Truth Social keeps shrinking in followers Truth Social keeps shrinking despite the Trump trial and looming election
Published 7:00 AM EDT, Fri May 3, 2024
Truth Social’s average number of daily active US users on iOS and Android dropped by 19% year over year in April to about 113,000, according to data shared exclusively with CNN from Similarweb, a data intelligence company.
The Similarweb data, which captures the first 29 days of April, showed that the average number of users dipped 4% month over month. That drop comes despite the considerable attention received by the ongoing Trump criminal trial and the growing focus on the US presidential election.
This is a problem for Truth Social and for Trump, who is not only the dominant shareholder in Trump Media but also serves as the chairman and is the platform’s most popular user.
“User growth is foundational to any social media startup. It is how these companies make money: Grow users and monetize them, in that order,” said Matthew Kennedy, senior initial public offering strategist at Renaissance Capital, which provides pre-IPO research and IPO-focused exchange traded funds (ETFs).
More users means more money the social media startup can charge on ads sold. And there is a snowball effect in which user growth can build upon itself as friends, neighbors and co-workers encourage each other to sign up.
Even Trump Media’s own filings warn investors that a failure to grow users would spell trouble.
“Social media companies are speculative businesses because revenues and income derived from them depend primarily upon the continued acceptance of that platform,” Trump Media wrote in a filing earlier this year. “Failure to attract a sufficient user base would adversely affect TMTG’s business prospects.”
