Twitter has a growth problem — more precisely it has a problem with Wall Street not believing that it’s growing fast enough and therefore doubting its prospects for long-term profitability.
Despite revenue that has doubled for five consecutive quarters, Twitter is losing the perception battle. Since the IPO last November, the microblogging company has been wrestling with expectations and comparisons to Facebook and its billion-plus base of active users. Twitter’s stock price, which was once as high as $73 a share, closed today at $36.87. In April, when Twitter reported monthly active user growth of only 5.8% (to 255 million), the stock plunged 10%.
The company, which will trot out its second quarter numbers on July 29, is angling for a different outcome this time, according to the Wall Street Journal. Citing unnamed sources, the Journal reported today that Twitter will unveil as many as four new metrics to show that it has reach beyond its active users.
The new metrics will measure the breadth of the audience that is exposed to Twitter’s content but not logged in, the people said. Executives hope to shift the perception of Twitter from a social network to a broadcast platform in the likeness of Google Inc.’s YouTube, whose videos are often embedded on other sites.
Although the Journal didn’t report specifics about the new metrics, it seems likely that total impressions will be involved. The company often cites that stat — for instance 24 million tweets about the 2014 Super Bowl, received 1.8 billion impressions — when promoting its success during major events.
And perhaps not coincidentally, Twitter recently gave advertisers and verified users access to metrics about how many impressions recorded by each of their tweets.
Read the full Journal story here (paywall).
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