Atomicdust

Is Twitter Going Down?

by Danielle Hohmeier

Every one (and their mother) seems to be jumping on the social media bandwagon joining sites like Facebook and Twitter.

RJ Metrics recently released data on Twitter Users and Engagement, and, at first glance, the news isn’t very good. There were two big issues that RJ Metrics discovered in their research.

1. The number of new users is down 20% from July 2009.
2. Many of the accounts are inactive.

The second of those two points is definitely worse. You’re encouraged to get on Twitter because you can reach millions of people, right? Well, what if they aren’t listening? According to RJ Metrics, about 25% of Twitter accounts have no followers and about 40% have never even sent a single tweet. In December 2009, Twitter hit an all time low, with only 17% of registered users sending a tweet.

Should we jump ship? Is Twitter going down?

Not quite.
Despite these harrowing statistics, it is important to remember that Twitter ended 2009 with more than 75 million user accounts. And even though new registration is down, the site is still seeing around 6.2 million new users every month. That’s a new Twitter account every 2-3 seconds.

And there is even more encouraging news. RJ Metrics also discovered that Twitter users become more active over time. They found users that keep tweeting after the first week tend to become loyal, engaged users. RJ Metrics reports that the active Twitter user base is around 20% of the total users.

‘Only 20%?!’

So what? That still leaves around 15 million highly active tweeters. That still leaves around 15 million users that signed up for Twitter, thought it was cool and came back.

I think that Scott Bishop at Real Time Marketer said it best, “... The folks who do come back increase their usage over time.  That means that those who come back find value in the network and are there to stay.  This is great news for a marketer or user that can create value.  But like everything with social media marketing, it’s up to you to create value.”

While the active user count may be down, this just means you are reaching a more engaged audience.

(And talk about engaged. Twitter just announced on its blog that the company is seeing 50 million posts per day. That’s 600 tweets per second.)

Audiences want to be engaged.

Most people give up on Twitter because they don’t see any value in it. Maybe it’s time you give them what they’re looking for. If you provide value in the experience, you can expect to get some value of your own in return.

Danielle Hohmeier writes about marketing and design in the digital world for Atomicdust, with a focus on marketing convergence and social media.