Donald Trump is losing engagement on Twitter, analysis shows

One hundred days into his time in office, the “Twitter President” seems to have lost some of his mojo.

Donald Trump’s tweets received less engagement in his second 50 days in office than in his first, according to an analysis by the Associated Press and media analytics nonprofit Cortico.

In the first half of his term, more than 32 per cent of the President's tweets averaged around 60,000 combined retweets, replies, and quote tweets. In the second half, none of his tweets reached that benchmark.

The analysts say this may be because the president is exercising some reserve in his tweeting habits. The blasts still come early in the morning, and with pointed messages for world leaders. But the messages now contain fewer of Mr Trump’s signature all-caps phrases and exclamation marks – harbinger’s of a tweet’s success in the past.

The all-caps oath, “SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE," for example, received more than 238,000 likes. Tweets about controversial topics like Russia, or "fake news," also sparked similar engagement.

Perhaps because of the nature of his job, however, Mr Trump’s tweets now contain fewer exclamation marks, fewer capitalised letters, and less scintillating topics.

“The US recorded its slowest economic growth in five years (2016). GDP up only 1.6%. Trade deficits hurt the economy very badly,” Mr Trump tweeted recently. The tweet was liked fewer than 10,000 times.

A Telegraph analysis found that before his election, Mr Trump capitalised one in 10 characters in his tweets. After his inauguration, that dropped to 6.8 per cent.

In the past, Mr Trump has bragged that he uses Twitter to avoid the mainstream media and speak directly to his supporters.

"Without the tweets, I wouldn't be here," Trump told the Financial Times. "I don't have to go to the fake media."

But the President's Twitter following isn’t as large as some may believe. Mr Trump’s personal account (his most popular) has 27 million followers. His predecessor, Mr Obama, has 86 million.

In fact, even Mr Trump’s most retweeted tweet doesn’t come close to former President Barack Obama’s. Mr Obama’s 2012 victory tweet – “Four more years” – was retweeted 940,000 times. Mr Trump’s most popular tweet, by comparison, was retweeted only 82,000 times.

Still, on Twitter at least, Mr Trump seems to believe things are going well. The AP reports the most-tweeted word of his Presidency is “great.”