Twitter Isn't a Social Media Anymore

Back in favor in 2018, the blue birded social media confirmed its status as an unavoidable information system, with an impact level comparable to that of the worldwide press agencies like Reuters and the AFP. That’s why it is becoming everyday riskier for companies to neglect this social media tool. Companies have many strategies ahead of them: the company’s accounts that most of the times are controlled by communication teams, news accounts managed by the PR, the managers’ personal accounts, particularly that of the communication director and the employees’ accounts involved in the employee advocacy programs. 

Precious tools for corporate communication

Twitter presents many advantages compared to other social platforms; First, information published on Twitter is not filtered. There isn’t any algorithm that favors a post over the other. This is not the case for Facebook for example. When a user browses Twitter’s news feed, posts appear in a chronological order. Secondly, Twitter is an opened ecosystem where data is accessible and transparent: any type of information can be analyzed and compared. Finally, Twitter acts as a direct news stream. These three characteristics make Twitter a precious tool for Communication Departments.

This summer Twitter has started gathering tweets about events and news in order to give its users a glimpse of the last developments concerning their interests. It also sends oriented alerts to its users based on their subjects of interest or opinion leaders. Twitter accounts have often been victim of a low engagement rate, however, its new functionalities accelerate engagement around micro-communities and targeted subjects.

Twitter isn’t a social media anymore

As Laurent Buanec, Deputy Management Director of Twitter France pointed out, recent changes have pushed Twitter to rebound: in application stores, Twitter started appearing in the “News” category instead of the “Social Media” category. Twitter has also closed thousands of doubtful and inactive accounts to insure the safety of its users. This category change marks a turning point and disrupts the customs of PR teams that need to take back control over their corporate Twitter accounts.

Using Twitter for corporate communication is a subtle exercise. In order to distribute corporate information, Twitter can reach significant audiences if the tweet is posted in the right moment, referenced with the right hashtags and contain the right mentions. There is no specific recipe, Twitter is evolving everyday at a high speed as well as the rest of the media. That’s when we see the importance of the press attaché’s role: they understand the dynamic of the media, they pay attention to their working environment and they know the opinion leaders. The necessary qualities to interact with Twitter.

Even if the links of press releases shared on Twitter don’t get high engagement records, they constitute a real time reliable source of information for the company’s stakeholders. An opportunity that no company should give up to.