What’s the Twouble with Twitter Marketing?
Mark Schaefer
Top Voice in Personal Branding, keynote speaker, university educator, futurist, and bestselling author of "Marketing Rebellion," "Belonging to the Brand," and "Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World."
My very wise friend Jay Baer wrote a thought-provoking post entitled Is Twitter in 2017 even worth the trouble?
He points to research citing incredibly low brand engagement rates and suggests that perhaps Twitter has become a marketing afterthought.
This discussion was particularly timely for me as I’ve spent the last few months diving deeply into Twitter so I can revise my book The Tao of Twitter. Does Twitter have any role in a brand marketing strategy today? Let’s take a look at the situation in a new way.
The state of Twitter marketing
Jay points to research depicting a bleak Twitter reality. He writes:
Twitter remains a conversation platform for media and influencers. And Twitter’s role as a customer service platform remains strong, partially as a result of positive functionality tweaks. But as a way to get new people to discover your content and read your blog post, or listen or your podcast, or watch your video? Nah. Twitter just doesn’t do that these days. New research from our partners at RivalIQ found that the average engagement rate on Twitter for brands is now 0.049%. That includes all likes, comments, retweets, etc. Every action but clicks.
I’m not sure why “clicks” were not considered “engagement” since that might be the most valuable engagement of all, but nevertheless let’s push forward with our discussion. Twitter’s brand engagement rate, according to this report, is about the same dismal level as banner ads. What’s going on?
The enigma
Even though I wrote the best-selling book on Twitter, I’ll admit that in the last 2-3 years, the platform has been like a crazy aunt in Iowa. You know they’re there, you know you should visit more often, but life distractions just get in the way.
After doing a deep dive and re-discovering the platform over the last few months, I have an entirely new perspective on what Twitter is, and what it can become. Twitter … is awesome.
- People engage with Twitter like crazy. Maybe not with brands, but with each other. Twitter devotees expend a tremendous amount of time on Twitter Chats, following hashtags, providing opinions, and playing funny games with each other. The 1:1 and 1:many engagement on Twitter is very high. Why are brands failing?
- There are a ton of people on Twitter. The official active user number is something like 350 million and over the last year growth has been accelerating. A recent analysis showed their daily average users to be higher than Snapchat.
- Millions more consume Twitter content in stealth mode. Twitter estimates that 2x or 3x that official number of people consume tweets without logging into the platform. For example, before I began my Twitter renaissance I had consumed and published my tweets through Hootsuite, never signing into Twitter for weeks at a time. Most people “stalk” Twitter without posting, representing a huge audience that is not accounted for in the official numbers.
- Twitter is the de facto “second screen” for media. Nielsen estimates the amplification of content through Twitter expands an advertising audience by 6 percent. Nielsen also demonstrated that Twitter conversations correlate directly to the general population attitudesabout content.
- Twitter lovers are more likely to follow, and buy from, brands that engage with them than those on Facebook, according to several studies.
- I’ve had fun discovering the many new features Twitter has added to make it easy to share, consume, advertise and analyze. It is a world-class communications system, not just a broadcast channel for links.
So let’s summarize. Twitter has a growing global fanbase of hundreds of millions of people. Their users are passionate, loyal, and engaged. Twitter makes it easy to publish, advertise, and analyze. It may be the most powerful real-time marketing research tool on the planet.
So why is Twitter marketing an afterthought? What’s behind this enigma? There’s a clue in the research report itself.
Doubling down on Twitter
There’s a little sidebar in the report that offers an explanation:
While we don’t agree with the claim ‘Twitter is dead’, the engagement is minuscule. Most brands don’t appear to try, treating it as a broadcast channel.
I think that’s root of the problem. Brands are checking a box. They aren’t even trying to engage on Twitter.
Off the top of my head, I can’t name a single Twitter marketing or advertising specialist. Everything is going toward Facebook and Google these days. There are countless Facebook/AdWords marketing gurus, webinars, courses, mastermind groups and conferences. There is no serious focus on Twitter marketing whatsoever.
And yet with all this money and effort, the same report states that the brand engagement rate with Facebook is also in the banner ad range of 0.17 percent. Now that is mind-blowing. All that money going to Facebook for that microscopic engagement rate?
It makes me wonder … if some smart brand team or agency placed the same focus on Twitter, could they achieve better results than that embarrassing Facebook number? Would the mere novelty of a brand taking Twitter seriously ignite the platform’s passionate users?
And maybe there’s a business case to try. As Facebook ads grow in popularity, the company announced it is running out of space to display ads, which means ad prices will go up. Could Twitter be a cost-effective alternative to Facebook ads as the cost becomes out of reach for some businesses?
