Tag Archive for: Elon Musk

Sharing is caring: Focusing on making sharable social content

Recent posts by Twitter/X owner Elon Musk and the head of Instagram Adam Mosseri have revealed a shift in what is important when we’re thinking about our next post: make your content sharable.

Instead of “posting and hoping”, or just “broadcasting” by telling users about an announcement or story, we need to place far greater emphasis on triggering an emotional reaction, or making it feel practical, new or relevant to that audience.

As you’ve probably seen, be it with ‘for you’ tabs on Twitter/X, pages on TikTok, or mixed up in your feed on Instagram and Facebook, all social platforms are moving towards more algorithmically-driven approaches as a way to try to increase the amount of time you spend and engage on that app.

That’s partly because we have generally stopped being so public in our reposts and commenting, preferring to share posts privately on direct messages or messing apps like WhatsApp.

Both Musk and Mosseri have publicly emphasised how important sending a post can be as a signal to the mysterious algorithm, to boost its visibility and increase its reach.

Twitter/X on what the algorithm sees when you share posts

Elon explained it in his trademark way – partly in response to the backlash over the type of content appearing in users’ for you tabs:

Elon Musk tweet on sharing/sending tweets: The X algorithm assumes that if you interact with content, you want to see more of that content. One of the strongest signals is if you forward X posts to friends, it assumes you like that content a lot, because it takes effort to forward. Unfortunately, if the actual reason you forwarded the content to friends was because you were outraged by it, we are currently not smart enough to realize that.

Read: Should my company stay on Twitter/X – or leave?

Instagram explains why you should focus on sendable and sharable content

And this is how Adam Mosseri explained the importance of “thinking about creating something that people would want to send to a friend”:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)

Read: What young people think of as ‘news’ on Instagram

How to make your social posts and content more sharable

So rather than focus on telling followers and viewers something, focus on making them feel something: for example, happy, sad/empathetic, angry (though I would be careful to not overuse this), entertained, informed or something that helps them in their lives.

You may see this as just an extension of the old adage of “don’t make boring content” – which is true! But on social, as in the rest of the media environment, where there is so much more content than ever before, and the competition for people’s attention is greater than ever, it’s important to really think carefully how it would appeal to your target audience – beyond those that already follow you.

 

 

Should my organisation leave Twitter/X – or stay on there?

Recent events on Twitter – or X, as we should now call it – have left individuals and some organisations to consider quitting the platform.

Critics of Elon Musk have accused him of using Twitter/X to stoke hate, amplify disinformation and of prioritising profit over social responsibility, particularly over the riots in the UK.

Elon Musk tweet on UK riots: "civil war is inevitable"

Although emotions have been running high these past couple of weeks, don’t rush to delete your company’s Twitter account – take some time to reflect on whether it still helps to meet your strategic objectives and audience needs – and have a comms plan if you are going to announce you are going to deactivate it.

Twitter is not as popular as it was – but it is still ‘the go-to place for news on social media’ 

A lot has changed since companies set up their Twitter accounts, a decade or more ago.

From once being the place for firms to post their news and announcements on social media, and offer a new form of customer service, it’s been overtaken by Instagram and rivalled by TikTok in terms of popularity among UK adults, according to the latest Ofcom Online Nation report.

Ofcom Online Nation reportsurvey: Top social media services among UK adults

And according to the recent Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024, it is further behind in terms of the top social, messaging and video networks in the UK:

Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024: TOP SOCIAL, MESSAGING, AND VIDEO NETWORKS in the UK

And the same piece of research claims that globally, TikTok has now overtaken X/Twitter as a source of news:

Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024: sources of news on social media. YouTube is used for news by almost a third (31%) of our global sample each week, WhatsApp by around a fifth (21%), while TikTok (13%) has overtaken Twitter (10%), now rebranded X, for the first time.

Since Musk took over Twitter, he has declared “f–k business” over firms deciding not to buy ads on the platform, and created confusion and trust issues with the ability for anyone to buy a blue tick – once a clear symbol of authority and veracity.

But he has also kept with the pre-takeover implementation of Community Notes to challenge incorrect posts and tried to boost X’s finances with paid subscriptions offering popular features to users, like the ability to edit a tweet within an hour of posting it and tempting content creators with shares of ad revenue.

Despite these turbulant 18 months, a study from the Pew Research Center in the US appears to show that X is still more of a destination for news than other social platforms – by that, I mean most Twitter users go there specifically for news, although others also see news passively in their Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook feeds.

And judging by the US presidential race, the UK General Election, the Euros and Olympics, if you want the latest breaking news, analysis (and hot takes), the best memes and an ability to immediately react to live events, nowhere can quite rival Twitter.

Interestingly, the head of social media for BBC Radio and Sounds, Jem Stone, claims the most popular tweets over the attempted assassination of Donald Trump seemed to be from the mainstream media:

Twitter: Jem Stone tweet:The two pieces of content most shared on X, and probably most remembered from the Trump rally on Saturday were the photography by @dougmillsnyt (the fist pump/bullet) and that very early reporting by @BBCBlindGazza interviewing a key witness. The BBC and the New York Times.

