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"This post was originally published on my personal blog\r\n\r\nI\u2019ve been using Twitter for a number of years now \u2013 since late 2008 \u2013 so I\u2019m well entrenched in using the network as part of my daily life. I love Twitter. It\u2019s a great way to meet people, discuss common interests and things as they happen. It\u2019s the new water-cooler, and it\u2019s a great place to hang out.\r\n\r\nOver the years, I\u2019ve forged some great friendships via Twitter and met people I would have no hope of just meeting on the street as a result. It\u2019s a great tool for networking and I love being a part of it.\r\n\r\nBut lately there\u2019s been a series of stories about why Twitter is in trouble. Its user growth is flatlining. Executives are leaving the company. People aren\u2019t joining Twitter as quickly as they were supposed to.\r\n\r\nThis perplexed me. Why is it that I can get so much value from the network, but new users can\u2019t see that value? Why can\u2019t I convince friends that it\u2019s so good?\r\n\r\nI decided to sign up for a new account to see what the on boarding experience is like for new users. It\u2019s the most important part of joining the network for new users, so I wanted to see how they\u2019re encouraged to use it.\r\n\r\nThe first thing you encounter as a new user is this screen with recommended Twitter usernames:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nI\u2019m aware that it\u2019s hard to get a nice Twitter username, but this is the best it could recommend? Not a good start. After this, there\u2019s a nice interstitial asking if you want to follow the World Cup. Twitter is pushing this hard.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAfter skipping that, you\u2019re introduced to the feed for the first time, by a lovely gentleman called \u201CThe Twitter Teacher.\u201D I found it kind of funny, but it\u2019s a nice human touch.\r\n\r\nOn the left of that, you get some recommendations for the first people to follow. I like the idea of this, but why does it only recommend famous people and company accounts? Scrolling down, it recommends accounts like BBC, Stuff.co.nz and other business accounts.\r\n\r\nThis is disappointing, as most of Twitter\u2019s value is not tied up in following celebrities. I suspect that many users sign up for the first time, follow mostly celebrities and then give up, since they never get much interaction. I\u2019ve seen this amongst friends who tried to join, because they didn\u2019t know who to follow and didn\u2019t get any conversation.\r\n\r\nIt feels like a missed opportunity to showcase other users that are active and having conversations with their followers, rather than famous people. The value in Twitter is not observing and it\u2019s clear that this feature misses the point.\r\n\r\nBy the way, you can\u2019t skip this screen. I mean, you can if you know to sign out and sign back in or think to navigate to Twitter.com, but what new user is going to know that? Unless you know people on Twitter already and know to search for them, otherwise you\u2019ll just end up following some famous people.\r\n\r\nAfter following the recommended famous people, you\u2019re recommended to follow more famous accounts! Sigh\u2026\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe next step is to find some friends! Finally! Some people I might know! Alas, I can only search from my email account contacts, not something I actually use, like Facebook or even Google Plus (I also enjoyed the well hidden skip button).\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe final step is to give yourself an identity. For some reason, this is skippable when it really shouldn\u2019t be. Once you\u2019ve filled it out, that\u2019s it! You\u2019re on Twitter! Look at my awesome new feed, ready for interaction:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe mobile experience is even worse. You sign up for an account, then you are thrown into the app with no on boarding at all. These\u00A0are literally the only two steps new users see (as far as I can tell):\r\n\r\nThere\u2019s an interesting \u2018explore\u2019 tab I\u2019ve never seen for new users that shows a few interesting stories and people from Twitter, but that\u2019s all.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nI can see why people struggle to join Twitter, now. It\u2019s easy to go through these steps, end up following a bunch of famous people and then just be tweeting into the abyss with nobody to interact with. That\u2019s no fun and makes it seem like a huge effort to get started.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s sad that instead of taking advantage of a huge amount of data, Twitter recommends famous people instead of lesser-known, active users to follow. What would a new user even do after signing up? Who should I search for?\r\n\r\nThere\u2019s no topic based discovery for users either, so I guess just blindly searching or finding someone you like to follow and hope they retweet something interesting? This mechanism just doesn\u2019t work.\r\n\r\nThe problem with Twitter is the mechanism for making friends is different. On Facebook, you stick to people you know and friendship requests are mutual before you start interacting. On Twitter, you interact with people you don\u2019t know, and the friendship doesn\u2019t have to be mutual. This is a good thing, but can be scary at first.\r\n\r\nI don\u2019t have the solution to this problem, but I certainly think that recommending users follow celebrities is a huge problem for Twitter and just doesn\u2019t work. It\u2019ll be interesting to see how the company adjusts the on boarding over the next year to try and get more people using the network.\r\n\r\nDon't miss:\u00A0Phone and tablet strategies for Twitter, Facebook and more\r\n\r\nTop Image Credit:\u00A0Andrew Burton /\u00A0Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2014/06/15/signing-new-twitter-account-shows-company-struggling-grow/>