Is Twitter User Engagement Declining?

  As Twitter grows in popularity and reach, it is becoming more essential that businesses learn how to increase user engagement on Twitter. One effective method for doing this is understanding when your audience is most active during the day and posting during those hours. Content that resonates with your target audience is equally as essential, such as tweets or memes that highlight interesting topics they can engage with and find enjoyable. 1. Fewer Posts Twitter's growth has been propelled by its ability to engage users and spark conversations on topics relevant to them, providing a boon for marketers using Twitter as a promotional platform for businesses and products. But recent evidence indicates that the volume of posts may be decreasing. Twitter has grown steadily since its creation and now boasts over 321 million monthly active users worldwide. Twitter tracks their growth through "Monetizable Daily Active Users," or mDAUs; in 2022 Q2 alone there was an average worldwide mDAU growth rate of 16.6% from last year at this same point in time. Twitter users show clear differences by age and gender. Adults in their late teens to early twenties tend to use it more frequently than older adults due to increased social media literacy and engagement with the platform among this age group. Younger Twitter users also tend to identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party than older peers, though their percentage may not be as high compared with that of general population; it is higher among 18-24 year olds. Twitter users tend to share similar perspectives as the general population on other important issues. They are more likely than the latter group to believe immigrants strengthen the U.S., identify evidence of race- and gender-based inequalities in society and consider that people should be treated fairly regardless of race or ethnicity. However, Twitter users differ significantly from the general population on certain issues. Twitter users tend to believe in racial and gender-based inequalities more strongly than others do and consider opportunities beyond what exists at the top of economic ladder to be worthwhile investments for people's futures. Twitter users tend to differ modestly from the general population on many key social issues. For instance, their percentages who support immigrants being welcomed into their nation and women having more chances to get ahead do not significantly exceed that expressed by members of the general public. 2. Less Relevance Over the last several months, you may have noticed that Twitter is pushing more recommended tweets into your main 'For You' timeline, keeping you up-to-date with current events but decreasing their reach and engagement for your tweets. While this can be beneficial in keeping tabs on news updates, this trend could also reduce engagement with your own tweets. Internal Twitter research unearthed by Reuters in September revealed that Twitter is struggling to engage its most active users, potentially having an adverse effect on its ability to generate revenues from advertisers as well as targeting specific audiences with campaigns. One reason is that search results pages have shifted towards relevance instead of recency, improving user experience by making it easier for people to locate relevant posts without scrolling through multiple pages of old posts. Relevance alone won't ensure your Twitter audience. Make sure your posts are engaging enough that people actually read them! First step to creating engaging tweets is understanding your target audience. Knowing who they are will allow you to tailor tweets that resonate best. If your business specializes in home renovation, for instance, make sure that its content relates directly to this sector in order to avoid spamming your followers with irrelevant material. This way you won't risk overwhelming them with irrelevant details. Implement the many features Twitter offers to ensure your tweets remain timely, such as monitoring industry news, broadcasting live events and sharing business updates. Twitter offers more features than just these features; hashtags can increase your chances of being seen by potential customers, while real-time ad engagement allows for real-time engagement between advertisers and users. Plus, use it as a listening tool to find trends that are trending locally! 3. Fewer Retweets As part of a business' Twitter strategy, engaging your audience is essential. That means sharing engaging content, responding to questions and comments quickly, and offering useful insight about your brand - keeping people interested will increase brand recognition while driving more clicks onto your website. One way of doing this is to increase your retweets - since these act as the highest form of engagement on Twitter, giving your posts greater exposure and giving more people access to them. However, to maximize your retweets effectively it's essential to remember that they aren't the only form of engagement on Twitter; users may like or comment on your post which can lead to further engagement with followers. Study findings published in March 2019 revealed that users who added GIFs, videos, or any visual components to their posts saw an average 55% increase in engagement. People are more likely to interact with posts containing visuals or videos and these posts generally receive more retweets than similar ones without visual elements. One way to increase retweets is to ensure your tweets are relevant; these types of posts will likely be shared among followers and may lead to greater engagement overall. Twitter provides another effective way of increasing retweets: responding to tweets that mention you or that address specific aspects of your products or services. Responding directly can engage customers and boost your profile, fostering loyalty from them and potentially driving sales of these. 4. Fewer Impressions Twitter Impressions are an integral metric for marketers seeking to measure the impact of their tweets on this social media platform. Utilizing these numbers allows businesses and marketers to optimize their Twitter strategy in order to optimize campaigns effectively and achieve maximum return from campaigns. If your impressions have been decreasing over time, this could be a telltale sign that engagement between yourself and your followers has declined significantly - particularly if your account is relatively new. Impressions don't just measure how many times someone views your tweet. Additionally, consider who retweeted or liked it as this will give an accurate representation of how effective your retweets are and how many people are seeing your content. An alternate approach to understanding impressions is comparing them with potential and actual impressions. Potential impressions refer to how often your tweet might show up in search results, retweets, or elsewhere online. Actual impressions refer to how many times your tweet actually appeared online during its lifespan as determined by search engines or other channels. Kanye West could retweet one of your tweets and this could result in 23 million potential impressions; however, not everyone would actually see your post. Even if all those people saw your post, that doesn't necessarily indicate engagement rates are increasing. Therefore, measuring engagement rates is crucial. If you want to increase your engagement rate, try posting at times when your audience is online - this will allow you to reach more people without spending hours writing new tweets! Reshare your posts as often as possible to increase impressions, which in turn increases your reach percentage - the total number of people who see your tweet divided by the total number of your followers. Be sure to use hashtags responsibly and join trending conversations, as hashtags have a tremendous impact on impressions. Be mindful of which ones are popular within your niche and use them regularly. Make sure that you refrain from engaging in anything considered hate speech on Twitter. Slurs have the potential to negatively impact your reach (i.e., how many people see your tweet) since they cannot be filtered or sorted and can easily be misconstrued by other Twitter users.