Threads user and engagement numbers have dropped 60% since Meta launched the platform, according to analysis of the web and app traffic by Similarweb.
At the same time Twitter’s rebranding to X failed to stem the platform bleeding user and advertisers with week-on-week traffic (before and after the rebrand) down a further 10%.
Similarweb’s analysis of the web and app traffic to the major social media platforms shows Twitter’s long-term decline continuing.
TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest seem to be the main beneficiaries.
It may be too early to say whether Twitter’s recent rebranding as X will hurt the company’s traction with its audience or advertisers.
Based on the last week’s data, through July 23, traffic to twitter.com is down 10% from the previous week and 9.4% from the same days last year.
Similarweb says this is probably more a factor of a long-term decline than the rebranding per se. App usage didn’t see the same week-over-week drop.
In June, usage of the Twitter mobile apps was down 8.4% year-over-year, based on combined iOS and Android monthly active users in the US.
However, usage of competing social media apps was also down, including for some of the largest like Instagram (-10.8%), Snapchat (-8%), and TikTok (-6%).
Month-to-date traffic to the Twitter ad portal, ads.twitter.com, was down 10.4%, reflecting a long-term slide in advertiser engagement. Meta’s ads portal, business.facebook.com, was down 11.6%, again reflecting a long-term trend, while ads.snapchat.com was up 185.8%, ads.tiktok.com traffic was up 66.4%, and ads.pinterest.com was up 32.3%.
Threads usage peaked immediately after its launch, on July 7, with more than 49 million daily active users on Android alone. That’s more than a third of Twitter’s audience on that platform.
However, by July 23, that had fallen to 12.6 million daily active users, or about 12% of Twitter’s audience.
The average amount of time active Threads users spent on the app also dropped. US Android users spent nearly 21 minutes per day on the app immediately after launch, but over the past week they’ve spent less than 5 minutes per day with it. In contrast, Twitter users consistently engaged with the app for about 25 minutes per day.
A one-week change in traffic may not be significant in the long run, but the chart below is consistent with what we’ve been showing for months in terms of declines for both twitter.com and facebook.com.
Social media advertising remains on a downward trend for Twitter and Meta/Facebook.
"As we have been reporting month after month, the ad and business portals for both Twitter and Meta/Facebook have seen eroding traffic, while competitors like Snapchat, TikTok, and sometimes Pinterest have been gaining," says Similarweb.
The update shown below is based on month-to-date traffic through July 23, compared with the same days in 2022. Similarweb track traffic to these portals as a leading indicator of advertiser interest.
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