It goes without saying, (but I’m going to say it anyway) social media is a place for conversation. It’s a place for brands to start conversations and join them too. Marketers will be pleased to learn of a couple of updates to Twitter and Facebook that make it easier for users to get engaged with content and conversations.
First up, Twitter is introducing a ‘subscribe to conversation’ feature. It really does what it says on the tin. Yes, this is aimed at benefiting users, but a brand can benefit if it’s a conversation starter, or is good at getting involved with lengthy conversations. It’s great to know that users will have this option to follow your conversations. The way to really capitalise on this is to make sure that what you’re saying is meaningful. And don’t be afraid of getting involved in a long-winded back-and-forth on Twitter. You might be limited to 280 characters, but users will stick around for much longer if the content is valuable to them.
Secondly, Facebook is testing a new notifier on shared articles, that’ll let users know if their friends have read it. Over the past year, Facebook’s really been shoving their ‘meaningful content’ agenda and doing everything they can to make sure their users find the platform enjoyable and useful. Facebook is all about your network of friends. If a bunch of people in your network have all found an article interesting enough to read, you might want to check it out too! This is great news for brands, because it means that if a user has liked your article enough to share it, then their friends could be notified too. For those of you writing blogs and long-form content, this one’s for you. Give people a reason to share your content, whether it’s useful or enjoyable, make sure it offers value! Then the algorithm will do some of the heavy lifting.
Engagement really is the key here. And if that’s your goal on social, then these updates will be of use to you. We’d love to know if you get some use out of these new updates, and what you think about them. Give us a shout on our social channels!
