"Who's ready for some truth!" Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on March 30. "LFG!!!"
The Donald Trump I'm referring to who just recently posted on Truth Social is Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of former president Donald Trump. The truth is that Trump, 45th president and founder of the alternative conservative social network, still has not posted on the platform since his first and only post in mid-February. That's before the platform even went live to the public. And Truth Social appears to be suffering.
According to mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower, downloads for the Truth Social iOS app have dropped to an estimated 60,000 per week in Apple's App Store. The platform is currently only available on iOS devices like iPhone, so that's an accurate portrayal of its total potential new user base. Furthermore, Sensor Tower can only track download estimates, not sign-ups to the platform. So, it's unclear how many downloads are actually converting to new users for Truth Social.
Speaking to Yahoo, Sensor Tower mobile insights strategist Stephanie Chan said that Truth Social's downloads are "down 93 percent" from its Feb. 21 launch week when it received "872,000 installs."
Sensor Tower estimates that the Truth Social app has currently been downloaded around 1.2 million times.
Chan provided additional data to Mashable regarding download stats for one of Truth Social's closest competitors in the alternative social networking space, Gettr. The same week Truth Social saw 60,000 installs, Gettr saw an estimated 23,000. Another conservative social media platform, Parler, received around 5,000 installs that week.
However, to catch up with either of those platforms, Truth Social has a long way to go…and those most recent download numbers aren't matching the growth numbers that Parler or Gettr saw at this same point in either platform's lifespan. Sensor Tower says Parler has received 11.3 million installs and Gettr has seen 6.8 million to date.
On March 8, Trump had around 200,000 followers on the platform. He now has closer to 800,000 followers, which seems to match Truth Social signups pretty closely. Remember, Truth Social has a waitlist for new users, meaning there is a delay in people downloading the app and then actually being welcomed aboard to use it.
Perhaps, that's why Don Jr. just debuted on the platform more than a month after it launched. Truth Social clearly needs something to boost its user base because it is quickly falling from the public's eye. But, people aren't going to flock to Truth Social for Trump's oldest son. The social media platform was ostensibly set up to give the former president a voice after he was booted from platforms like Twitter. Trump is the most followed account on the platform and clearly the reason people are there.
And yet for some reason, Trump just will not use his own social network.
