Quitting social media

I am not doubting it, but would like to see some hard numbers about Twitter not driving traffic.
If it is not useful in the marketplace, then there's no reason for writers to be tweeting dozens of times a day.
I have heard of one notable platform that will only look at writers with a certain (high) number of followers. That seems to be the baseline, not talent.

You can also buy 'followers', I'm sure that's no secret.

 

It's about 1.5 percent of all traffic for most news orgs.

Twitter has outsized influence, but it doesn’t drive much traffic for most news orgs, a new report says

 

Thank you for the link.

Did Keri, Wickersham and Thompson express any sort of regret for the time they spent on the medium? (I can't get the link to play.)

 

Hahahaha ! Are you a millennial ?

Because when a millennial hears the term “crack”... they don’t know what that is.

So they think ass crack.

Note to self: Stop using the word crack to connote something addictive.

 

Why is that?

 

I get that five percent isn't much, and that's fair, but I'd wager that less than five percent of my publication's audience is going to go to our website and find my story without solicitation. People in general don't consume news that way anymore, and the metrics back that up, too.

 

I don't really know. I suspect it's because people go onto Twitter for a quick buzz, not to find themselves lost in a story. And also some very small percentage of your followers sees any individual tweet. There was a time when Twitter sent you an email telling you how many clicks you got on a link. I have 20K+ followers, and I'd maybe get 50 clicks. Twitter stopped sending out those emails a while ago.

 

I would think Twitter would be more useful for unique stories; features, in-depth stuff or Texas Monthly articles.
I am much more inclined to click on something I didn't know about (such as Atlas Obscura), as opposed to one of the 30 different people I follow tweeting or retweeting a link to Donald Trump's latest something, Stanton being traded, or the latest Steelers news. Most of the time, the tweet titles tell me everything I need to know and if it doesn't the one of the other followers or a react will.
I will click on a story link from off my Twitter feed. I probably do that 2 or 3 times a day, but it is never breaking news.

 

About five years ago when I was the web editor in Charlottesville, we got more traffic from Twitter than the other social media sites combined. But we were an outlier in the chain, and I’m guessing in general. When we’d meet and discuss with people in similar positions at the other papers they were getting way more clicks from Facebook.

We asked why we were different and my managing editor and a Media General big wig came to the conclusion in a highly educated and affluent market more people were using Twitter. I’d be interested to see how the numbers compare now.

Another factor might have been we happened to have a run of stories of national interest and stuff that was very hashtag friendly. The Huguely trial, for instance, got huge numbers from Twitter.

 

If nearly half a hunnert is a millennial, then I reckon I am, Jimmy Crack Corn.

My sister's crack is Reese's Pieces.

 

Guessing a college town would be more "connected" to Twitter. Be interesting to know if that is a predictor for greater success vs. Facebook.

 

Well, that's a sentence.