Twitter Quitters: Why People Stop Tweeting

We talk a lot about how Twitter can be an incredibly useful social media outlet for individuals and companies alike. (Or, you know, so I am told.) Still, many people just cannot wrap their minds around the whole Twitter thing. Still others try Twitter for a while only to discover that they still cannot comprehend its utility.

In fact, there are a lot of people who try Twitter and decide to give it up.

Twitter Quitters

Twitter has one billion registered users. However, there are only 218 million active accounts. This means that people are signing up for Twitter, tweeting for a short while and then never logging on again in droves. Many Twitter quitters are older, like retired schoolteacher Donald Hovasse of Las Vegas who “didn’t really get the point of it at all.”

Retirees are not the only people leaving Twitter. Plenty of young and hip celebrities have abandoned the service including:

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  Miley Cyrus (wanted privacy)

  
  


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  LeAnn Rimes (fight with ex-husband’s new girlfriend)

  
  


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  Adele (Twitter users threatened to kill her newborn son)

  
  


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  James Franco (“It was a hassle, man.”)

  
  


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  Megan Fox (Hates social media)

  
  

Why Do People Quit?

Of course, if you are not a celebrity, you probably have different reasons for quitting social media. Many people find the constantly updating stream of information in their feed to be overwhelming. Others feel as though Twitter is less interactive than Facebook. Finally, many new tweeters just cannot get a grip on what Twitter is for.

Although Twitter quitters are a major concern for people watching the Twitter IPO, they are an even bigger concern for businesses that use the site to interact with customers and clients. If you use Twitter for your business, you should be aware of how to prevent your followers from leaving the site for good.

What You Can Do To Keep Your Followers

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  Know your followers. If your target groups are older (and therefore likely to be new to the whole Twitter thing) you will want to tweet differently than you will if you have a younger audience;

  
  


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  Avoid clogging feeds. Many people quit Twitter because they find the whole experience overwhelming;

  
  


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  Interact with your followers on a regular basis. Some people quit Twitter because they feel as though they are tweeting to no one;

  
  


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  Avoid drama. Many former Twitter uses report that they got burned out on watching people fight in public.

  
  

Have you been worried about Twitter quitters and their potential effect on your social media strategy? How have you kept your followers engaged?

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/twitter/twitter-quitters-people-stop-tweeting-0664140?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=twitter-quitters-people-stop-tweeting