The micro-blogging site Twitter has gone from strength to strength in the last year and a half, and many SEO and internet commentators continued to predict big things for the site in 2010. As the middle of the year approaches, the social media site has yet to rock the world in any new way. What, exactly, is happening with Twitter?
A recent study reveals that what’s happening with Twitter is exactly what has always happened with social media sites after a big bang: not much. Twitter, which set the world on fire at the beginning of 2009, seems to be simply cruising along, despite the hype. If the site’s statistics are anything to go by, Twitter, far from making any further big splashes in 2010, is settling into a comfortable routine.
What the statistics say
First of all, let’s look at the basic new user stats from Twitter. Twitter’s statistics went wild in the middle of 2009, reaching around 225,000 new users created around May of that year. That peak came from a steady build from the start of the year, with around 20,000 new users registering in January 2009, around 60,000 in February, 120,000 in April and so on.
After that peak, things dropped back again fairly swiftly. Around 75,000 new users joined Twitter in July 2009, a brief spike of 100,000 joined in August, and by October of that year the new user numbers had dropped back down to around 10,000. By January 2010 the number of new users had trickled out to a dribble.
Of course, it could be that everyone who was going to join Twitter has joined by now, explaining the levelling off of new users. A study by an internet consultancy found that only around one fifth of the site’s users are at all active, and of the thousands of tweets posted each day, almost all of them come from a core group that make up around one quarter of all registered users. In other words, Twitter isn’t nearly as active as it may appear from its own statistics.
What does this mean?
We’re all familiar with the ways in which statistics can be twisted to make things seem better than they are. As most site owners will know from experience, a high number of subscribers doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It shouldn’t be at all startling to find that a social media site like Twitter, which has been the subject of significant hype, has attracted a bunch of users who aren’t really all that committed.
What the study does tell us is that any Twitter campaign is going to be a lot harder than Twitter’s published stats would seem to indicate. If the majority of tweets are sent by hardcore users, your Twitter campaign is going to be up against some tough competition. The exposure provided by Twitter is also significantly smaller.
It’s a good idea to talk to your search engine optimization consultant if you’re considering a Twitter campaign. Talk to our experts at SEO Consult Australia about your social media options.
