President Trump’s tweets have less of an impact now than they did two years ago.
Trump is inexorably associated with his favorite form of social media — Twitter. And while the quantity of Trump’s tweets has increased, the impact of those tweets has decreased relative to his Twitter followers, according to a report by Axios.
The president’s “interaction rate” has been on the decline since taking office. The interaction rate is a metric that is used to measure engagement among Twitter users and considers retweets and likes divided by the amount of Twitter followers to determine the overall impact of a given post.
In November 2017, Trump’s interaction rate sat at 0.55%, later dropping to 0.32% in June 2017. As of this month, that it has declined to a 0.16% interaction rate.
During that same period of time, Trump’s followers on Twitter skyrocketed from 16.4 million in November 2016 to more than 60 million, which might be one of the causes of the lower interaction rate.
The pace of Trump’s tweets has also recently increased. The president tweeted 157 times per month during his first six months in office — that number has increased to 284 times per month over the last six months.
An analysis of the tweets shows that the ones that had the highest interaction rate were oftentimes the most comical or controversial. His number one tweet is a photoshopped pro wrestling video of him beating up a man with a CNN logo superimposed over his head.
Rounding out the top three most interacted with tweets are two posts mocking and threatening North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
“Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat?’ Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend – and maybe someday that will happen!”
Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me “old,” when I would NEVER call him “short and fat?” Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend – and maybe someday that will happen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
November 12, 2017
“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.’ Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
January 3, 2018