by Michelle Lentz
Everybody has growing pains.
Nielsen is reporting that while Twitter is growing, it is also suffering in the retention category. Where’s the user loyalty?
A couple of weeks ago, I speculated about the Oprah effect – that thousands would join and those accounts would then lie dormant after a month. It seems I’m not that far off on how users react to Twitter in general. According to Nielsen,
Currently, more than 60 percent of 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.
When I teach Twitter (and for that matter, all social media), I stress that you get out of it what you put into it. What Twitter does poorly is demonstrate how to effectively use the tool. From the question (What are you doing?) to the interaction, it is just not always clear to a Twitter – and Internet – newbie.
I’ve long thought that Twitter should change their question. What are you doing? is not the question people are answering. They’re letting you know where they are, what is new, what is interesting, and where they need help or are offering help. The very question confuses people and causes skeptics to call Twitter silly because they don’t want to know when someone is refilling a coffee pot.
The problem with Twitter is that you have to use it to truly understand it. You can’t just lurk and read other people’s tweets coming in on your feed. You need to participate. Twitter actually loses some value if you don’t join the conversation. Of course, how to join the conversation is also a problem. Even if you find people to follow, how will they know you are talking to them? I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time explaining D (not DM) and @ to people who are new to Twitter. After all, it’s hard to contribute if no one can hear you talk.
So, my advice to all those Oprah, Ashton, and Ellen followers – find someone else to follow. Search on your favorite topics, see who is chatting about them, and follow those folks. Follow many folks. Then join the conversation. Don’t just sit back and read – contribute. Use the @ symbol and get to it. Again, you get out of Twitter what you put into it. Joining any social network isn’t going to expand your horizons or even just brighten your day if you don’t participate.
In this case, the onus is on both the new users to participate as well as Twitter, who needs to make things clearer and easier. They’re moving past just early adopters using the system. It’s time to release some tutorials and some demos so that Twitter really can be mainstream – and keep those new users who followed Oprah.
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Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
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