If You Use Twitter This Month, You Probably Won't Be Back Next Month
Oprah has given the world many discoveries: Dr. Phil, books and on April 17, when she devoted an entire show to it, Twitter.
Since then we (and by "we" I mean "our grandmothers, bosses and homeless folk") have been all a-tweet over this magical social networking innovation. And yet that spoilsport Nielsen Research has come along, analyzed the numbers and proven that while Twitter may be all that, it is not also a bag of chips. Despite triple-digit percentage growth month over month, the majority of users just aren't sticking around.
It seems 60 percent of Twitter users in one month are gone the next. And things were even worse before Oprah came along, with 70 percent of Twitter users deciding to no longer be one of the millions of cute little birds that help lift the giant Twitter whale aloft.
Currently, more than 60 percent of U.S. Twitter users fail to return the following month, or in other words, Twitter's audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month's users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent. For most of the past 12 months, pre-Oprah, Twitter has languished below 30 percent retention.
To understand why this poses a problem for Twitter, check out the chart below. By plotting the minimum retention rates for different Internet audience sizes, it is clear that a retention rate of 40 percent will limit a site's growth to about a 10 percent reach figure. To be clear, a high retention rate doesn't guarantee a massive audience, but it is a prerequisite. There simply aren't enough new users to make up for defecting ones after a certain point.
The article also says Facebook and MySpace had retention rates that were twice as high when they were the same age as Twitter, and both services currently keep about 70 percent of their users from month to month.
What the research doesn't take into account is that Oprah herself counts as more than 1 billion people (and no, that's not a crack about her weight). So as long as she keeps those all-caps overshares flowing, Twitter is fine.
Twitter Quitters Post Roadblock to Long-Term Growth [Nielsen Wire, via Hollywood Elsewhere]
(Photo: lauterhaus)
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Comments:
I'm glad that Twitter is already jumping the shark so publicly before some idiot company with a great business model falls victim to trendiness and loses a boatload of cash to buy this revenue-negative black hole.
@Gokuhouse: I'm with you. Twitter is creepy and I am sick of hearing "Follow me on Twitter!" and the like.
I've been finding Twitter very useful for keeping my ENORMOUS extended family up-to-date on baby stuff (more than 80 cousin-or-closer relatives were willing and able to travel 1200+ miles to my wedding ... I haven't actually ever counted the number of relatives I'm up-to-date with). Great for those very short updates.
I've also enjoyed following some friends who are the same sort of folks I'd chat with on IM a lot.
But I'm a little puzzled by it as a) a revenue stream and b) a marketing tool.
I know Oprah has had weight issues, but to call her a "giant Twitter whale" is a little mean.
Technically, I failed to return for the first month after I joined. I just reserved my name in case all the cool kids started using Twitter.
I only use it to show potential employers that I know how to use it ('cause I'm so 2.0), but there's only so many ways I can word "insert inane witticism here" without tearing my eyes out.
Is Twitter good for anyone besides celebrities, companies, and attention whores? Isn't it just a glorified Facebook status?
@Gokuhouse: I agree. Twitter is just as bad as status updates on Facebook. The only time I used Twitter was during the NFL draft when the Patriots announced their picks early on Twitter. I would never use it to see what a friend is doing.
@Kimbeegrin: I just don't really get the difference between twitter and a facebook status update.
Twitter has never held any appeal for me, there's really no one I find interesting or appealing enough to want know every minute detail of their life.
So what's the portmanteau word for a Twitter Quitter?
@Eyebrows McGee (on Twitter: LPetelle): I guess that makes sense, but why limit yourself to so few characters? Don't you have a blog?
I'm part of those statistics.
I heard the buzz, joined Twitter, played around with it for two days, decided it was basically pointless and I haven't logged in again.
I enjoy reading up on what my favorite pseudo-celebrities are doing (Jonathan Coulton, Neil Gaiman, John Hodgman, Alyson Hannigan), but the more popular it gets, the greater amount of downtime there seems to be with the site, so I could see it getting old.
I, too, don't get how it makes money, though. And I'd certainly never consider PAYING for the service.
This news is not surprising. It is hard to post meaningful content when you are limited to 140 characters. This comment contains about 494 characters (including HTML markup). I am hoping that Facebook will see this news and jump off the Twitterification failwagon that they have been on for the last couple of years.
@dragonfire81: I agree. If I want to know every thought that flits through your brain, I'll just take control of it. I've unfriended people from Facebook because of their incessant status updates. Twitter is my own personal Hell.
@dragonfire81: There are some truly entertaining posters on there. Weird Al posts tons of funny pictures and anecdotes from his travels, and Neil Gaiman gives you fun insights into interviews he's doing and stuff.
Reading up on regular people "Going to the store" and "Cooking dinner"? No thanks, but getting a few giggles from celebrities themselves? It's cute. :)
I detest news stations and EVERYONE saying "catch more about this on our Tweets!" though. -_-
I use it to just follow other people. Neil Gaiman, Russel Brand, Stephen Fry, the Mythbusters. Rarely do I post myself.
@unobservant: Sure, but a lot of the updates are "26 week checkup, everyone healthy, baby's heartrate 150 bpm." Twitter's really the perfect length for those short update bulletins. And more of my older relatives found it easier to sign up for twitter updates by e-mail than to remember to go to my blog or (God forbid) learn to use an RSS feed. :)
A lot of it is just short family bulletins that would otherwise propagate (eventually) along the family grapevine. This is the same thing, just faster and more direct.
