Tweet

The folks at MovieTickets.com sent over a very interesting little bit of poll information today, tying in the popular social media platform Twitter with mainstream moviegoers. They asked their users the following question: Does buzz on social media platform Twitter.com affect your desire to see a film?

The results were as follows:

1. No (58%)
2. Yes (12%)
3. What’s Twitter (30%)

Of course, before we really get into a big discussion about this, it is important to note that this poll is based on just over 1,100 votes. But it does represent a segment of internet-using movie fans, as MovieTickets.com is one of the larger ticket sales websites, and could be representative of larger segments of society. That said, I’m not surprised that almost 1/3 of users asked ‘What’s Twitter?’

If you do the math, the last census showed that about 72% of the population in the United States uses the internet (some 220 million people). In 2009, industry estimates place the user base of Twitter in the 10 to 15 million range. That means that even with a generous estimated user count, Twitter is only utilized by 6.8% of all internet users and less than 5% of all Americans.

Now, some movie-related data. So far in it’s run, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (a movie that got beat to hell on Twitter) has made $394,446,105 at the domestic box office. The average price of a movie ticket, according to a NATO survey, is $7.18. That means that on average, about 55 million people saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. That is, for those keeping score, more than 3x the amount of people that are on Twitter. Of course, this doesn’t take into consideration people that saw the movie multiple times, but you get the idea — it is impressive, either way.

So of course, while I love to use Twitter (follow me: @rejects) and I love to spread my own movie-related opinions and discuss all things film with my fellow Tweeters, the social media platform isn’t ultimately relevant when it comes to the success or failure of a major motion picture. As my good friend Luke (@ldmullen) said earlier today here at Reject HQ, Twitter is relevant to those who use it. Everyone else, well that’s another story.

Do you follow movie buzz on Twitter? Does it impact your decisions about which movies to see?