A Little Twitter Change Has Big Implications
In case this flew under your radar this past week, here's an important update from Twitter:
"In order to help people find credible and authentic information, and to promote a healthy public discourse on Twitter, we limit the visibility of duplicative (or also known as ‘copypasta’) Tweets.
“Copypasta” (a reference to copy-and-paste functionality to duplicate content) is an Internet slang term that refers to an attempt by multiple individuals to duplicate content from an original source and share it widely across social platforms or forums...
While copypasta or duplicate content is a tactic for propagating a message, and is used for a wide range of purposes, it can be repetitive, spammy, and disruptive to people’s experience on Twitter."
Now, why does this matter to us humble-and-hardworking communicators? This policy change (which actually first started being a thing in August of 2020) means that common advocacy and fundraising tactics like Twitterstorms or Click2Tweet aren't working like they once did.
If you've ever planned a social media campaign and written content that partners could share on their own social media accounts, you've probably drafted Tweets that they could copy and paste. That's out the window, which means a few different things:
More work for you, the talented-but-very-busy communicator 😠
More work for your partners, if they have to draft their own content about your campaign on top of what they already have going on 😣
But hopefully a more authentic and engaging campaign, and a better Twitter... right? 🤷♀️
We get it: Twitter is trying to fight spam and the rampant spread of misinformation, and keep enhancing the Twitter experience so users stick with the platform.
But this does make life harder, in that you either need to ask your partners and supporters to draft their own content (which is a lot of work), or you need to craft more original content that they can use (which is a lot of work), OR you need to focus on asking them to ReTweet you (which may be less effective for your campaign).
Test out a few of these different tactics and measure the results. You might find that more original content means a better-performing campaign, which would be awesome! 🥳
Or, you might discover that your advocacy and awareness campaigns need to evolve, and it might be time to try some new channels or new types of content. No matter what you try, treat this as a learning opportunity.