Also I can tweet from my phone ... and I can't blog from my phone. We've tweeted the health update right from the doctor's exam room, especially when we had a few problems in the first trimester and everyone was anxious to know if everything was okay.
I use Twitter to get updates on a few things I'm finding interesting, like Jon Favreau's updates on the Iron Man 2 set, but I don't use it to get updates on friends. For that, I can....wait for it.... talk to my friends.
Twitter is truly boring. I get the same thing and a lot more on Facebook. Why would I care what MCHammer or Ashton Kutcher are tweeting?
@Eyebrows McGee (on Twitter: LPetelle): Facebook does a better job and with more privacy. Plus photos, long notes and video makes Twitter such a weak tool.
Twitter is more like a public soapbox with lot less depth.
You mean reading about people eating a sandwich gets old?
Twitter's awesome at doing micro-blogging.
Quite frankly, I was a little upset when Oprah jumped on the tweeting bandwagon since I knew she'd bring a bunch of housefraus along with her. I'd been using it for years now to keep up with technical minutiae and the goings-on of the tech industry and I'm happy to hear that all of Oprah and Ashton's zombie followers will soon be leaving us the hell alone.
@Trai_Dep: I spent some time translating the tanged web of words you wove. I think I got it.
I'm glad that Twitter is peaking in popularity before some idiot company bought it for an overvalued price.
Words saved: 18 (52% compression)
@Eyebrows McGee (on Twitter: LPetelle): Actually, considering the quality of your writing here, you should do a mini-blog. I'm sure your friends & family would enjoy it. A lot!
@ironchef: (this may doublepost, I'm having issues ...)
I hate Facebook, and I think "privacy" on Facebook is an illusion ... someone can pick up your stuff and rebroadcast it to the world just the same.
Facebook also requires you to join and check in ... which my grandfather is not going to do. Whereas with twitter, someone just had to help him set it up to get e-mail updates and he never has to think about it again.
For my purposes, Twitter is the better tool.
Twitter straight up sucks.
twitter is facebook for idiots
I never got into Twitter either, although I'm in its prime 20-something demographic. Once Facebook pretty much copied its premise with Status Updates, I had no need to be a member of an entirely separate site that does the same thing without all the Facebook's other features. I can send and receive updates from my phone plus make detailed replies and post photos. Plus, barely any of my friends use Twitter. So I'll stick with Facebook.
Well, I've actually found an excellent use for Twitter. I'm a teacher, and I've set up a Twitter account for every class I teach. Each day at 3:30 I send out a tweet reminding my students about what homework is due the next day, upcoming assignments, quizzes, stuff like that. They can sign up if they want to, and they can all have them pushed to their phones via SMS. The great thing is that with a desktop client like Twhirl (or even an iPhone app like Tweetie) I can send out updates for five different classes in only a few minutes.
It's an excellent way to communicate with my students via one of their preferred methods.
Please, all the various Gods, let this trend also continue with/apply to Jenny McCarthy and her anti-vaccination psuedo-science. Please. We don't need any more children dying due to her ignorance and blatant lying.
@Trai_Dep: Aw, thanks. :) I do blog (eyebrowsmcgee.blogspot.com) though I've been pretty sporadic since I got pregnant, since I'm a little distracted.
I think I'm going to have to split off a second blog now that I'm an elected official (school board) anyway and keep one for blogging about those issues and the other as a personal blog. Sigh. I'm actually a little curious to try Twitter for those local politics issues, especially since a huge part of my constituency (though a mostly non-voting part) is kids ages 5-18. Potentially an easy way to solicit feedback from a hyperlocal crowd. Probably I have to get on the Facebook now too to be more constituent-accessible.
My first foray into Twitter was when I googled an old college friend's name to see what he was up to these days. I went to Twitter, I read what he had for lunch the last few days, and saw that he also went to work that day. I learned nothing new about him that he hadn't been doing for the last 20 years since I last caught up with him in person, and I haven't been back since. Yawn.
@valen: IIRC, you are limited to 140 characters viewable. You can go over, and have to goto the website to see the full comment.
Oprah and Bono are racing to see who will get a church first. (Oprahism and Bonoism) So far Oprah is winning. She has been plugging everything lately.
Twitter is really not that much at all.
I got bored with Twitter and installed my own microblog (called "Laconica".) It's got its issues (mainly that you can't increase the character limit or customize the HTML), but it's a lot of fun to basically have my own "network" with my friends.
@HappyMothersDay_GitEmSteveDave: And what if she is craving a hot dog or kinda has to go to the bathroom? The public has a right to know!
@seandavid010: Now this is a great use for twitter! Fantastic job at reaching out to your students. I had some professors in college who had a hard time sending e-mail updates, let alone using twitter...though to be honest, they were approaching dinosaur age.
Because try it, realize it is a time-consuming, pointless exercise.
@seandavid010:
And to think, back when I was a student, we had to remember to do our homework all by ourselves! How I didn't fail out is a mystery to me.
@seandavid010: Thumbs up for you... (the good thumbs up!)... I wish all teachers did this sort of thing.
"What hath God twat?"
If I didn't have unlimited texting, I probably would have never bothered with Twitter in the first place
@pecan 3.14159265: I use AIM with my students. It's so much better than office hours. When I happen to be up at 2 a.m., they can ask me instantaneous questions at the time they're actually working on their homework. And I have a record of all conversations.
I like seandavid's idea too.
I signed up for Twitter over a month ago, and gave up on it two weeks later.
I personally have avoided twitter so far and intend to stay away. I'm actually tired of the word twitter.