Internal memo: NPR lost a negligible amount of traffic in the six months since leaving X, after the service labeled the outlet “US state-affiliated media”
The numbers confirm what many of us have long suspected — that Twitter wasn't worth the effort, at least in terms of traffic
Nieman ReportsGabe Bullard
Context & Ripple Effects
NPR’s exit followed the platform’s labeling of the outlet as state-affiliated and then government-funded, a sequence NPR said undermined its credibility. The subsequent decision to stop posting on Twitter made the traffic impact a concrete test of the platform’s value to the publisher.
NPR can treat its six-month traffic loss as negligible, reducing the immediate audience-acquisition cost of remaining inactive on X.
X loses a prominent news publisher without the departure producing an evident traffic penalty for NPR.
Second-order effects
Other publishers weighing reputational risk against distribution may have stronger grounds to reduce posting or engagement on X, particularly if their referral mix resembles NPR’s.
The episode increases the value of channels that publishers directly control or can diversify across, because X’s referral contribution appears less essential than it once was.
Third-order effects
If declining referral value persists, the bargaining power between news organizations and social platforms shifts: publishers can more readily reject platform policies they see as damaging to editorial independence.
News distribution may become less dependent on a single social referral source and more fragmented across direct and alternative channels, though NPR’s result alone does not establish the effect for every publisher.
The trend: The story is one data point in social platforms’ diminishing role as indispensable traffic gateways for news publishers.
There's a lot of takeaways from that story but NPR has the benefit of a large non social media traffic already and a well established brand. When your Twitter audience made up of just two percent of your total readership, that's pretty negligible and makes it a lot easier to lea…
“Threads delivers about 63,000 site visits a week — about 39 percent of what Twitter provided.” Given how young Threads is, that's an astonishing figure. https://niemanreports.org/...
True, but I think Twitter's true value was always in aspects other than direct traffic. Even when my account there was public, was a negligible source—was valuable in other ways tho.
As someone who ran a website for years, I can tell you Twitter was always low on the referral totem pole. Organic, Google Search, FB/Insta, LinkedIn, Reddit were ALWAYS much higher. Twitter was for us to talk to other journalists.
Twitter (X) is not an easy habit to break - especially if most of *your* audience / community is firmly rooted there and too stubborn to leave. I get it. I do. I won't pass judgement. I'm definitely no NPR (all things considered), but... https://niemanreports.org/... …
I'm curious to know what @NPR has seen as potential platforms worth investing time and resources into now that they've discovered abandoning Twitter had negligible impact on audience development. — Six Months Ago NPR Left Twitter. The Effects Have Been Negligible — https://n…
Fascinating: — “It's not easy to decide to back away; there's still a fear about leaving... And as NPR has demonstrated, you may not be giving up all that much if you walk away.” — https://niemanreports.org/...
Leaving Twitter. And thriving. A true story 🐦👋🏼 — “as a platform becomes less reliable — either editorially or technically — staying becomes more fraught. And as NPR has demonstrated, you may not be giving up all that much if you walk away.” — Six Months Ago NPR Left Twitt…
@NiemanReports ... I imagine a number of others are reaching the same conclusion. the benefits were tenuous at best before musk. advertisers would be back too if there were results. it's the platform & owner not delivering reach. of course they pull the funds.
@NiemanReports @gbullard Twitter used to be a decent personal branding tool for journalists, since they could post text updates. But it doesn't surprise me that it didn't translate to website clicks, since as NPR noted, users “rarely left the platform”.
Nieman Reports has a story noting NPR didn't lose much traffic by leaving Twitter, showing that the platform wasn't bringing much audience (but I've often said, during Twitter's heyday, the quality of its audience was higher than the actual numbers.) https://niemanreports.org/...
@NiemanReports ... The numbers may be accurate but there is a place, especially now, for getting out the real news. I Respect NPR's decision but X really needs the balance they provided.
At @KCUR, we left Twitter/X/whatever when @NPR did, and we haven't looked back. I spoke to @NiemanLab about how this should be a good opportunity for public radio stations to rethink what kind of digital engagement actually builds trust long-term. https://niemanreports.org/...
Six Months Ago NPR Left Twitter. The Effects Have Been Negligible: The numbers confirm what many of us have long suspected — that Twitter wasn't worth the effort, at least in terms of traffic
Six Months Ago NPR Left Twitter. The Effects Have Been Negligible | The numbers confirm what many of us have long suspected — that Twitter wasn't worth the effort, at least in terms of traffic
Six Months Ago NPR Left Twitter. The Effects Have Been Negligible: The numbers confirm what many of us have long suspected — that Twitter wasn't worth the effort, at least in terms of traffic