Practically two-and-a-half years after its launch, Reality Social is struggling to hold onto its small U.S. person base, in keeping with new knowledge on the microblogging platform launched by former President Donald Trump‘s media firm.
To date in Might, U.S. each day visits to Reality Social have dropped greater than 21% from April, and greater than 35% in comparison with March, in keeping with digital intelligence platform Similarweb.
The location’s common variety of month-to-month visits over the previous 12 months — simply over 4 million from Might 2023 to April 2024 — plummeted greater than 39% from the prior 12-month interval, from Might 2022 to April 2023, Similarweb reported.
The visitors has declined at the same time as Trump — essentially the most outstanding Reality Social person and the bulk shareholder of its guardian firm, Trump Media — has saturated the nationwide information with protection of his prison trial and White Home bid.
And whereas the app noticed a surge in guests within the lead-up to Trump Media’s public buying and selling debut in March, Similarweb’s most up-to-date knowledge present that these good points have already been erased.
The person and engagement knowledge from Similarweb and two different knowledge corporations, collected and analyzed solely for CNBC, gives a glimpse into how Trump Media’s flagship product is growing — one which the corporate itself has but to offer.
The corporate claims it doesn’t monitor key indicators that social media platforms historically use to watch their efficiency. These embody metrics like a web site’s lively person accounts and its each day and month-to-month customer numbers, in addition to its income per person and advert impressions.
Trump Media says it believes monitoring these stats “may not align with the very best pursuits” of the corporate or its stockholders, in keeping with its most up-to-date submitting with the Securities and Trade Fee.
The corporate additionally mentioned it “might by no means acquire, monitor, or report any or sure key working metrics.”
CNBC reached out to Trump Media for touch upon the corporations’ findings, and requested if it might present any knowledge of its personal.
“Why would we touch upon a pretend information community reporting on pretend analyses?” the corporate mentioned via a spokesperson.
However the brand new analyses may very well be warning indicators for Trump Media, whose enterprise relies upon largely on rising its person base.
“If you cannot show that you’ve got a sizeable, lively, engaged, rising viewers, I do not perceive the way you create a profitable ad-supported social media enterprise,” mentioned David Carr, Similarweb’s editor of insights, information and analysis, in an interview.
Trump Media depends totally on advert gross sales for its income, and discloses in its SEC filings {that a} decline in person engagement might damage its enterprise by making Reality Social much less enticing to advertisers.
The information corporations’ findings might additionally harden Wall Road analysts’ view of the corporate as a “meme inventory” whose sky-high market capitalization is untethered to its enterprise fundamentals.
“We mainly do not see something in these digital indicators that may clarify why the valuation is as excessive as it’s,” Carr mentioned.
Trump Media on Tuesday reported a first-quarter web lack of almost $328 million on revenues of about $771,000, most of which got here from promoting.
Nonetheless, as of Friday, the corporate had a market cap of barely greater than $8 billion.
The inventory closed on Friday at $45.81 per share, which is roughly in the course of the wide selection of share costs, from a low of round $22 per share to a excessive of round $70, that TMTG shares have traded at for the reason that firm went public in March.
A single surge
Reality Social’s month-to-month lively person numbers declined considerably within the U.S. within the ultimate months of 2023, three totally different knowledge corporations informed CNBC.
However the platform’s visitors rebounded within the first quarter of this 12 months, as Trump Media closed in on a deal permitting it to begin buying and selling on the Nasdaq beneath the ticker DJT.
Similarweb tallied 781,954 lively iOS and Android customers on Reality Social within the U.S. that month, a greater than 58% surge from February. GWS Enlarge provided an excellent rosier evaluation, calculating that Reality Social’s month-to-month person numbers hit a brand new peak of 1.4 million in March, which carried over into April.
Information of Trump Media & Expertise Group public buying and selling is seen on tv screens on the Nasdaq Market in New York Metropolis on March 26, 2024.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Photos
Knowledge agency Sensor Tower, in the meantime, calculated that the social media platform’s U.S. month-to-month lively person stage within the first quarter of 2024 rose 10% 12 months over 12 months.
However all three analysts linked that rise to the heavy press protection surrounding Trump Media’s public merger and its extremely unstable buying and selling kickoff, when the inventory rocketed up as a lot as 50%.
That meme-fueled frenzy appears unlikely to determine a long-term achieve in visitors: Within the four-week interval ending Might 19, as an illustration, each day lively U.S. Reality Social customers have been down 19.7% 12 months over 12 months, in keeping with Similarweb.
Reality Social’s headwinds
Reality Social additionally faces two main obstacles to constructing an engaged person base, in keeping with GWS Enlarge.
The primary is a retention drawback. Reality Social customers on common test the positioning fewer than two days per week — falling behind apps like Fb, X, TikTok, Reddit and Pinterest.
Reality Social customers additionally clock fewer minutes of engagement on the platform that do the customers of different social media networks. The overwhelming majority of Reality Social customers, 87%, additionally use Fb. One other 51% are additionally on X, GWS Enlarge reported.
“In comparison with different social media platforms, Reality Social customers are accessing the app a lot much less continuously and are spending a lot much less time on it per session,” the agency’s CEO, Dr. Paul Carter, informed CNBC in an e mail.
“That can have a much bigger affect on the prospects for Reality than any media limelight,” Carter mentioned.
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks throughout a marketing campaign rally within the South Bronx in New York Metropolis on Might 23, 2024.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Photos
He added {that a} future decline in Reality Social’s numbers “will likely be as a result of the platform has failed to interact customers in the best way that essentially the most profitable social media firms – TikTok most prominently – have mastered.”
The second drawback is that Reality Social does not supply something to set it aside from greater microblogging websites, particularly X, which it carefully resembles.
Trump Media says it’s targeted on including new options to Reality Social, together with dwell TV streaming, in keeping with its newest earnings report.
For now, essentially the most distinctive function of Reality Social is Trump himself, who makes use of the app frequently and sometimes makes information in his posts.
But Trump’s presence on Reality Social alone has not been sufficient to attract customers away from its rivals, nor has the wall-to-wall nationwide press protection of Trump’s prison trial and his marketing campaign to defeat President Joe Biden.
“It simply hasn’t occurred,” Carr mentioned.
— NBC Information’ Rob Wile and CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report.
