Over the course of eight months, I conducted a survey of 336 internet users. I asked users a number of questions, ranging from the users’ original perceptions of how Twitter might help them to what daily activities they performed on Twitter. Some interesting results arose regarding Twitter Quitters.

The survey was conducted with:

• People who have never tried Twitter
• People who used Twitter and then abandoned it
• People still using Twitter, at the time they took the survey

I wanted to understand how non-Twitter users perceived Twitter. What did they think Twitter was? Was it like Facebook? Or email? Below are the results:

Obviously, there wasn’t a lot of agreement among non-users.  People generally didn’t think Twitter was like email or RSS. The largest numbers thought Twitter was like a blog (36%) followed by IM (28%). There was about an even split of people who thought Twitter was like Facebook and those who thought it was nothing like Facebook.

What’s It Good For?

I also asked people how they thought Twitter could help them. I posed a variety of possibilities ranging from meeting new people to keeping in touch with friends/family to learning about events. I asked people to rate their level of agreement: strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, strongly agree. (In the charts below, I combined the two disagree reponse sets into Disagree, and the two agree response sets into a single Agree.)

People who had never used Twitter had these responses: 

In general, people who hadn’t yet used Twitter thought it would help them:

• Express themselves (59%)
• Have fun (50.8%)
• Learn new information (45%)
• Keep in touch with people they knew (44%)

On the other hand, the great majority of non-Twitter users (62%) didn’t think Twitter would be helpful for their business or career.

Non-Twitter users were split on whether Twitter would help them find information about topics they cared about. Approximately a third agreed (36%) and about a third disagreed (39%). Likewise, 33% thought it would help them meet new people and 36% thought it wouldn’t.

I asked the same questions of users who had tried Twitter and then abandoned it. I asked these users both what they thought Twitter would do for them before they started using it, and what they actually found it useful for when they did use it. (Caveat: because they were asked both questions after already using Twitter, answers regarding their original expectations must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.) 

In general, their answers were similar to those of people who had never used Twitter—with one exception. These users weren’t so vehement that Twitter wouldn’t help them with their business or career. Of those who had never used Twitter, only 6% thought Twitter could help. Of those who tried Twitter and quit, 37% reported that they originally thought it would help their business or career.

Twitter Quitters versus Twitter Fans

Finally, let’s look at the opinons of Twitter quitters versus Twitter fans, with regard to Twitter’s value. Below are charts showing the opinions of those who tried Twitter and dumped it, and those who continued to use it.

The charts show the dramatic difference in opinion. Twitter quitters apparently found no value in Twitter at all. On the otherhand, those who stuck with it found it highly valuable for everything but reconnecting with friends/family and keeping in touch with them. The greatest value for Twitter users was in:

• Learning new things (80%)
• Finding information about topics (78%)
• Learning about events (73%)
• Having fun (65%)
• Expressing themselves (63%)

For a certain segment of people, Twitter is a highly valuable tool. The question is, why do some people find Twitter valuable and others find it absolutely useless?

Why Twitter Quitters Quit

When I asked Twitter quitters why they quit, here’s what they had to say:

People quit Twitter because they were bored or weren’t interested in the tweets. 

Some of the other survey questions help identify the causes of their boredom. I asked both Twitter quitters and those still using Twitter whether they knew people on Twitter when they started, how many people they followed, how they accessed Twitter, and how often they accessed it. The key differences seemed to be how often they accessed Twitter and, perhaps, the number of people they followed:

• Both groups generally knew people on Twitter: 64.5% of Twitter quitters knew people on Twitter when they joined and 64.7% of current Twitter users also knew people.
• Both groups primarily accessed through the site: 90.3% of Twitter quitters accessed Twitter through the website, and 90.7% of current Twitter users also accessed through the site.
• Twitter quitters may have followed less people to start: 63% of quitters reported following 10 people or less. 62.1% of current users report following 50 people or more. However, the latter group had generally been on Twitter longer, by the time they took this survey.
• Twitter quitters accessed Twitter far less frequently: 67.4% of current Twitter users check Twitter several times a day, with another 11.6% checking once a day. While only 25.8% of quitters checked Twitter several times a day.  79% of current users check Twitter at least once a day, versus only 46% of quitters.

No Good Tweets

People surely quit Twitter for many different reasons. It appears, though, that a significant number of users quit because they aren’t finding interesting tweets. The fact that quitters access Twitter less frequently may be one reason they didn’t find interesting tweets. The stream moves fast that the more often you check Twitter, the more likely you are to see something of interest.

There may well be related factors at play. Quitters reported following 10 people or less. We don’t know how many follows those who stuck with Twitter had when they first started. It may be that the people who stay with Twitter tend to follow more people initially, which would presumably increase their chances of seeing interesting tweets.

Surely another factor is who you follow initially. Twitter stickers may have found a better set of people to follow initially. If quitters don’t find people to follow who tweet information they care about, the chances are lower of seeing interesting tweets.

Conclusion

It’s a well known fact that users won’t give a site much time to prove itself. The majority of Twitter quitters I surveyed tried Twitter for less than a month. It’s important that users see tweets of interest to them in their very first session with Twitter and in sessions thereafter, until they are sold on it.

If Twitter wants to keep users, they need to do a better job of connecting first-time users not just with people they know, but with people who frequently tweet on topics that the user cares about. They also need to use the UI to encourage users to follow a significant number of people initially–probably 25 or more.

If new users are rewarded in their early interactions with Twitter, they will be more likely to check Twitter more frequently, increasing their chances of seeing interesting tweets and setting up a virtuous cycle.

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