What should I do with Twitter? 🤔

Hey 👋

Welcome to Neighbourhood Post issue #42 - easy to implement digital marketing ideas straight through your metaphorical letterbox.

September’s been a busy month of growth in the neighbourhood. We welcomed Millie this week, and Jake starts at the end of the month.

We’ll introduce you soon. 🤝

In the meantime I’m answering the question we’re asked most frequently - What should we do with Twitter?

👉 By the way, if you’ve missed previous newsletters you’ll find them here.

📩 And if you’ve been forwarded this email you can subscribe here.

Exit Stage Left? What Brands Should Do About X 💀🚪

I’ve recently been through the five stages of grief and arrived at acceptance:

Twitter is a wasteland.

What was once a thriving community of friendly geeks is now a dumpster fire of political violence, division and conspiracy theories.

Social media echo chambers used to be scary, but we’re seeing something scarier:

The ability for one man to influence millions with his own political beliefs.

I’ll put my hands up, some of this is influenced by my personal opinion and experience.

(Also on a personal note, I’ve replaced Twitter with Reddit. I can get my fantasy football/productivity/marketing fix there with a smidgen less hatred. You should try it.)

I know lots of brands are concerned about how they should interact with the platform going forward.

As I see it, there are 4 things to think through:

#1 - Values over virality

Ultimately you need to make a decision of whether staying on the platform is right for you.

Only you can make that decision.

If you think the direction and leadership significantly contradicts your organisation values, it might be time to leave.

But before you do, consider this next point…

#2 - Move to owned spaces

Whether you’re leaving or staying, lead your audience to another channel.

That could be a different social platform, but ideally to an email list, podcast or community of some form.

The reality is all social media platforms are rented space; you have zero control over their destiny and they could disappear tomorrow.

#3 - Shift your strategy

Even if you think your offering is most suited to Twitter, you might be surprised by the success you find on other social platforms.

We’ve been working with a client recently who are essentially a media outlet. Twitter was a big part of our initial strategy; the perfect place for news, current affairs and discussion.

But growth was like pulling teeth. We were reluctant to move to Instagram, but when we did we were able to experiment with new ways of presenting written content, and we’ve seen significant growth.

It didn’t feel like the right platform to focus on, but it succeeded for that reason; we were able to do something very few others were doing.

#4 - Post. Move On. Repeat.

If you decide to stay, we’d highly recommend you deprioritise the channel.

Don’t report on it, don’t worry about it.

Set it up via your scheduler and post content you’ve created for other channels. Even if it isn’t fully optimised.

You never know, one of the few people still actively checking might see a post that prompts them to take action.

But focus on something else.

There’s a real chance Twitter might not exist in the future.

Or becomes even more volatile than it is now.

Don’t waste energy on it.

—

I’d genuinely love to know what you’re planning to do with Twitter.

Do you agree with me? Are you working through the above steps?

Hit reply and let me know.

Have a great weekend.

✌️

What we’re looking at 👀 and listening to 👂

📺 Rosie’s been working through the back catalogue of Hot Ones - with particular favourites being Florence Pugh and Shaq. It’s giving us an idea for our next neighbourhood social… 🌶️

📺 Joe’s watching A Small Light, which tells the story of a Dutch woman who risked her life to shelter Anne Frank's family for 2 years.

Before you go - we’ll never use these newsletters to directly sell you our services, but we’re always here if you need any expertise or support 👍