The Relevance of a Tweet (01/29/20)

I've read that “you are only as relevant as your latest tweet.” And I think like most on Twitter, we tweet to reach an ‘audience,’ we tweet in the hope that somebody out there shares our point of view, sees our creations, engages in our opinions.

Yet how many of us actually sit back and think through the ‘numbers’ associated with Twitter and whether our tweets actually reach our intended targets? Or are we just throwing our content out and hoping it sticks – to someone.

Several statistical analytics report that “tweets have the shortest lifespan of any social media post, only about 18 minutes.” – moz.com

What started me thinking about my previously posted tweets was whether my audience had ever seen any of them. I start tweeting regularly towards the end of 2015 and early 2016. At that point, I had a following of about 300. And though I realized this number was low, it was still more than I had before I started posting on Twitter.

As of January 2020, I know have a following of 4,500 moving towards 5,000.

First, a giant THANK YOU to all my followers! How to thank all these followers individually is a topic of another post.

Reviewing my followers list, I still see many of the original 300 from the first year – again, thank you for sticking by me. That means though, that approximately 4,200 of my viewers have never seen my posts from my early Twitter adventure.

And if a tweet only lives for 18 minutes, more than likely an extremely high percentage of my tweets, regardless whether sent in the early years or even today, are NOT seen by most followers. Think about it, in the 18 minutes that a new tweet is active, a follower has to be online and viewing their Twitter feed.

Yes Twitter sends out highlight email (if you have that setting selected), and yes many of us go to our favorite Twitter accounts to see what's new, but in my situation, I have 10s of thousands of artists, architects, designers, programmers to check up on. Technically and resource time impossible.

Twitter states that the most active period for tweets is 3 pm - now let’s assume that is 3 pm at each time zone, so that means I need to tweet from California at 3 pm relevant to my followers on the east coast, western europe, central europe, and asia. OK, I can figure those times out and aim for that goal – but does that mean the ‘same’ tweet several times a day for that tweet to reach all audiences?

Adding to this, the algorithms from Twitter do not always place your tweet as available to everybody at the time it is posted – they use complex calculations for what gets put out and available to whom in a timeline. (don’t take it personal, don’t think any computer knows you personally – just your statistics).

I read that the “equation for Twitter success is simple: more tweets = higher engagement.”
That is like saying your odds of winning the lottery increase with the more tickets you buy!?

Both statements above are true, but come with consequence. Many followers ‘unfollow’ if you tweet too much, and again, do you tweet the same content over and over possibly alienating your true followers?

And how many actually ‘consume’ their Twitter analytics, adjusting tweets, time of tweets, content and its engagement – this in itself is a full time job. For many of us, we just want to get our content out and viewed by as many as possible.

How frequently should I tweet? I read a recommendation that Twitter recommends “tweet 14 times per day but never more than once per hour” to achieve the best engagement and results.

Going back to my tweets from 2015 to current – it would be a pretty accurate statement to say very few of you have seen any of them, so I should go ahead and post content from 2015 to current, if still relevant.

Though, just one more element to take into consideration - what content should I tweet?
Most of the experts are consistent on the 80/20 percent to keep and hold the best engagement. That means for every 5 tweets, one of them is your content, 4 of them are promoting the content of others.

I have to admit, I am all for the 80/20 rate of tweets, for a variety of reasons.

1. It is in giving that we receive. As a 'follower' I like others to share my content, therefore would assume others would like their content shared as well.
2. I have seen my account numbers increase based on this ‘rule’ – others like their content shared and will reward you with their likes, RTs, and consistent following, which others see and acknowledge by their likes, RTs, and following, and so on, and so on.

The rules above fall apart if your content is just not what others want to consume, or if your content is so hyper-focused that only a small niche of Twitter users would find interest in it.

Admit it, if you are into sharing cats or porn, your numbers are going to be high!

I've found, the bottom line for Twitter, in my opinion and statistically for me, is frequency, repetition, timing, and quality content. This does follow into line recommendations from most marketing experts on how to increase your following and engagement.

#Twitter #sharing #StFrancis #marketing #socialmedia