Study: Twitter Users Want To Discover And Will (Gasp!) Actually Pay For Music

According to a new NPD Group study, Twitter users are much more likely to be interested in discovering and engaging with music than the average internet user.  And in some good news for the music industry, they are also far more willing to pay for it.

According to NPD’s consumer tracking, 33% of Twitter users reported buying a CD in the prior 3 months, and 34% said they had purchased a digital download. That compares positively to overall web users at 23% and 16% respectively.. When Twitter users purchased music, they also spent 77% more money on digital downloads than did their non-Twitter counterparts.

Twitter users are also much more likely than average net users to be engaged in online music activities: 

• 33% listened to music on a social networking site

• 1% listened to online radio compared to 22% among all web users
• 39% watched a music video online (vs 25%)
• 2X more likely to visit MySpace Music and Pandora.

“Twitter has the potential to help foster the discovery of new music, and improve targeted marketing of music to groups of highly-involved and technologically savvy consumers, but it has to be done right,” Crupnick said. “There must be a careful balance struck between entertainment and direct conversation on one hand, and marketing on the other. Used properly Twitter has the power to entertain — and to motivate music fans to purchase more new albums, downloads, merchandise, and concert tickets.”