According to Neilsen Online Research, Twitter has a major task on its hands if it wants to eventually catch up with the likes of FaceBook and MySpace. It seems that whilst Twitter has been attracting a lot of new users, most of them don’t hang around!
Twitter followers – Not following for long!
Research shows that Twitter’s retention rate (the number of new users, who return after a period of 1 month), is below 40%. This is lower than many expected and means Twitter is losing new users almost twice as fast as either FaceBook or MySpace, when they were at the same stage in their development.
The reason this 40% retention figure is so important, is that there comes a point where there are simply not enough new accounts to replace those leaving.
If the Neilsen figures are correct, Twitter will need to find a way to make the service more ’sticky’ for new users, if it is to live up to all the hype and become a truly mainstream service.
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Like all good things in life Twitter can’t be taken for granted – you have to take part and make conversation. On other social media eg Facebook you can just sit there, contributing nothing.
I think the challenge for Twitter, is that they are getting stacks of media coverage right now, yet over 60% of those who join are gone within just a month. Even if they do find a way to make the interface more ’sticky,’ how many will bother to come back – especially when Twitter is no longer the darling of the media?
I think the biggest issue is lack of understanding.. many of my friends just started using twitter and all of them tell me they don’t “get it”.. I just explain to them that it’s like FB status messages or IM’s but on a less frequent, less annoying basis.
Twitter is a great service as-is, the biggest issue is reliability. The damn site goes down almost daily and I hate having a limited API.. it’s a valuable tool to run research/gather data/do surveys with, but with only 100 queries per hour, I can barely do more than speak and be spoken to.
When I first tried twitter a year ago, I didn’t get it. I thought it was a vanity tool at best and let my account sit idle. But then I found you could do meaningful things with it, like finding strangers across the world based on a common interest- and help each other. This is potentially so much more powerful than a facebook superpoke. We’ll see where it goes.
Maybe there needs to be a training site to help people understand the full capabilities of Twitter and how to use it.
Jim,
That’s an interesting idea – maybe an instructional video from the Twitter team.
I really feel Twitter is nothing more than a Beta, put up to see whether we (the people) like the idea of networking around the globe. Well, surprise, surprise, we DO like it – case proven! However, it then hasn’t really progressed much from there, in itself, and reliability, as Clay mentioned above, is one of the key factors.
The “Beta” status is most likely a large part of why people, and most especially businesses, still “don’t get it”! As a way of doing business in the New Economy, it has phenomenal potential. But lack of development of the core product has led to the spawning of a wonderful variety of bolt-ons & Twitter tools – Tweetdeck is one of my favorites, together with the many alternatives for use on my iPhone – but this level of gadget complexity is another reason for high drop-off rates.
One of the most important mantras in marketing today is “make it EASY for the customer to buy (or in this case use) the product or service”.
With the case proven, I have no doubt that someone is already working on a more complete offering. Twitter is a marvellous component part of something bigger & better that we haven’t seen yet! Overcome the need for so many other bolt-ons & make it easier for us all to use consistently and you will mop up big time, whoever you are!
Howard,
Great comment – Thanks!!
I signed up for a twitter account and then stopped, but I was amazed how many news organizations used it. It went from being a trite thing to an actual news source. I encourage all business and news organizations to use twitter.
Recently I find it hard to send tweets at certain times of the day, it will just stand there spinning like a crazy, and I wonder if it has anything to do with this CNN, Kutcher Oprah phenomenon
It seems Twitter is for a very ’specific’ kind of person.
You either ‘get it’ or you don’t.
That said, I think FriendFeed is massively better, however, it’s got nothing like the same user numbers. Pity – a great platform and far, far more reliable too.
Twitter is just another type of messaging program like IRC or AIM, it’s just wrapped up in a different package. Once the newness wears off it’s just something else to keep up with.
Wonder if people get overwhelmed with who to follow and who not to as the reason why people fall off Twitter, Question at the end of the day is, who matters to you the most? and it is very likely that you will only follow people who matters to you the most. Does this make sense?
Jim (Re comment #6 http://www.thetechnewsblog.com/2009/04/29/twitter-is-losing-too-many-new-users-neilsen/#comment-7165)
Twitter already has a video on how to use the service created by Common Craft @ http://www.commoncraft.com/twitter
This has been on the homepage for as long as I can remember. It might be a little outdated… I can see why some people think Twitter staff should be making their own instructional/informational videos.
Thanks for the link Mitch!
A lot of people still don’t “get” Twitter. They don’t see a point to it. It’s a very niche network and the person manning an account needs to be really interactive. People tweet to see what others are reading, listening etc. If your group of friends are not on it, what’s the point?