The Future of Twitter
When I first wrote these tips back in March, Twitter was a very different place. The changes made on Twitter in the last few months like the removal of the Discover Tab, the addition of Periscope and Moments, and the changes made to Twitter Cards and Analytics have been the biggest changes to a major social platform in the last few years. The only change that can compete with this amount of changes is Gmail when they separated everyone’s emails into Tabs by default, causing a huge drop in open rates for many email newsletters.
Twitter as a platform has been noticing a significant drop in user activity. They are trying to redefine the platform in hopes of getting more users and more activity. So far, nothing they have done has done has been a big enough change to get people onto the platform.
It is crazy to think that a platform that is quoted by almost every television channel and every news website is not doing well, but the fact of the matter is that most people don’t truly understand Twitter. If you asked people if they wanted to know if their friend was at the supermarket or eating a burrito they would probably think you are crazy.
If you look through the accounts of users who were on the platform for only a few weeks there is a basic trend you will see. When they first sign up they are posting a lot. Then, after a few days the posting slows down, until they post something like “is anyone there?” or “what’s the point of twitter?” Most people want to be heard, and even though there are millions of people on Twitter, none of them are following this person, so he/she goes unheard. This same effect happens to many business accounts, posting for a few weeks and seeing no results is usually a strong incentive for giving up.
The secret to Twitter is understanding this and using it to your advantage. The real accounts on Twitter, and the people that will be affected by your response to them are those will less than 500 followers. They are the ones they would be most appreciative of your favorite, reply, or retweet.
Many companies only want to follow accounts with 10s of thousands of followers, but following people or companies like this won’t get you very far. If you are a small business you are way better off following 100 or so small accounts in your area that are somewhat active as opposed to following 1,000 accounts with much larger followings.
Responding to those who get no response will get you the largest traction, as Gary Vaynerchuk says “Scale the unscalable.” You should see how Gary uses this tactic. He will favorite or respond with a word or two and the person will be so excited that he/she will usually respond by tweeting something out about how awesome Gary is. (Search on Twitter for the number of people who are excited when Gary follows them This is the best way to use Twitter.
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