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Is Twitter Retention a Mythical Unicorn?

04 May 2009 | social-media | 0 Comment

unicorn

Twitter users abandon the site

Recently, the Nielsen company released data that shows 60% of Twitter users abandon the social network within the first 30 days and the Twitter community was immediately fired up. The Nielsen site states, “Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty.”

Uh how do you figure?

My first response to the report is that it is flawed in numerous ways ranging from not collecting data on those that abandon Twitter yet return weeks or months later (which I can tell you as an educator, I run into people who gave up but are rejoining all the time). Nielsen ran a followup article which admitted to some shortfalls in their study although they maintain that they are right and dissenters are wrong (and neener neener).

Nielsen, you have your tense wrong

As quoted above, Nielsen said that Twitter has enjoyED a nice ride as if retention were a mythical unicorn. Past tense? We’re not even close to the peak of the Twitter hype and we’re nowhere near the plateau of the platform’s maturity. Users coming online are no longer considered early adopters, but they are still miles ahead of most of the nation and Twitter has experienced a ridiculous amount of hype (which has lead to misperceptions, don’t get me started) but the “rise” Twitter is on is not in the past, it is still growing.

They’re a *little* right

As a golden egg network, Twitter has experienced a great deal of criticism beginning with an unstable platform and now lack of innovation. Twitter as a company (meaning not the users) has to discontinue resting on their laurels and worry about users above and beyond strategic dollar partnerships.

The irony of Twitter

Twitter is one of the main tools in a social median’s tool belt and anyone employed as a social media strategist uses Twitter to build their community. The ultimate irony is that although Twitter has a vocal advocate in the form of co-founder Biz Stone and a recently hired business development director, there is no “community builder” or “social media director” in a forward facing position. That’s like a web design company that doesn’t have a website.

Back to the point

Back to the point- different data points can be interpreted as you wish. I could interpret the Nielsen data as Twitter having a 40% retention rate as opposed to the poor retention rate of blogs that die within the first 30 days. See, put that way, it’s great news, right? Twitter retention isn’t a unicorn, it’s real and has risen over time, so I don’t see things the way Nielsen does. Twitter ironically doesn’t have a community builder but their “meteoric rise” is nowhere near at its peak.

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