When I speak with news clients about their social media strategy, they almost always indicate that they focus exclusively on Facebook. Why? “Reach,” they say, “and traffic.”
It’s no question Facebook remains a force in internet users’ lives, but to ignore other platforms—especially Twitter—is to be derelict of your duties to curate the largest potential audience for your brand and its content. That’s especially because Twitter is far more predictable in terms of human behavior; while your Facebook posts are subject to a nebulous and ever-changing algorithm, succeeding on Twitter requires only one thing: compelling content.
Your audiences there are more desirable, too. Twitter users are more influential, skew closer to desirable age demographics, and draw more income than the swamp that is Facebook; keep in mind that at all times, you’re looking to expand your potential audience for content. That means reaching as many people who can be future consumers; Twitter remains a place where the service can be a conduit to your product, rather than the product itself.
Look at me! Simply by producing compelling, engaging content regularly on my personal Twitter account, I average 25 million unique impressions a month. I’ll bold that: 25 million unique impressions a month. It’s not that complicated, either, because our current news cycle hands us compelling content on a daily basis:
Unfortunately, I see all too many news outlets ignoring the opportunity to present news natively on Twitter and instead automating tweet posts with the text of the story’s headline and a link to the story. We realized that didn’t work at Deadspin in 2012; as I wrote elsewhere, shifting from that philosophy increased our audience by 2,500% and made Twitter a major traffic driver for us. If your organization isn’t taking its public Twitter face seriously, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.
I create custom strategies for news organizations to develop social media programs that reach the right audiences, grow those audiences, and turn users into subscribers. I’ve proven the power of Twitter to reach millions of people; I can do it for you, too. Get in touch with me today at tim@burke-communications.com.
