Advertisers Question the Size of Twitter’s User-Base

Though Twitter’s service has become increasingly popular since its debut in 2006, a limited 218 million user-base and slowing new user growth has caused advertisers to pause and reevaluate Twitter’s merit in the digital advertising spectrum. It’s almost unfair to compare Twitter to Facebook, the latter of which boasts five times Twitter’s user-base and 72% of all internet users, but that’s exactly what advertisers are doing with their marketing budgets in an economy that has remained shaky. The issue at hand not only stems from fewer users, but also the demographic that subscribes to Twitter. It’s a comparatively younger crowd than Facebook, which has managed to capture a diversified, global demographic with a treasure-trove of personal information on each user.

Twitter, however, boasts a formidable asset in its popular celebrity and media user-base. These users are followed by up to millions of people, and are considered quite influential to their followers. The key is for both Twitter and its advertisers to team up and tap into this opportunity. With Twitter’s IPO looming in the coming months, the company is feeling increasing pressure to boost revenue before going public. Clearly, Twitter’s move will be to play to its strengths, tap into its user-base demographic, take advantage of its “power users”—hopefully leading to more advertising dollars.

In the near-term however, increasing and diversifying the user-base should remain key priorities for Twitter if it hopes to boost its market share of the ever-increasing digital advertising pie. Though 218 million users is a tremendous amount, in the increasingly-connected world, this will have to increase if Twitter is to remain competitive for the best advertising spending in the digital sphere.