Why Twitter trails other social media

Ever since it was launched in 2006, Twitter has grown to become one of the biggest social media platforms for businesses, organisations, and individuals alike. PHOTO | AFP

What you need to know:

  • Ever since it was launched in 2006, Twitter has grown to become one of the biggest social media platforms for businesses, organisations, and individuals alike.

  • President Uhuru, his deputy, as well as other leading politicians in Kenya tweet frequently, keeping their followers abreast of their work.

  • One of the internationally-known ardent and controversial Twitter user is US President Donald Trump.

It is said that Twitter is like an unending cocktail party. At such a party, you meet many people; talk to some and ignore the rest. That is the same with Twitter — you sign up, follow some people and ignore others. The number of followers one has on Twitter is an indicator of one’s popularity.

Ever since it was launched in 2006, Twitter has grown to become one of the biggest social media platforms for businesses, organisations, and individuals alike. In its first decade, tweets were 140-character long or less.

Recently, however, the tweet character cap was raised to 280. Before the length of tweets was doubled, it would have been expected that many people were yearning for ability to type longer texts.

Interestingly, in the first few days after the change-over, many people tweeted the full 280 limit, perhaps because it was new and novel. But this was short-lived.

Once the behaviour normalised, only five per cent of tweets went beyond 140 characters, and only two per cent of tweets went beyond 190 characters.

CONCISE TWEETS

This suggests either that Twitter users are hard-wired to post concise tweets or they don’t have the time or inclination to type out longer tweets. Or just maybe they need time to warm to the longer limit.

Twitter, like Facebook, has been facing accusations of being used for nefarious reasons. It is accused of having allowed propaganda on its platform that illegally influenced the 2016 US presidential election, a matter that is under investigation.

Twitter has been lagging behind rivals Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat in user growth, and struggling to reach profitability. The company’s user count has tapered off at 330 million accounts, after it removed multiple-counted users. Of these users, Kenya has about a million monthly active users.

But just because many people are on Twitter doesn’t mean they use it the same way. Politicians are some of the most enthusiastic twitters.

President Uhuru, his deputy, as well as other leading politicians in Kenya tweet frequently, keeping their followers abreast of their work.

One of the internationally-known ardent and controversial Twitter user is US President Donald Trump.

WHITE HOUSE

He, like his predecessor President Obama, used Twitter during his campaigns to connect and grow his support base. Mr Trump claimed that the traditional media was not portraying his campaigns in good light and the only tool at his disposal was Twitter.

With a social media-obsessed president in the White House, more Americans than ever are getting news from social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and even Snapchat.

More than two-thirds of American adults — 67 per cent, to be exact — are reported to get at least some of their news on social media.

Mr Trump’s tweets are also remarkably effective. He joined Twitter in March 2009 and immediately became a piercing-presence, whom people could not ignore. And when he declared his intention to run for America’s topmost political seat, the number of his followers continued to increase.

BREAKING NEWS

His Twitter feed, which has nearly 50 million followers, is a window not only into his thoughts and psyche, but into the kind of messages he wants to communicate.  Many local and international news outlets keep tabs on Mr Trump’s private and official Twitter account for breaking news.

In Kenya and Africa in general, Twitter has not grown at the same pace as other social media platforms. More people use Facebook and Instagram to connect with the wider audience, and WhatsApp for closed-group communication. It doesn’t look like the move to double the size of tweets to 280 characters will turn around Twitter’s financial status.

 The writer is an informatics specialist. [email protected] @samwambugu2