Advertisers say Twitter's 218m users aren’t enough for mass-market clients
Advertisers have called on Twitter to do more to bolster its user base after informing the social media site that its 218m monthly active users are insufficient to attract mass market clients.
Ad buyers are urging a dramatic scaling up of the micro blogging platform both in terms of its users and sales team to compete effectively with Facebook – which draws five times as much traffic with 1.15bn monthly active users.
Overall 22 per cent of US internet users are on Twitter, far fewer than the 72 per cent who check Facebook at least once a month.
Adam Shlachter , senior vice president of media at DigitasLBi, said: “Scale still matters. How consumers embrace [Twitter] and tap into it or tune in or out is going to be critical.”
Shlachter added that advertisers needed assurances that Twitter had a “… consistent audience to tap into and it's not an audience that is just churning in and out,”
Twitter is heavily reliant on advertisers to fund its operations and is seeking to raise $1bn in an Initial Public Offering. The service has been hit by a slowing growth rate in recent months dropping to seven per cent this quarter from 10 per cent in the prior three quarters.