• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, August 15, 2016

Despite its best efforts, Twitter’s growing problem remains worse than ever.

 

In fact, in its latest forecast of domestic Twitter usage, eMarketer just significantly downgraded its projections amid nearly stagnant growth reported by the company in second quarter.

By the end of this year, 52.2 million U.S. consumers will access their Twitter accounts at least once a month. If accurate, that will represent a mere 2% increase, year-over-year.

Worse yet, eMarketer has flattened its growth estimates for Twitter for the next four years. It expects the social giant to add just 3.6 million users by 2020 instead of the 13.9 million previously forecast.

“Twitter continues to struggle with growing its user base because new users often find the product unwieldy and difficult to navigate, which makes it challenging to find long-term value in being an active user,” Oscar Orozco, an analyst at eMarketer, notes in a new report. “Also, new product initiatives have had little impact in attracting new users.”

Industrywide, Twitter will capture a 28.1% share of domestic social network users -- a decrease from 2015.

Twitter’s declining share is largely due to social platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, and messaging apps hurting Twitter’s growth prospects more than previously expected.

What is Twitter doing wrong?

“To keep itself competitive, Twitter should play to its strengths,” Orozco suggests. “It has had success with live broadcasting and should continue to make deals to stream sports and political events.”

“By continuing to invest in video, particularly live video, Twitter could potentially begin to more successfully monetize and grow its user base,” Orozco added.