Twitter Renaissance: Is It Time to Reconsider Twitter?

Wondering what advantages Twitter offers social media marketers?

Looking for tips on interacting with customers?

To explore the opportunities marketers have on Twitter, I interview Mark Schaefer.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers, business owners, and creators discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Mark Schaefer, author of KNOWN, The Content Code, and The Tao of Twitter, now in its fourth edition. He's co-host of The Marketing Companion Podcast. He's also been one of my most frequent guests.

Mark explains why marketing to Twitter's loyal and creative users is different from marketing on Facebook or YouTube.

You'll discover examples of successful Twitter marketing, ranging from well-known brands to local mom-and-pop stores.

Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
Listen Now

Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Twitter Renaissance
Twitter's Relevance

The first, second, and third editions of The Tao of Twitter came out in 2010, 2012, and 2014 respectively. When he was working on the newly released fourth edition, Mark wrestled with Twitter's relevance because it's changed so much. In the beginning, Twitter was hot, fun, and conversational, but many people today see it as kind of spammy. When Mark did his deep dive to rediscover what Twitter is today, he found Twitter has three worlds.

The first is Wall Street, where Twitter doesn't have a good reputation. Twitter hasn't done a good job of monetizing the company and assets. Because Twitter is constantly compared to Facebook and doesn't get the same kind of revenue and user growth, Wall Street has a negative tone toward Twitter. However, Twitter's earnings announcement a few weeks ago exceeded expectations.

The second is the business (social media) world. There are plenty of Google AdWords and Facebook ad experts, but who are the Twitter ad experts? Not much is going on with Twitter advertising because a lot of brands and companies use Twitter as a broadcast channel. They know Twitter is about conversations and relationships, but they still post links. It's hard to scale being human and conversations at the corporate level. When the approach these companies use on Twitter doesn't work, they blame Twitter and get disheartened.

Twitter world number three is filled with the 330 million active users who love it. They're loyal, they have fun, they chat with each other, and they play games. Twitter is also where news breaks. Twitter is part of the fabric of these users' lives.

Mark is interested in the gap between the Wall Street and business perceptions of Twitter, and the loyalty of its users. For instance, Twitter is bigger than Snapchat, which gets a ton of attention. Twitter has more advertising options, better dashboards, and more measurables than Snapchat. So why the lack of action in the Twitter world?

Mark thinks Twitter will have a renaissance. A few months ago, Facebook announced that it's running out of places for ads, so ad prices will go up and competition will be stiffer. When companies seek out alternatives, they may look to Twitter, especially because Twitter has a massive, engaged, loyal audience that's under-served by brands.

Indeed, Mark has found that Twitter users are more brand-loyal than Facebook or YouTube users. Thus Twitter offers an opportunity. Businesses just need to rediscover what Twitter has to offer and make a consistent effort to succeed there.

While Mark and I agree that Facebook is the center of all social media, Mark says businesses need to look at their social media marketing on a case-by-case basis. Twitter might have some advantages for small- to medium-sized regional businesses because it can help them tune into local conversations.

To demonstrate,