On Mashable, MarketingProfs Editor-in-Chief Ann Handley wrote a guest post about the engaging results of a Twitter survey that she conducted. It was done to find out how “highly involved Twitter users” viewed activities that revolve around the tool, as well as their motivations behind using it. Because of how it was done, the survey cannot be said to be representative of the Twitter population as a whole, so let’s take it with a grain of salt.

A word on methodology: I solicited survey responses from people who follow me (@marketingprofs) on Twitter, where I have about 28,000 followers, and then I asked those followers to retweet the survey link. As far as I could tell, about 116 people retweeted the link to their own network of followers; the sizes of their networks varied greatly.

We didn’t specify that we were looking for any certain profile of user, but the information that came back from the 432 revealed that the majority were fairly involved with Twitter — at least, that’s our interpretation of someone who spends 2 3/4 hours a day interacting there. Maybe those motivated to respond to the survey are more involved with Twitter than those who didn’t. (That’s one possible was to look at it.)

The bottom line is that this is a snapshot, an insight into the minds of users.

Social media, with a stress on first word, means interaction – a lot of give and take. There seems to be a notion that to be a good Twitter netizen, you have to live by its version of the Golden Rule: “Follow others who follow you”. When the respondents were asked whether they agree or not with this statement, though, only 34% of them agreed, with 41.7% disagreeing, and 24.2% who didn’t take a side. The gap is even wider when they were asked whether those they follow should, in fact, follow them back. Only a total of 27.3% agreed while 41.9% thought it wasn’t necessary.

Some people use their large Twitter following for bragging rights, but what do fellow users really think about these bloated figures? Asked whether they would equate having a bigger number of followers to being more intelligent, an overwhelming 81.7% disagreed while a mere 5.6% nodded their heads. The same question, with respect replacing intelligence, resulted in a virtual split, with 45% unconvinced and 39.9% thinking it was a fair assumption.

Going back to being social and Twitter’s use as a communications tool, are users feeling unloved when their tweets get no response? A good 24% admit to feeling some form of disappointment, but a total of 52.7% say it’s not that big of a deal. Good on their EQ.

Finally, in terms of motivations for using Twitter, their reasons are varied. Most say they like it because they learn new things from others, closely followed by using the tool as an up-to-date information source. Many said they simply wanted to be connected with a lot of people, while others use it for lead generation, and lastly, because they fancy having some people follow them and read what they have to say.

It would be interesting if a similar study can be made with a more scientific approach, better sample size, and fairer distribution in the near future. For Twitter-holics out there, do you feel that these results match your own perceptions? Why or why not?