Twitter's lack of loyalty--an Achilles' heel?
Some interesting data from Nielsen suggests that Twitter, despite the hype and meteoric growth, appears to have a user loyalty problem, an issue not suffered by Facebook or MySpace, the two behemoths of social networking.
Considering the viral nature of Twitter, I was a bit surprised to see that users weren't more loyal. On the other hand, sites like Facebook and MySpace offer a lot more functions that facilitate communication on many levels, not just through messaging.
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.
Is this Twitter's Achilles' heel, where there aren't enough reasons to come back to the service, or, is audience retention naturally lower because Twitter only offers one thing to do in comparison to the other services?
The chart below shows that MySpace and Facebook both had higher loyalty levels at the same reach.
I think it's an easy argument in Twitter's favor that it has significant reach with significantly fewer features than the comparative sites. Of course, loyalty matters a great deal if and when the company ever decides to monetize the user base.
Dave Rosenberg dishes up "Software, Interrupted" with nearly 15 years of technology and marketing experience that spans from Bell Labs to multiple start-up IPOs to open-source enterprise software companies. He is co-founder of MuleSource and currently serves as the general manager of Hardy Way. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can contact Dave via e-mail at softwareinterrupted@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @daveofdoom. 
Twitter, on the other hand, does one thing and does it simply. It makes it easy for you to communicate with one or hundreds, maybe thousands of people with little effort.
The last incident happened recently when a group i created at Facebook simply disappeared. Gone! No notification, no warning, nothing, it just wasn't there any longer.
I have seen Facebook warn about the possibility of people hacking into profiles, but how can they use words like purgery in accusing members of violating terms when they can't control hacking into their own site? In another case information of mine was deleted and i was informed after the fact only to be denied an answer to my question about who initiated an allegation against my profile. And again in this case, the allegation would have applied to a great many other users of the site.
Facebook's practice of referring you to their very, very long explanation of terms of use avoids them having to come out and actually tell you what you did that supposedly is wrong. You will have your access denied but not told why, other than refer to their terms, and sift through to find what contradicts something you have done. If they're going to be so bold as to use weighty legal terms like purgery, don't standard legal practices apply, like telling someone what they are accused of, especially when they can't guarantee a safe site from hacking, which they acknowledge happens.
I've had my profile blocked with no explanation until many days after, and it was very problematic considering the contacts I had who might have thought I vanished. And more recently a group I created has disappeared. If Facebook wants to act all grown up and through legal terms and accusations around, they should run a tighter ship less filled with holes than it currently has. Makes it difficult to take them seriously. If they're throwing out the 'user beware' caution, which they appear to be..."we can't be responsible for..." then they can hardly accuse of legal wrongdoing.
In the end, Twitter is something completely different from Facebook, and the users will not be the same. It's a protocol for sharing nuggets of information. NOT for making friends, per se.
Many new users start with the website, then find a client that suits them - a trend that could surely account for the apparent retention issue.
http://www.twitterbacklash.com
http://www.appraisalr.com/MLS1004MC/index.html
Twitter is as twitter does.
Twitter is the part six of the
Great Brain Meld?.
Twitter is a platform for shouting slogans into the dark on the hopes that someone hears and decides to affirm you. One-sided conversation is no conversation at all.
Brevity and simplicity; that's twitters selling point, 140 characters per tweet, get it?!
And for those of us that know how to use it/understand it, it's a very effective service.
- by Harrison912 April 29, 2009 4:44 PM PDT
- Since I'm mainly on Twitter to socially market my safety and security web site and chat up it's products, I tend to be fairly loyal and if you're offering valuable and interesting tweets, people will loyally follow.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(19 Comments)