(via TechCrunch) How many followers do most people really have on Twitter? The average number of both followers and other members people on Twitter are following is about 70, according to the State of the Twittersphere, a new report by Web marketing startup HubSpot. But that average is skewed by elite Twitterers who have hundreds or thousands of followers. The vast majority of people on Twitter use it to keep in touch with a much smaller circle of friends and peers. For those with 50 or fewer followers (three quarters of all users), the average number of followers is 15.6 and the average number of people they are following is 18.4.

HubSpot’s State of the Twittersphere report is inspired by Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere, which tries to quantify trends across all the blogs it tracks. HubSpot gets its data from Twitter Grader, a site it operates that generates a grade for Twitter users based on factors such as how many followers they have, the reach of the people who are following them, and how often they post updates.

Here is a glance at some of the more interesting findings.

• Twitter is dominated by newer users – 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008
• An estimated 5-10 thousand new accounts are opened per day
• 35% of Twitter users have 10 or fewer followers
• 9% of Twitter users follow no one at all
• There is a strong correlation between the number of followers you have and the number of people you follow

State of the Twittersphere – Get more Information Technology