And today, the Premier League announced it had launched an account for refereeing and VAR updates – but only on X, not on any other platform.

Welcome to the Premier League Match Centre X account. This page will provide live updates from Stockley Park including information directly from the VAR Hub. We will issue near-live updates on operational matters from all matches - including clarification on refereeing and VAR.

However, for many of the public, they feel worn out by the sheer amount and depressing nature of the news, and prefer not to see it in their social feeds – and the data from the Reuters Institute report seems to back this up. And the sometime hostile nature of some users has made it an unwelcoming place.

Many companies’ have shifted their initial very public customer service accounts and conversations to DMs, their websites (for live chat or email), or even to WhatsApp business accounts.

Even for news organisations, including Sky News, Twitter had not been a big driver of referral traffic before the changes to links in posts:

Sky News Nick Sutton on Twitter referral traffic

What to do if you think your company should leave Twitter/X

 

1. Review how Twitter fits in with your comms strategy and business objectives

It’s good to have a regular social media review anyway, and this should always be part of your process when setting your next communications strategy.

Analyse the stats of your Twitter activity from the past year or so against previous reports. A significant decline in engagement could indicate that your target audience may not be on there anymore, or the shift to an algorithmic-focus has made it harder for people to see your posts – or that more effort is needed to improve their impact.

And check if your key stakeholders and individuals that you’re trying to influence are still actively on there. Check the replies tab to see if they are more of a replier/lurker than a poster (this used to be easier to check with the likes tab, before it was removed from public view.)

Do also compare it to your engagement performances on your other platforms. Don’t overfocus on followers – with the shift in prioritisation of algorithms over followers by most platforms, they aren’t as important as it once was. 

Away from the numbers, reflect upon whether X is a channel that still aligns with your values as a company. 

RNOH NHS Trust tweet:Due to significant changes on this platform in recent months, X is no longer consistent with our Trust values. Therefore RNOH is closing its account. Please follow us on Facebook, Instagram & LinkedIn. Thanks to everyone who has followed & supported us for the last 13 years.

You may have seen the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust post last week that it was deleting its account as “X is no longer consistent with our Trust values” – which include “equality, for all” and “trust, honesty and respect, for each other”.

But it was also the case that it appeared that this account was getting little interaction and engagement for its tweets – and wasn’t necessarily the best communication channel to reach their generally older audience.

However, the head of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard, continues to be active on Twitter, posting messages for staff, stakeholders, and the media.

Assess the pros and cons of leaving and consider the other ways for your customers to get in touch, through social, your website and offline.

If your social team or colleagues with high profile Twitter presences have been affected by what they’ve experienced on there, think about ways to protect their mental health – either for others to temporarily take over or rotate their responsibilities, or suggesting breaks from posting on there. 

2. Consult and inform internally and with key stakeholders

Talk and get approval from your wider comms team, senior leaders and executives before deciding to delete your Twitter account.

It is also worth considering whether to inform key external stakeholders of your decision before you communicate it publicly.

3. Communicate your decision clearly and link to other social accounts

If you do decide to leave Twitter, post and pin a tweet to users that includes an explanation (you don’t have to go into the details), and ideally link to your other social media accounts where they can follow you.

This is what BBC Radio 6 Music and Radio 2 did when they both left Twitter and Facebook earlier this year:

BBC Radio 6 Music tweet about no longer updating their Twitter account

BBC Radio 2 post about no longer updating their Facebook account

4. Leaving your Twitter account dormant may be better than deleting it

It can be confusing for followers who try to find your account on Twitter, only to find it has disappeared with no apparent notice. And by deleting your account, you open up the potential for the handle to be taken by people who may want to cause confusion, spread misinformation or cause harm.

Additionally, some very popular tweets can still provide invaluable advice, information or assistance to users. 

Leaving your account dormant, with a pinned tweet explaining what has happened and links to other communication channels, is an alternative to deleting it.

If you do want to go ahead with deactivating your company’s account, make sure to download a copy of all your tweets, content and data – they are a really valuable resource of insight into what worked well for future social campaigns and you may want to reuse that image or video.

You do have 30 days to change your mind if you do want to restore a deactivated account, so note the date in your shared calendars, just in case.

5. Continue to monitor Twitter

Don’t just walk away, delete the app and never check Twitter again – keep a close eye on mentions of your company and your deactivated handle to monitor the response to your decision, but also whether a customer or stakeholder posts something that requires your attention.

There is no perfect social media platform

I’ve seen a lot of posts on Twitter and elsewhere about moving to Threads, Instagram, or Bluesky. That may be understandable, for personal reasons.

But all platforms have their faults and downsides – there is no one ideal social media platform! It all depends upon where your audiences are and their interests – your target groups may be more spread across different spaces than before. And sadly, there is some nastiness and trolling on all of them.

