER BOROUGH | SUSSEX | 633 | 11 | 17.38 |
| NEPTUNE CITY BOROUGH | MONMOUTH | 5114 | 84 | 16.43 |
| FREEHOLD BOROUGH | MONMOUTH | 11425 | 187 | 16.37 |
| CITY OF ORANGE TOWNSHIP | ESSEX | 31058 | 497 | 16.00 |
| ATLANTIC CITY | ATLANTIC | 39408 | 532 | 13.50 |
| WILDWOOD CITY | CAPE MAY | 5259 | 69 | 13.12 |
| LAMBERTVILLE CITY | HUNTERDON | 3741 | 49 | 13.10 |
| ALLENTOWN BOROUGH | MONMOUTH | 1845 | 24 | 13.01 |
| MORRISTOWN TOWN | MORRIS | 19268 | 236 | 12.25 |
| MONTCLAIR TOWNSHIP | ESSEX | 36966 | 451 | 12.20 |
| STONE HARBOR BOROUGH | CAPE MAY | 1012 | 12 | 11.86 |
| BORDENTOWN CITY | BURLINGTON | 3817 | 44 | 11.53 |
| BELMAR BOROUGH | MONMOUTH | 5908 | 61 | 10.32 |
| ASBURY PARK CITY | MONMOUTH | 16546 | 167 | 10.09 |
| ALLENHURST BOROUGH | MONMOUTH | 699 | 7 | 10.01 |
| ELMER BOROUGH | SALEM | 1345 | 13 | 9.67 |
| NEWFIELD BOROUGH | GLOUCESTER | 1669 | 16 | 9.59 |
| SWEDESBORO BOROUGH | GLOUCESTER | 2250 | 21 | 9.33 |
| HIGHLANDS BOROUGH | MONMOUTH | 5272 | 49 | 9.29 |
| NEW BRUNSWICK CITY | MIDDLESEX | 51149 | 459 | 8.97 |
| NEWARK CITY | ESSEX | 278980 | 2483 | 8.90 |
| CALDWELL BOROUGH TOWNSHIP | ESSEX | 7133 | 61 | 8.55 |
| SUSSEX BOROUGH | SUSSEX | 2124 | 18 | 8.47 |
| SOUTH ORANGE VILLAGE TOWNSHIP | ESSEX | 15882 | 134 | 8.44 |
| JERSEY CITY | HUDSON | 241114 | 2010 | 8.34 |
| EDGEWATER BOROUGH | BERGEN | 9635 | 78 | 8.10 |
| BEACH HAVEN BOROUGH | OCEAN | 1391 | 11 | 7.91 |
| FAR HILLS BOROUGH | SOMERSET | 898 | 7 | 7.80 |
| HACKETTSTOWN TOWN | WARREN | 9511 | 74 | 7.78 |
| MORRIS PLAINS BOROUGH | MORRIS | 6005 | 46 | 7.66 |
| FAIRFIELD TOWNSHIP | ESSEX | 7483 | 56 | 7.48 |
| HAMPTON BOROUGH | HUNTERDON | 1628 | 12 | 7.37 |
| BRANCHVILLE BOROUGH | SUSSEX | 814 | 6 | 7.37 |
| TRENTON CITY | MERCER | 82883 | 599 | 7.23 |
| COLLINGSWOOD BOROUGH | CAMDEN | 13817 | 99 | 7.17 |
| MAPLEWOOD TOWNSHIP | ESSEX | 21992 | 156 | 7.09 |
| RUTHERFORD BOROUGH | BERGEN | 17454 | 123 | 7.05 |
| BLOOMSBURY BOROUGH | HUNTERDON | 857 | 6 | 7.00 |
| SADDLE RIVER BOROUGH | BERGEN | 3793 | 26 | 6.85 |
| CRANBURY TOWNSHIP | MIDDLESEX | 3927 | 26 | 6.62 |
How Jaffe Communications Conducted the Study:
When registering for Twitter, users have the option of entering their location. Twellow.com is a directory of Twitter users. One feature on Twellow allows users to drill down by geography to state level and generate a list of towns with the number of Twitter users.
The New Jersey list generated 528 towns. Using New Jersey Department of Community Affairs’ Local Name Search, the towns were consolidated with their municipal names and counties were added. The new list contained 441 municipalities. In cases where townships and municipalities shared a name (Princeton, Chester, etc.) they were consolidated and their populations added. In cases where towns shared a name in multiple counties (Springfield, Washington), the town with the largest population was used.
Using a relational database manager, the new list of 441 municipalities was linked with a list of New Jersey municipalities with 2008 population data. The resulting table was used to generate the Twitter Density, which was calculated by dividing the number of Twitter users by the population and multiplying by 1,000.
****Teterboro was not counted in the report because its population is too small to be statistically significant.
*Denotes boroughs and townships that were combined for the purposes of this study.
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