The core issue
If you’ve read this blog for awhile, you know that I’m not an “evangelist” for anything. I want to search for the business truth of the matter and provide advice based on reality, not an agenda. So what IS the truth about Twitter as a potential marketing weapon?
I once had a friend who said “Facebook advertising sucks. I’ve had zero results there.” It made me wonder, does Facebook suck, or does my friend’s advertising suck?
I think that is the intellectual honesty we must use to assess the situation with Twitter as well.
Have brands been unsuccessful on Twitter because it takes a special approach to connect on this quirky platform, because the billion-user-promise of Facebook has been so intoxicating, because brands have become lazy link broadcasters? Or, is there some chronic and unsolvable issue in the DNA of Twitter that truly makes it ineffective for marketers?
I don’t know for certain but my instinct is that the first scenario is the true one. I cannot discern any logical obstacle to a brand kicking butt on the “new Twitter” with the appropriate resources and focus. And there are plenty of case studies in the revised book to back that up (here’s an example of using Twitter in a way that gains engagement!). But honestly, I can’t completely explain the Twitter marketing enigma.
What’s your view? What’s keeping you away from Twitter, or drawing you to it?
I appreciate you and the time you took out of your day to read this! You can find more articles like this from me on the top-rated {grow} blog and while you're there, take a look around and see what else I do at Schaefer Marketing Solutions. For news and insights find me on Twitter at @markwschaefer and to see what I do when I'm not working, follow me on Instagram.
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Linkedin Live and Brand amplification specialist. I'll get you noticed. Connector of dots, Speaker, Author. Nice People Collector.
7 年Yes yes yes!! Thank you Mark. 'Brands are checking a box. They aren’t even trying to engage on Twitter.' That is exactly what is happening, I see it all the time. I asked one airline about Twitter and they said they just use it for complaints! Why on earth would you just sit and wait for negativity when you can engage with anyone flying with you, chat, engage, and have a personality! Even big brands can have a personality on Twitter! Thank you for this.
Founder of AI Institute | Top AI Voice | Helping Transform Businesses With AI
7 年Great points, well made Mark I'm so happy to read them! You are spot on about brands not doing Twitter right. I've done umpteen competitive analysis reports as a precursor to social strategy - where I deconstruct the social media presence of the top 5 competitors globally. I'd say it's only 1 in 10 times that I find any 'best practice brand' doing Twitter right - actually engaging and being human and not suffocating the thing with tat. That's globally. Can I also point out that in Ireland we have some Twitter only specialists: @TweetingGoddess comes to mind - Samantha Kelly. She just picked up an award here for Best Social Media in the IIA awards. So maybe lil ole Ireland is leading, rather than following!
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7 年I like your instincts here, Mark, and I cannot wait to read your new/revised book! I fell absolutely in love with Twitter when I took the challenge to learn it in 2010. Twitter still is my go-to for learning more about events. As someone else stated in the comments (I'm using a mobile device so commenting is a trainwreck.), the gurus are gone. The engagement and knowledge I used to get are gone. As I type this, I wonder if I need to dump the list, or most of the list, of folks I follow and start again? You also said something recently, Mark, in another post, on another platform: pick one form, do it well, and grow from there. Maybe this is a hint to the trouble with Twitter or Brands in general? If folks are trying to do or be everything, there's little opportunity to do whatever it is they are really good at. Lastly, I wonder if the fad or push to move to video, gifs, etc is a factor also? Perhaps this is the reason to jump to other platforms? The world is full of noise, I for one, don't care to have it blasting at me from my phone. My phone is how I access, and it is an extension of my personal space. It is likely, I am rare in this belief and practice, but life has taught me there are always others too (HSPs, introverts, etc).
Marketing, Social Media & Writing Expert; Women in Business Advocate; Taking a Health Break
7 年I love Twitter as a way to hold conversations. It's much more engaging than many other channels. Also a great platform during events. With Twitter, I can connect with a way wider crowd than I would otherwise.
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7 年Agree - so many brands just use it to broadcast links, not even trying to engage, ugh! So brands need to try but also, a challenge is - who wants to engage with a brand logo? I’d rather engage with an individual real person. So one solution is to identify who is tweeting in the Twitter profile. For example, include the phrase “Tweets by Community Manager Jane Doe” in the Twitter bio. What’s drawing me to Twitter most these days is the ability to network and connect with people doing the same kind of work that I am doing. (Twitter chats are obviously great for this.) So what I see now more than ever is the power of Twitter to connect with a niche audience. Brands should take note.