Is there a right way to use Twitter? Twitter is a useful platform for several things—including sharing interesting links and content as well as engaging with others. Twitter attracts all kinds of users: those that solely share content, solely engage or mix up content sharing with engagement.
While everyone uses Twitter for different reasons, the balance between content sharing and engagement has never been more up in the air. Is engagement an important part of social networking? Content is important, but does it replace the relationships you form through using the service?
For the purpose of this post, let’s assume that engagement means that a user engages in conversation on Twitter through the at (@) reply, as defined by Chris Brogan.
Let’s break users down into four different categories and analyze each kind of user.
100% Content Sharing, 0% Engagement
Twitter users who engage in 100% content sharing and don’t engage are considered feeds.
There are plenty of feeds on Twitter, and don’t get me wrong, many of these feeds can be useful. For instance, many authoritative news sources and blogs share their latest content through these kinds of accounts. However, feeds can also contribute to Twitter spam. Feeds can spam users and can clog timelines and streams with spammy or irrelevant content.
This kind of account is best suited for news sources and blogs who have relevant and unique content to share. Even the best Twitter lists that bring together different sources tend to get a bit noisy—a Twitter user cannot expect a news source or blog to publish outstanding content with every single post.
75% Content Sharing, 25% Engagement
Twitter users who generally keep 3/4ths of their stream to sharing interesting content and links while engaging about a quarter of the time generally do well. These users engage in one of the greatest aspects of Twitter—the collaboration side—when it comes to sharing content. It’s up to the individual user to determine if the content is interesting enough to warrant a follow, but they are sharing content about 3/4ths of the time, nonetheless.
As more and more Twitter users shift away from using Twitter as a means to broadcast what they are eating for breakfast (or any other suitable personal tweets), expect to see this kind of user emerge. Sharing useful or interesting content is a no-nonsense way to building up a dedicated following on Twitter.
25% Content Sharing, 75% Engagement
For the Twitter user who engages in conversation more than sharing actual content, this approach truly values followers and people. It puts relationships on the front-burner on Twitter as opposed to content, which is not necessarily a bad thing. A Twitter user can grow a dedicated following through engaging with other users—possibly quicker than content sharing if the user engages in fruitful conversation with the right people.
A downside to engaging more than sharing is that many interesting and useful pieces of content could be buried in the Twitter stream. As Robert Scoble notes, setting up a separate Twitter account for a feed of content could be a worthwhile alternative if engagement is the top priority.
For users who do not want to go the separate account route, sharing content could become a strategic process on the platform. Tweeting a piece of content every three-five conversational tweets could be a worthwhile alternative, as content would never fall below the fold on the Twitter interface.
However, this does take planning. In the event a user wants to engage with a ton of users at once, content has to be prepared in advance for tweeting so that a new piece of content can be shared for every three to five conversational tweets.
o% Content Sharing, 100% Engagement
Twitter users who only share conversational tweets on Twitter amount to one thing: Noise.
Unless you are a celebrity, there is no real value from using Twitter solely to converse with others. Heck, even celebrities share interesting content every now and then (Alyssa Milano is one that comes to mind), and many celebrities could fall under the 25%/75% Twitter user model.
It’s great to converse with a lot of people through @ replies, but the tweets only reach certain streams (users have to follow both the conversational user and the intended recipient in order for the tweet to show in their stream), and conversational tweets tend to get filtered out quickly due to the fact that engagement tweets generally aren’t geared towards the greater public.
With Twitter lists, many @ replies get filtered out—unless the tweets are conversation between two users listed on the same list. The bottom line: Twitter designed these lists to focus more on content and less on conversational or engagement tweets.
While everyone follows at least one user that participates in Twitter conversation and doesn’t share anything of particular value, these users should continue to be filtered out as Twitter takes a content-first approach with their services.
So where do you fall?
It’s important to take a non-biased look at your Twitter account and determine where you would fall on this general spectrum. Do you engage with people more than you share interesting or useful content, or vice versa? Consider not just your last 20 tweets, but your last 100 tweets. While you don’t need to go through and take actual statistics on the updates, you can get a general feel in terms of how you can better balance your account.
A mix of content sharing and engagement is necessary to be successful on the platform, but as long as you have a mix of both, I can’t forsee how you can “do Twitter wrong”. Everyone has their different focus and approach to using the platform, and people will use the platform differently to meet their needs.
The last 20 tweet ideal.
It is important to keep your recent tweets in balance based around your focus. If you engage with other Twitter users 75% of the time, then make it clear through your last 20 tweets by showing around 15 tweets of conversation and 5 tweets of content (preferably spaced out)—and vice versa if you are a content-first tweeter.
What will people focus on when determining to follow you? More likely than not, real users will glance over your last 20 updates, so provide potential followers with a representation of what they can expect from your account. Give users a reason to follow you, regardless if you are content or engagement first.
If you had to characterize your tweeting tendencies, where would you fall on the spectrum?
