An article published this year on The Atlantic titled “A Eulogy For Twitter” gave a
detailed explanation that the social platform was slowly dying, if not already dead.
With very limited evidence and a lot of opinion the article goes on to explain that the
over crowding and spam filled feed is most of the reason that users are no longer
interested.
What About Facebook?
There are a few studies backing up the death of Facebook as well including this
extremely technical one from Princeton. All of that jargon is pretty much saying
that Facebook will loose approximately 80% of its users by 2017. A lot of users
frustrated with the influx of sponsored content in general. The average post is seen
by a minimal amount of people unless the ad spend is there.
Why Is It Different?
But the difference is this; Facebook is a social media network while twitter is a
social media platform. Facebook is great for keeping up with family and your friends
from college. Twitter has grown into something completely different. Some people
might disagree with me on this but what is great about twitter is that you get to
interact with others around you that you may not be able to interact with on a
normal basis, this includes celebrities, brands and companies. Twitter is also an
amazing platform to share thoughts and opinions with others in your industry.
#seochat
A perfect example of this is something our SEO Director Dan Summers had a chance
to participate in last week. Dan got the chance to host last weeks #SEOchat. Twitter
provided a great forum for our SEO team to discuss “SEO’s Recent Events and Future
Outlooks” with other members of the SEO community. It was a great opportunity to
talk about hot topics in the SEO world and discuss differences and opinions to get a
broader view of what is happening in the industry.
If Twitter is used appropriately it can still be a valued asset to your brand.
1.) Build your twitter around what matters to you
We are a company that does Internet marketing. A huge aspect of that is SEO. So
it would only make sense that we would want to participate in a live chat about
the subject with other players in the industry. Keeping your twitter active with
things that relate to your business or brand is step one in making sure your twitter
succeeds. Make sure to follow major industry players and try and interact as much
as possible with them. Always be consistent with your posts and keep in theme with
what your company or brand does. Try and leave out personal opinions especially
involving politics. This has been proven time and time again to destroy a company’s
reputation.
2.) Stay Active
Posting on twitter once twice a month isn’t going to cut it. Twitter feeds move
fast and you have to be on you’re a game to get some recognition. If there is a hot
industry topic try and post or comment on the conversation as soon as you can
and keep the conversation going. Make sure the topic is in fact related to your industry,
capitalizing on trending tweets that have nothing to do with what your brand or
what your brand does just turns you into another piece of spam. There is such a
thing as being TOO active. So make sure the conversation is warranted.
3.) Engage
I can not not stress how important it is to engage. Most of the other points only
make sense if the engagement is present first. Retweet, Reply to tweets, favorite
tweets, stay active in the twitter community of your choosing as well as with your
followers. Make sure these are real engagements not just an automated response.
Your followers will be able to tell if there are mindless tweets being sent out.
Twitter is not dead yet and I don’t see it going anywhere in the near future.