For authorities, X is still is important – we’ve seen how it has been used effectively to disseminate vital public information. But it’s also been a good wake-up call for them to think more about how to better use other social channels to engage sometimes hard to reach audiences, rather than rely on a tweet.

And for everyone, it’s been a timely reminder to build more direct relationships with their audiences, than relying on third-party apps and sites.

Finally, a reminder that there can still be nice things on Twitter:

Robert Lindsay tweet: I was reluctant to post our Lola's condition as it's so personal but believe me your responses have been so heartwarming and kind. Thank you, It's also restored the positive of this media which can be for the good xxx

If you need an expert hand in helping you to review your social media approach, or modernising your wider communications strategy, get in touch.

Twitter/X axes headlines from link posts – this is what you can do

After the recent changes to Twitter/X and Facebook, LinkedIn is probably the only social platform left where you can easily post external links – but even then it doesn’t mean lots of views of your article!

It’s all about a gradual shift in how social media firms want publishers, companies and other users to use their platforms.

These changes had been expected

Last night’s changes by Twitter to remove headlines from Twitter cards had been coming since Elon Musk posted in August about doing so.

He wants followers to stay on the channel, rather than go to read or watch something on a browser or an app ( the “esthetics” claim seems dubious.)

Elon Musk tweet on Twitter/X algorithm and keeping users on the platform

What I think people are overlooking is that he claims the algorithmic-based For You tab “tries to” prioritise posts that don’t – but whether they are able to do so is not so clear. If a post which includes a link is generating lots of engagement, I generally think it will be more likely seen in that tab than a less interesting post.

So what should we do?

Again after a change by Musk, it’s provoked frustration, slight outrage and vows to quit Twitter – but they reflect moves by all platforms to wanting to keep users where they are.

But it is also helpful to put yourself in the shoes (or hands) of the user – we generally prefer to read everything where we already are as we lazily scroll, rather than be redirected elsewhere, close the page, go back etc. And unless something really resonates with us, or captures our attention, we’ll keep on scrolling.

So we need to adapt the way we communicate on those platforms – or seek alternatives.

Like it or not, Twitter is still the place where live news and hot takes happen – the Liverpool VAR decision to the Conservative Party conference this week alone.

If we want to engage our followers, we need put more effort into thinking what our posts will look to them – and why someone would share, comment or like it, or tap on the link.

For example, do we need to rethink how we use lead images on sites and adding captions, so that the picture pulled through is more appealing and tappable?

I’ve seen some publishers manually adding an image to a post, with the link in the copy, but I’m not sure how much more appealing that is to users.

Daily Mail tweet breaking news post with link

Another way is posting a headline or teaser post, with the link in the reply – but I don’t think that is any more effective; there’s little incentive to share or like a post that says ‘read more’. All the detail you need to know tends to be in the top post.

JOE.co.uk Twitter teaser image thread

 

Interestingly, LADbible, who are at the forefront of social publishing, have appeared to stop doing that and gone back to link posts.

LADbible link post tweet

Another option to share information is in a short thread – three posts mean that all are seen in the feed and not hidden (Twitter displays the first and last two in a thread). Treat each one as a standalone post that still work if individually retweeted, with details, images/video and then possibly a link in the final one. More often than not, the first post gets the most engagement. you could space out the thread to try to get repeated hits of the top post during the day.)

The other option, is to pay – either to be verified, or use promoted posts for carousels and other features.

Having a blue tick allows you to post much longer posts – but have you tried to read one of those? It’s hard work…

For my wrestling history account, being verified allows me to post longer videos and be more visible in mentions (and possibly the For You feed, but it’s not clear.) Monthly payouts have dramatically reduced in the last couple of months, but for me it still covers the cost of the fee.

But for many big publishers, Twitter referral traffic has been poor for a long time. Sky News’ head of digital, Nick Sutton said recently:

Sky News Nick Sutton on Twitter referral traffic

What about other platforms?

You may have seen how Facebook is cutting its efforts and support to news publishers – according to Axios, major news companies have suffered huge losses in traffic in the past six months.

And the much-heralded Threads still doesn’t have the ability to post links. Besides, engagement numbers appear to have fallen off a cliff (Just checked my phone and I used the app so infrequently I had to redownload it.)

Look also at Instagram and TikTok, who don’t allow links in posts (unless you pay) – I rarely feel motivated enough to ‘check the link in our bio’.

WhatsApp offers exciting opportunities – I wrote about the potential of Channels last month and Reach have been talking about the success of interest-based Communities(but I would not want 15 messages a day from a news provider clogging up my chats!)

Slowly, many have realised that they can’t rely on third party platforms to reach their audiences – and for publishers, make money.

We’ve seen a refocus on owned platforms: apps, email and memberships, which is a good thing.

So…

Experiment! Try things out, see what works and analyse the data. You can still have great success on social media, but you can’t just post a link and hope it will drive great interest anymore.