Every Friday, it got worse. For one of my clients, we’d plugged in Twitter as a way to use more of the content we’d already produced for other platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. I ran the numbers at the end of each week, often pushing the account further down my to-do list, as if another hour or two would change something. It didn’t. Well, it only saw Impressions sink lower.
See, I love Twitter. I use it all the time, and for most of the clients we work with, it adds an interesting dynamic to their social marketing. Paid campaigns can break free of geographic bias, but organic posts tend to stick relatively close to home. Twitter is like having a plane ticket in your backpocket; got a seasonal product? No worries, we can tag in the southern hemisphere and sell suntan lotion in New Zealand for free; all it takes is a little hashtag research and away it’s bag packed, seat reclined, and neck support pillow engaged.
With this account, however, I was muscling things. Hard. No matter how we shuffled our organic posts, how we structured tags or what content we plugged it, it just wasn’t clicking. Engagement was nauseating, conversion was nearly non-existent, and the more effort I put into it, the less we got out of it. Finally, I had to let it go.
Some platforms just don’t work out. Whether it’s the industry or the content, it’s important to invest in what works, rather than waste time and energy on what doesn’t. The first step is to find the right metric to base success and support the role social media plays in your marketing. Looking to stay top of mind? It’s sheer volume; Followers, Impressions, and Likes are your bread and butter. Selling a product? Track conversion and use organic campaigns to support paid efforts when you have more data. Want to make it easy for potential clients to get a hold of you? There’s a reason even Instagram tracks email clicks, and why Facebook has invested millions in building Messager into the sale behemoth it is today.
There comes a point where using and scheduling for an underperforming platform turns into yelling into an empty room. Social media is about conversation; if there’s no reply, there’s no point. We’ve shifted gears for accounts to match what works best with where we perform best. Prioritize your presence get results. It also makes running those reports each week a lot less heart-breaking for us, too.
We didn’t ditch Twitter entirely. It’s still there, occasionally bubbling up with the great content that we’ve created for other platforms. I still check it, too, and it’s inching along, sluggishly but measurably. Instead of agonizing over it, we’ve focused on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, where the right customer is waiting.
Has your company narrowed down the number of social platforms you’re active on? How did you decide? Look at our Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook…we can’t let them go.