Why tweet about politics when you could post a million pictures of your dog?
The pet industry in the US is no joke. We’re talking 85 million families who own pets: roughly 94 million cats and 90 million dogs. In 2017 alone, families dropped $69.4 billion on the pet industry. That’s a lot of kibbles and bits.
So when it comes to our furry friends, there’s nothing we wouldn’t do. All they have to do is wag their tails and roll around in catnip and we’re whipping out our phones like paparazzi. Because in today’s world, if your pet has a bigger Instagram following than you, you’re doing something right.
As fellow animal lovers, our team at All Home Connections decided to see which states tweet the most about their pets overall. Think your state takes the win for the most pet-obsessed? Check out our data below and see for yourself.
Fun Facts
- Washington, DC, was the top pet-tweeting state, with Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon, and Nevada following behind.
- The bottom five (joyless) pet-tweeting states are South Dakota, Idaho, Delaware, Mississippi, and New Mexico.
- Residents of Washington, DC, tweet about their pets 3X more per capita than Hawaiians—no small feat given that on Oahu alone, 60% of homes have a pet.
- Of the 17 hashtags we looked at, #DogsOfInstagram was the most popular, followed by #CatsOfInstagram
- iPhone users tweet more about their pets than Android users.
- Almost ¾ of pet tweets are posted Furiday-Sunday (the weekend means every day is love your pet day).
Methodology
We collected almost 225,000 tweets talking about pets (containing the word dog, cat, or pet, or the hashtag #Pet, #Cat, #Dog, #Pets, #Dogs, #Cats, #Puppy, #Kitten, #Puppies, #Kittens, #Petsagram, #DogsOfInstagram, #CatsOfInstagram, #DogLover, #CatLover, #ILoveMyDog, or #ILoveMyCat). We used this to predict the total number of pet tweets per capita posted annually in each state.
| State | Rank: States that Tweet About their Pets the Most | State Population | Expected Pet Tweets per Year | Pet Tweets per Year per 1,000 People |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | 1 | 693,972 | 64,571 | 93.05 |
| Hawaii | 2 | 1,427,538 | 50,222 | 35.18 |
| Alaska | 3 | 739,795 | 19,371 | 26.18 |
| Oregon | 4 | 4,142,776 | 99,010 | 23.90 |
| Nevada | 5 | 2,998,039 | 71,029 | 23.69 |
| Oklahoma | 6 | 3,930,864 | 87,530 | 22.27 |
| Louisiana | 7 | 4,684,333 | 98,292 | 20.98 |
| California | 8 | 39,536,653 | 803,915 | 20.33 |
| Rhode Island | 9 | 1,059,639 | 19,730 | 18.62 |
| New York | 10 | 19,849,399 | 361,959 | 18.24 |
| Washington | 11 | 7,405,743 | 134,883 | 18.21 |
| Ohio | 12 | 11,658,609 | 206,987 | 17.75 |
| Texas | 13 | 28,304,596 | 501,146 | 17.71 |
| Illinois | 14 | 12,802,023 | 224,924 | 17.57 |
| Massachusetts | 15 | 6,859,819 | 118,740 | 17.31 |
| Nebraska | 16 | 1,920,076 | 32,644 | 17.00 |
| Kansas | 17 | 2,913,123 | 49,505 | 16.99 |
| Indiana | 18 | 6,666,818 | 110,489 | 16.57 |
| Colorado | 19 | 5,607,154 | 91,118 | 16.25 |
| Maine | 20 | 1,335,907 | 20,806 | 15.57 |
| Georgia | 21 | 10,429,379 | 162,146 | 15.55 |
| South Carolina | 22 | 5,024,369 | 77,844 | 15.49 |
| Tennessee | 23 | 6,715,984 | 103,673 | 15.44 |
| Pennsylvania | 24 | 12,805,537 | 193,356 | 15.10 |
| Arizona | 25 | 7,016,270 | 101,521 | 14.47 |
| Maryland | 26 | 6,052,177 | 87,530 | 14.46 |
| West Virginia | 27 | 1,815,857 | 25,470 | 14.03 |
| Kentucky | 28 | 4,454,189 | 62,419 | 14.01 |
| Virginia | 29 | 8,470,020 | 114,435 | 13.51 |
| New Jersey | 30 | 9,005,644 | 121,610 | 13.50 |
| Iowa | 31 | 3,145,711 | 41,971 | 13.34 |
| Minnesota | 32 | 5,576,606 | 73,898 | 13.25 |
| North Carolina | 33 | 10,273,419 | 132,730 | 12.92 |
| Florida | 34 | 20,984,400 | 269,048 | 12.82 |
| Montana | 35 | 1,050,493 | 13,273 | 12.64 |
| New Hampshire | 36 | 1,342,795 | 16,860 | 12.56 |
| Missouri | 37 | 6,113,532 | 73,540 | 12.03 |
| Alabama | 38 | 4,874,747 | 58,473 | 12.00 |
| Arkansas | 39 | 3,004,279 | 35,514 | 11.82 |
| Wyoming | 40 | 579,315 | 6,816 | 11.77 |
| Wisconsin | 41 | 5,795,483 | 68,159 | 11.76 |
| Michigan | 42 | 9,962,311 | 116,587 | 11.70 |
| Utah | 43 | 3,101,833 | 35,873 | 11.57 |
| Vermont | 44 | 623,657 | 7,175 | 11.50 |
| Connecticut | 45 | 3,588,184 | 39,460 | 11.00 |
| North Dakota | 46 | 755,393 | 8,251 | 10.92 |
| New Mexico | 47 | 2,088,070 | 22,600 | 10.82 |
| Mississippi | 48 | 2,984,100 | 22,241 | 7.45 |
| Delaware | 49 | 961,939 | 6,816 | 7.09 |
| Idaho | 50 | 1,716,943 | 11,838 | 6.89 |
| South Dakota | 51 | 869,666 | 3,946 | 4.54 |
Want to boost your state’s animal-lover status? Count on AT&T Internet to keep you tweeting about your fur babies all week long.
All Home Connections is an authorized AT&T retailer. Reporters can email questions to media@attpublicity.com.