What The Heck Is Up With Twitter?

We were scanning the social media news this week, as we do, and noticed that there are a lot of random Twitter updates coming out lately. What the heck is going on?

Let’s break down some of the latest so you know what you need to worry about, and what you can ignore:

Twitter Plans New Privacy Tools to Get More People Tweeting

Via Bloomberg:

Among features being considered is the ability to edit follower lists, and a tool to archive old tweets so that they’re no longer visible to others after a specific amount of time designated by the user. Hiding past tweets could be a popular feature with people who don’t want their posts to exist online forever, offering an easier solution than manually deleting posts or combing through years-old messages to find those you wish you hadn’t sent.

Twitter is also considering letting users remove followers without having to block them, which could be a less confrontational way to disengage with someone; allowing users to hide the Tweets that they’ve liked; and letting users “remove themselves from a public conversation” if they’ve been tagged.

What’s interesting here is that Twitter seems to want to let their users feel, as Social Media Today pointed out, “free and open in how they share and engage on the platform, without fear of being torn down by Twitter mobs or having their old comments come back to haunt them.” But let’s not forget that it’s also a way to allow Twitter to gather more data on user behavior if their users are able to engage more, without holding back, which is key for working with advertisers.

If you’re using Twitter for your organization regularly, these moves could impact the way you measure your success on the platform. It’s unclear how Twitter Analytics might be affected as of how, and which of these proposed changes might actually go through but if Twitter is aiming to give more privacy to their users it’s possible that there will be a change in how we can measure the ways users interact with our content.

Be ready by reviewing what metrics you’ve been measuring to track your own success, and be prepared to switch up those reports!

Twitter Launches 'Super Follows' Creator Monetization Option

Via Twitter’s blog:

We’re excited to introduce Super Follows, a new way for people to earn monthly revenue by sharing subscriber-only content with their followers on Twitter. With Super Follows, people can create an extra level of conversation on Twitter (sharing bonus Tweets and more!) to interact authentically with their most engaged followers – all while earning money.

This might not be terribly exciting to you unless you have a big audience that you’re looking to monetize, OR if you’re a huge fan of some accounts using this feature, but you should know that this is just one way Twitter’s angling to keep influencers on Twitter, or get them back from other platforms like TikTok and OnlyFans. Will it work? TBD, but money talks. That’s why Twitter is also testing out another social commerce feature, so Tweets can be shoppable again.

If you want to try this out and you have 10k followers or more, you can sign up for the waitlist through the “Monetization” tab on the sidebar; use this helpful walk-through via CNBC.

Twitter Launches New 'Safety Mode' to Help Alleviate Mental Stress Associated with Tweet Pile-Ons

Also via Twitter’s blog:

When activated, the new Safety Mode would temporarily block accounts that use potentially harmful language, and/or send repetitive and uninvited replies or @mentions your way, in order to help you avoid any negative impacts.

This one’s important! Twitter feels like a dumpster fire a lot of the time, so any moves to make it less heinous seem like a good thing. We often have to advise our clients to be ready for the spamming, the trolling, the negative comments, and potentially harassment when they start to see real success on Twitter, which is sort of a bummer, isn’t it?

It’s also an important business move for Twitter to make their own platform feel less horrific to engage on, so their users don’t, you know… leave. Seems obvious, but Twitter and companies like it have to keep a careful balance between ensuring the platform is safe to use and still letting users feel like they’re free to say what they want since plenty of people in certain political circles have felt policed or restricted on this channel. Ahem.

We won’t opine today on if they’re right or wrong to feel that way; just click on Safety Mode in your Privacy and Safety Settings to turn it on or off.

Pro Tips: Twitter Provides Insights into How to Maximize Your Tweet Marketing Approach

Social Media Today has some helpful tips for maximizing your Twitter performance through all these changes, in this interview with Adam Ilenich, the Global Community Manager for Twitter Marketing. Take this advice with a grain or three of salt, because obviously the incentive here is to get you to use Twitter and pay for ads, but there are some helpful nuggets:

A few tips for creating your brand’s authentic voice:

· Figure out the guardrails for what you won’t say; flex within that structure to strike the right chord

· Use the words, phrases, and sentence structure your target audience uses

· Dial up the qualities that are unique to your brand

· Dial down industry jargon or a tone that’s too formal

· Test and iterate to find out what approach performs the best

However, if you’ve been a loyal Slice reader for a while, you knew all that already!