Use me, please! Twitter and Foursquare attempt to stimulate usage

Sites like Twitter and Foursquare know that the number of registered users is not nearly as important as the number of active users. So, it's important for these companies to communicate with users to ensure they stay relevant.

Twitter now has 200 million users, but how many are active? One year ago, RJ Metrics reported that only 20% of Twitter's users were active (then 15 million out of 75 million users). Twitter sends emails to users infrequently, so it's surprising that this one was rather uninspiring. First, it's a "Happy New Year" message that was sent on February 1 - did this email spend three weeks getting internal approvals?

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They say to "follow your interests", "follow hashtags" and "get specific", yet they don't actually get specific on how to do any of those things, nor do they promote the improvements they've made in suggesting people to follow, etc.

Overall this is a wasted opportunity to leave the user with an actionable next step. I doubt it will stimulate activity for those whose usage is on the wane.

Foursquare sends much more regular communications to customer and compared to Twitter's email this one is a big win.

1. Their message is in their brand voice
2. They've communicated their new features and let users know what's in it for them
3. They personalized the email, not only with the salutation, but by highlighting recent check-ins from friends
4. Unlike Twitter's email, they don't just say they offer apps, they actually link to them
5. They used their data in a fun and interesting way, making it relevant and relatable to the user
6. Finally, they've used that time-proven direct marketing technique of including a call-to-action in the P.S.

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