Awhile back, I wrote a tremendously unpopular post titled, “5 Reasons Why You Should Ditch Facebook and Use Twitter Instead.” In the aftermath of the debacle that ensued, people took revenge by adding me on Facebook, granting them the power to write nasty things on my wall like, “Facebook traitor!”,“Twitter loves you… But nobody else” and my personal favorite,”The only people who follow you are spambots.”
Alas, I have returned hoping to smooth things out with the legions of Facebook loyalists I disappointed. Here now are 5 great reasons why you should ditch Twitter and stick with Facebook.
- 60% of all Twitters users quit after their first month
- Oprah is tired of Twitter
- Twitter equips users with the right to spam
- The Fail Whale
- “Hey, who ate all of my time?”
According to , Nielsen Online, 60% of new Twitter users jump the ship after one month of use. In other words, 3 in 5 new Twitter users don’t stick around for more than a month. That pales in comparison to the retention rate of 60% enjoyed by social networking sites, Facebook and Myspace.
Proceeding with our case against Twitter, here are some more damaging numbers reported by Business Insider:
74 – Average number of days between each tweet for the average Twitter user
51% – The percentage of Twitter accounts that aren’t used even once during a month
19% – The percentage of Twitter users who use the service once or more
And of course, here is one alarming statistic I came across from my own observations:
1,021,336 – Number of people following Heidi Montag on Twitter. SMH
With nearly 3.3 million followers on Twitter, Oprah Winfrey is one of the most prolific Twitter users. And by prolific, I mean she has an astronomically high number of followers but rarely tweets, if ever. In fact, it’s been over two weeks, or 15 days, since she last tweeted.
So why should you care? Unlike Facebook, Twitter allows celebrities a more practical and and preferable way for them to connect with fans that isn’t entirely possible on Facebook. With Twitter, people have an opportunity to open their lives for all to see, for better or for worse. As a result, fans get a better picture of the lives of their beloved celebrities.
Unlike Facebook, Twitter is a big ocean of spam enveloped in more spam. What do I define as spam? First, there are advertisements, then some self-promotional tweets, the “I need more followers!” tweet, and the liars!
Sad days ahead...
The “Fail Whale”, or the commonly referred to image that shows up on Twitter’s website when the server becomes unresponsive, is a crucial area concerning the state of Twitter. It seems to occur most frequently when lots of people are tweeting at the same time or when the team at Twitter performs maintenance.
Scenario time! Someone just told you that Kim Kardashian just tweeted a picture of herself in a bikini. You rush madly to your computer and head on over to Twitter’s website…only to find this:
What a depressing moment. Sucked away from your opportunity of a lifetime (sort of), you hit the reload button listlessly every second. But the whale keeps laughing at your misery and refuses to leave. How sad.
When you start off using Twitter, following 50-100 people ain’t so bad. But then you hit this point when it sucks you into a road where deadlines are forgotten and meals are skipped. On top of Facebook already consuming 95% of your time on the Internet, is there any room for the new guy? If you responded, “yes!”, read my article about why you should ditch Facebook asap.
Time is precious. According to Stephen Covey in his book, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People“, time cannot be created nor saved. Once it passes you by, it cannot be recovered. Are you ready to take the plunge?
To learn more about why Twitter isn’t for you, view this very informative slideshow by Henrico Dolfing.
For the video-loving audience, here is a video depicting the trevails of Twitter:
Image via Brad Fitzpatrick
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