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Twitter Referral Traffic Dips For News Outlets

Twitter has proven to be a volatile social media platform for news outlets, and now there’s tangible proof of that.

According to analysis from Similarweb, news websites saw an average decrease of 12% in referral traffic from Twitter in December of last year, compared to November. The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, BBC, and Yahoo were in a group that saw traffic from Twitter decrease by 10-18% in the month. People magazine’s referrals dropped 46%, according to the data analytics company.

Two publishers, however, did see their traffic increase from Twitter referrals. Both The New York Post and Fox News saw traffic growth from the social media platform. Both companies are owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch, with the Post falling under News Corp’s supervision and Fox News operating under the Fox Corp umbrella.

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One publisher claimed the decrease isn’t concerning because Twitter has “never been a major part” of that company’s web traffic strategy, but did question it’s future purpose in the overall structure of the organization.

“The big, scary, existential question is, will social media continue to be a traffic source for a news organization? Or will it become just a storytelling platform or just a marketing platform?” Betsy Reed, U.S. Editor of The Guardian, told Digiday.

The main driver of decreased referrals, a different publisher told Digiday, is the removal of Twitter Moments from the platform in December. The service allowed outlets to compile and highlight content on the platform around larger news events.

The fluctuation in website referrals does not seem to be a deal breaker for media companies. Earlier this week, a report from Sara Fischer of Axios detailed how sports, news, and entertainment outlets are still partnering with the Elon Musk-owned social media platform, even though some of its journalists are still banned.

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