Anna Johansson says, “Building an audience on social media isn’t easy, but keeping one around is even harder. On Twitter, where the posts are short and the interactions are fleeting, this is even more of a challenge. Unfollowing is as simple as clicking a button, and without warning, you may find yourself shedding followers for an action you didn’t know you committed — or worse, something you should have done but omitted. Fortunately, while there are some random departures due to mood swings or accidental actions, most follower departures are clearly motivated and can be understood.... [...]

Austin Iuliano says, “A trending hashtag at one time was #DescribeTwitterIn3Words. That can only be described as an avant garde approach to constructive criticism. Or, at least, that is what I hope. The general sentiment for what Twitter has been turned into lately is “Scrollin’, Trollin’, Scrollin’”, “marketers ruin everything”, or my favorite, “FIRE HOSE ON.” I think this is true. For a vast majority of people, Twitter has become a fire hose of content and noise. Everyone is sharing their latest blog posts, the posts of their favorite “influencers” in the hopes of... [...]

Erica McGillivray says, “On November 20, 2015, Twitter took away share counts on their buttons and from their accessible free metrics. Site owners lost an easy signal of popularity of their posts. Those of us in the web metrics business scrambled to either remove, change, or find alternatives for the data to serve to our customers. And all those share count buttons, on sites across the Web, started looking a tad ugly. On the whole, I agree with Twitter that tweet counts are not a holistic measurement of actual audience engagement. They aren’t the end-all-be-all to showing your brand’s... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “In an effort to improve the user experience, Twitter has unveiled a new timeline feature that will display tweets out of chronological order. The aim is that users will avoid missing out on important updates from people they follow. The feature, which launched Wednesday, is currently optional, but Twitter plans to roll it out as a default in the next few weeks. Mike Jahr, a senior engineering manager at Twitter, explained how the feature works: You flip on the feature in your settings; then when you open Twitter after being away for a while, the Tweets you’re... [...]

Ed Morgan says, “Whether a multibillion-dollar corporation or a local plumbing business, your brand looks woefully behind the times if you don’t have a presence on social media, including Twitter. Companies have hired armies of smart, hip, Web-savvy people to usher their brands into a new era of perpetual connectedness that allows them to reach their customers in new and interesting ways. So why do brand tweets look like this? That is no way to meaningfully communicate with people: It’s smarmy, pointless, and ultimately devoid of any actual messaging. Why? Because we are focused... [...]

Gina Roughan says, “As a marketer, when you see that watching a puddle in Newcastle has become the biggest event of the week, it’d be a natural reaction to throw your hands up and question the point of factoring in national days, sports happenings, awards ceremonies and the like when it comes to your brand’s annual content marketing calendar. But as the 4.4m tweets accompanying the recent Golden Globes shows, events are digital content gold. Events mean large numbers of people, all engaging on social around one topic or happening, at the same time – providing a golden opportunity... [...]

Tabby McFarland says, “Are you familiar with Periscope? This social media platform lets you “go live” from your mobile device anywhere, broadcasting videos and audio to viewers as you are on the go. The company was purchased by Twitter not so long ago and now a recentannouncement is giving the heads up that the two platforms will work even better together. Simply put, Periscope announced today that it is beginning a roll-out livestream broadcasts directly in the Twitter stream. Up until now, a video shared from Periscope to Twitter would appear as a link. Followers who wanted to watch... [...]

Jack Simpson says, “It’s somewhat sad that something as seemingly innocuous as an update to a social media site can cause so much online furore. Twitter’s recent announcement, in which it said it is poised to increase the tweet character limit from 140 to as much as 10,000, has thrown keyboard warriors everywhere into a frenzy. I’m not going to use this post to talk about what this change would mean for marketers, but rather to put forward five reasons I think it’s an unbelievably stupid idea“. Five reasons Twitter’s character limit increase is a terrible idea ‘Econsultancy’... [...]

Zak Stambor says, “Twitter’s conversational ads, released today, make it easier for consumers to share a retailer’s message. Retailers looking to get consumers talking about their brand on Twitter have a new tool at their disposal. The social network today launched conversational ads, an ad format that includes call-to-action buttons with customizable hashtags that encourage consumers to interact with the tweet. When a consumer taps a call-to-action button, the social network’s tweet composer window opens with a pre-populated brand message accompanied by a brand-supplied image or video... [...]

Small Business editor says, “As the year comes to a close, it’s natural for business owners to look back at some of the biggest moments and most helpful resources. This year, live streaming app Periscope was bestowed the honor of being named the Apple App of the Year. There are a few more social platforms important to small businesses that made small business headlines this week too. Read on for a full list in this week’s Small Business Trends news and information roundup. Social Media Periscope Named Apple App of the Year: A Look Back On 2015 As founder of the Periscope Community Summit,... [...]