83% of Twitter accounts inactive in December
Although 75 million people had signed up for a Twitter account by the end of 2009, only 17 percent sent even a single Tweet in December ‘09, an all-time low for the micro-blogging service, research from RJMetrics has found.
Overall, in the three years since it began, 40% of Twitter account holders have never sent one Tweet and 80% have sent less than ten.
Despite the high percentage of inactive users, Robert Moore of RJMetrics observed that 17 percent of 75 million people still translates to a large number and the study found “tremendous loyalty and engagement from those Twitter users who stay on the system after their first week.”
Among the study’s other findings: Twitter is currently signing up about 6.2 million new members a month, down from a July 2009 peak of 7.8 million a month and the average Twitter user has 27 followers, down from 42 followers in August 2009.
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So these 60 million or so who do not use Twitter after signing up fall into the “just don’t get it” category? Rather I would say that Twitter itself has done a poor job of articulating the benefits of using Twitter, and evangelists have been talking among themselves rather than reaching a wider audience.
Statistics also show that people who don’t use Twitter and then come back to it tend to have more sticktoitiveness than one-time users.
I recently joined up, and find that it is working wonderfully as a ‘trend ticker’ and a source for links, to websites of interests. That may be the real use of it, more than a personal diary.
Roger – “So these 60 million or so who do not use Twitter after signing up fall into the “just don’t get it” category?”
Or worse. They fall into the ‘Lets get all sugared up about Twitter for a month, then forget to post’ category. Fine for an individual – deadly for a business since it indicates an inability to see through a strategy, lack of foresight (in not allocating resources) and general woolly band wagon jumping.
Sadly, I’ve seen it happen all too often.