Recently, I read that Twitter retains only 30% or fewer of its sign ups.
When I first wrote about Twitter on this blog, Twitter was still relatively new. New Twitterers were hopping on board at a fast pace. Since then, TwitterWorld has become crowded. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. You have to face the facts you’ll miss some things — a lot of things. That’s no different than real life.
If you join, you might find you gain 15 followers one day and lose 15 the next as people try to add others in the hopes of being automatically followed back. That’s a game. Playing that game, I question how one finds quality followers, and I think some of those people solely want a high number of followers.
I’ve been introduced to people via Twitter, informed people on interesting networking events, read articles I would have missed otherwise and attracted additional people to social media marketing events I’ve planned. I haven’t made a million dollars from Twitter. I have interacted with other online marketers, learned a great deal and had a good time in the process.
I don’t think Twitter will become the new MySpace in terms of failure. Unfortunately, MySpace did not attract quality users. I found MySpace so noisy-blinky (yes, I made that word up) that I had to leave. Facebook started allowing more people in, and I started using that and never looked back; its calm user interface was a refreshing change from MySpace.
Twitter, like Facebook, has created a rather tidy user experience. You can add backgrounds but you can’t add blinking, distracting graphics. Since you only follow whom you want to follow, you can avoid spam.
At a party the other night, someone said they thought Twitter was on the way out and that these social media tools had a short shelf life. However, these tools allow us to connect with more people with more similar interests than we’ve ever been able to meet in the past. That’s alluring to at least a few — million.
What are your thoughts? Do you think Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms will last?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m sorry, *only* 30% retention rate? That’s one in three who remains active on the site? That’s phenomenal. That’s much higher than 99.999% of the Internet. Imagine you owned a store, and 1/3rd of every customer that came in your store bought something and returned to buy more. You’d be ecstatic.
In eCommerce stores you’ll be happy if one in a thousand people who hit your site actually buy something. Fewer will come back again.
I do hope that Twitter’s numbers thin out a bit – the “social media experts” who hopped on to spam people in a new format will go die in a fire and people who use Twitter as a blogging or messaging platform will remain.
Something will eventually edge-out Twitter of its #1 status-update spot (and Twitter isn’t even number one if you count Facebook’s status updates as being the same feature, which it isn’t, but most people couldn’t tell the difference).
Facebook is losing more cultural swag than Twitter, which is still on the rise. Facebook is powered by students attempting to have sex with each other. Actually, this explains much of the internet. By the time you or I heard of Facebook it was already uncool.
Hi Jough,
You make a good point that the author of the article I referenced doesn’t mention — that 30% isn’t all bad.
What about people who sign up mostly to follow people? I wonder if they are counted among the people who don’t stay? How about people who sign up under their names and company names and then only Tweet under one of them? That other account is dormant and could contribute bad numbers.
Thanks for your comment.
Deb