...and perhaps more importantly, why should you care?
Recent changes in the Twitterverse are sure to change the way we market our businesses on social media. For a solid decade, Twitter's real time and ultra responsive nature has made it the go-to platform for breaking news and current events. For businesses, that meant that you could grab a popular (for the moment) hashtag and ride the wave of whatever trending topic struck your fancy. This platform has been uniquely easy to control, in terms of getting the right content to the right people at exactly the right time. Unfortunately, in the near future, your timing won't be worth much. As one Chicago publication stated, Twitter is going to try to "out-Facebook Facebook". Remember a few years back when Facebook began serving us content that was more "relevant"? Remember how they introduced advertising around that same time? Hello, deja vu.
What all of this means is that the once-chronological feeds will now be served according to an algorithm developed by the brains of the Twitterverse. That algorithm, as you may have guessed, aims to deliver content that is more "relevant" to the person who is reading it. By no coincidence, a new video ad unit has just launched. You do the math.
This all stems from Twitter's ongoing and well-documented turmoil. For those of you who missed it, the heads of engineering, media, product, and Vine are officially gone. The wolves of Wall Street, astute bunch that they are, immediately took notice. You may have noticed, too, if you hold any stock in this social media giant. Its market value plummeted to the tune of $560 Million following the news. Obviously, Twitter's investors lack confidence. Whether or not the rest of us should follow suit is yet to be seen.
What we think is that Twitter will bounce back. As it goes in the world of marketing (and in the world of finance, as well), the dust will settle and things should normalize before too much longer. For now, the new Twitter feed format is by opt-in only, but you can be sure it will become the default very soon. It is known as "show me the best tweets first", and users can choose to turn it on in their account settings. For you, that means worrying less about the timing of your tweets and more about the content. You'll need to start paying closer attention to the likes and dislikes of your audience; you'll need to learn what terms they are searching for, among other things. You were already doing all of that, anyway.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by all of the changes that have already happened in social media in 2016, you are not alone! Fortunately, we can help. Contact a member of the Flair Interactive team today.
Image via Pixabay under Creative Commons Zero