Social Media

Is Twitter Use In Decline?

Traffic to Twitter was down a dramatic 27.8% between September and October, according Nielson and eMarketer. ComScore showed Twitter's unique visitors were down 8.1% in October and Compete reported a 2.1% decline.

image from www.emarketer.com

But wide swings in Twitter use are common and any trend downward could also be attributed to increased use of third party apps and smart phones to access the service. The Nielson, Compete and ComScore measurements reflect unique web visitors.  18 million U.S. adults use Twitter.

Bruce Houghton on 11/23/2009 in Social Media | Permalink | Comments (7)
Share on:

7 Comments

  3. Twitter has been very useful for me personally because professionals I want to connect with (mostly in marketing and media) are there. But no one I know who doesn’t have a business reason for being there is using it. They are all too busy to monitor it. When they want and have time to connect to people, they will do it on Facebook, or via the usual methods (in person, phone, email).
    What many people assume is Twitter’s strength, real time messaging, is a disadvantage for most. If you are busy with a job or with kids, who wants to take the time to check what is flowing through Twitter? And if you want to go back and search, for the most part it is easier to find what you need via Google.

  4. ^I agree Suzanne…the average person wont be able to keep up with their twitter stream.
    Wasn’t this article posted last month aswell? Last time we were all under the consensus that it is due to all of the 3rd party apps.

  5. The issue that Twitter usage is underreported because of third party apps is a valid one. But presumably if Twitter is growing, unique visitors would grow on Twitter itself to reflect new people coming in.
    I suppose if the number of new people coming in is the same each month, while an equal number of more established users are leaving Twitter.com for applications, Twitter.com numbers could plateau with overall growth continuing to occur. In other words, we might be seeing a steady stream of new users into the Twitter.com pipeline who then exit to the applications.
    But based on all the people around me who aren’t using Twitter, I think it remains a niche product. It just doesn’t address any needs for the average person.

Comments are closed.

Top