Twitter Fights Declining User Growth With Searchable Tweets

With Twitter Inc. TWTR set to release its earnings later in the day on Thursday, investors are hungry for all-important user growth statistics data for a better picture of how the company has fared in the changing social media landscape. The company’s third quarter report showed that its monthly active users had shrunken, which caused Twitter shares to lose around 16 percent. Analysts are expecting to see user growth in the fourth quarter of just 2.8 percent, the company’s slowest growth quarterly growth rate to date. While Twitter’s revenue has seen healthy growth over the past year, many worry that a diminishing user base could present a problem down the road. 

On Thursday, Twitter made good on promises to drive user growth as the company inked a deal with Google Inc. GOOG that will allow the site’s 140-character tweets to appear in the search engine’s results. The deal gives Google direct access to the social-media site’s data, making users’ tweets immediately available for search. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is hoping that distributing tweets on the world’s most popular search engine will drive users to the site and promote more engagement and sign-ups.

This is not the first time Twitter and Google have combined forces. From 2009 to 2011 Google had similar access, but former Twitter COO Ali Rowghani chose not to renew the agreement in favor of maintaining control over the site’s content. The details of the 2015 agreement are still murky, but the widespread distribution of content will likely net Twitter increased advertising revenue.