• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, January 3, 2013

Search engine marketing, or SEO, seems to attract the most attention on Twitter when it comes to search-related terms -- but others like PPC and paid search have the potential to reach massive audiences.

PeekAnalytics used its social audience measurement tool to analyze a collection of search-related terms and phrases -- such as SEO, PPC, paid search, multiple devices, and search analytics -- for 24 hours during the last week in December.

Interestingly, the majority of those tweeting PPC came from the U.S. But London was the top city for that term. London also was the top city for tweets containing the term SEO, with England accounting for 8% of the overall tweets and the U.S. accounting for about 64%. India was the third-most-common country of origin for tweets containing the term SEO, and was the place of origin for a significant 5% of the tweets.

The U.S. audiences tweeting the terms mostly skewed male -- with the exception of one that skewed female -- and the average age was between 25 and 35. Fifty-seven percent of those tweeting the term PPC were between the ages of 26 and 35, with 71% age 26 or over. By contrast, only 63% of SEO audience was within that age bracket. One hundred percent of those who tweeted the phrase multiple devices were older than age 36, according to the PeekAnalytics analysis.

During the 24 hours analyzed, SEO posted more than 8,600 times. Some 64% of the accounts were identified as individuals, or consumers, and 34% identified as businesses.

The term PPC came in a distant second, with 300 tweets. Some 74% of those tweeting PPC were identified as individuals, with only a mere 2% private or impossible to verify.

The other terms being analyzed -- paid search, multiple devices, and search analytics -- each received double or, in one case, a single-digit number of tweets. PeekAnalytics identified 100% of the term paid search tweeted by individuals.

The analysis also looked at phrases with the greatest potential of creating the most impressions. The terms SEO and PPC -- tweeted by 8,600 and 300 different Twitter accounts, respectively -- had the most meaningful potential impressions. SEO had a potential of 6 million impressions, and PPC a potential 75,000.

The term paid search, tweeted only 12 times during the period being measured, had the potential to reach more than 14,000 impressions, so it was clearly tweeted to a well-connected network.

Those who tweet the term SEO skew in the higher pay bracket, with 87% making $50,000 a year or more, and 32% making over $100,000. The audience behind SEO, weighted more heavily toward hospitality and the public sector, compared with the average Twitter audience. Thirteen percent of the audience behind the SEO tweets attended community college, whereas 86% attended a four-year college or university.

Compared with average Twitter users, tweeters of the term SEO are more interested in subjects like autos, business, literature, politics, sports, TV, and technology, and less in video games, science, music, movies, education, and fashion.