On day No. 100 in Donald Trump’s America, it seems the president’s pride and joy, his Twitter account, has lost more than half of the engagement it had during his first 50 days in office.
FAKE NEWS media knowingly doesn't tell the truth. A great danger to our country. The failing @nytimes has become a joke. Likewise @CNN. Sad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017
The analysis was conducted by the Associated Press in partnership with media analytics nonprofit Cortico, and it studied 495 tweets on the president’s main @realDonaldTrump account, including likes, replies, retweets, and quotes. The results show that Trump’s overall Twitter engagement has declined significantly during the course of 100 days. Before day 50, 60 percent of Trump’s daily tweets got more than 50,000 engagements. After the 50th day, only three full days have garnered that same response—just 9 percent.
Whether this sharp decline in audience engagement is due to Trump’s more subdued presence online or to the internet’s fading fascination with the president’s signature 140-character rants, the analysis also revealed other obvious trends.
The tweets that prompted the greatest overall response were, as you might have guessed, anything written in all caps.
SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017
Trump’s dubious allegation that Barack Obama wiretapped his phones in the White House received the second most overall engagement, despite its inaccuracy. The most retweeted tweet, however, was one that attempted to remedy previous inflammatory tweets about post-Inauguration protests.
Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don't always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2017
Trump’s Twitter vocabulary might not be expansive, but at least it’s consistent. His most tweeted word was “great,” the data provided by Twitter found, followed by “America” or “American” with words like “media,” “news,” and “jobs” coming in third place. But the common refrains Trump has been known to frequently shout into the Twittersphere have been slowly disappearing during the last 50 days. “Fake news” was mentioned 23 times in separate tweets before day 50, but it has been mentioned just more than 10 times since.
The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017
Using information pulled from Twitter users’ profiles, the analysis also calculated the general political leanings of those who interacted most with Trump’s account. Conservatives were more likely to retweet without commentary, the analysis found, while liberals were far more likely to respond to a tweet or quote and provide commentary—typically to disagree.
Verified accounts belonging to politicians, celebrities, journalists, or other public figures are 70 percent more likely to quote Trump’s tweets and weigh in with their own commentary.