Automation has been a freaking godsend on Twitter over the years, but it's going away now. Recent political scandals involving data scraping and bots have thrown into sharp relief the extent to which misuse of automation can adversely affect culture. Given the drop in Facebook's value when the Cambridge Analytica story broke, it makes sense that Twitter would want to protect itself from future issues around the use of non-human interaction to shift what trends and, ultimately, shift opinion in a way that is undemocratic.
Goodbye Marketers!
So, it's goodbye to marketers then? Not as such. As I've always said, ethical influence is the bee's knees, the bee's butt, and every other part of the bee's anatomy. It's unethical influence that's messing things up on social media.
Think of it like a party. It's your 21st birthday and your parents are going out of town for the night. They're letting you use their house for your party. If you invite all your friends, they're respectful of the whole 'no shoes upstairs' and 'do not hype up the dog' policies, and it all ends around 2am, without complaint from the neighbours then that's great. If, however, one of your friends tells everyone in the bar - or on social media - about the event, everyone drinks to excess, the police get called, and you wake up in a cell wearing a clown costume... not so good.
I'm not sure that analogy even worked, but I was having fun with it so I went with it. That's what I'm talking about here. I'm human. My brain can go off on a tangent and I let it. Exciting and fascinating things happen when human beings are real with each other. Bots and automation don't have the same sense of context and humour. Taken to excess - as was, clearly, the alcohol at your party - there's a hangover. The key with automation is not to let it rule you. The key with automation is to use it as a tool to help you.
The excessive use of automation on Twitter began to get in the way of meaningful interactions, so it's going away. Now what?
- Forget autopilot. Think 'co-pilot.' If you've been using Twitter to generate leads 'on autopilot' your business model just got squished. Go back to the reason you did this in the first place. If it was to save money and get results in less time, you can still do that. You just need to outsource to an actual human being, instead.
- Don't play the hashtag game. Be careful with the use of hashtags. One of the key things Twitter is trying to stop is the gamification of hashtags in case it affects Trending Topics. The 'leader of the free world' uses Twitter as his megaphone, so it makes sense that Twitter wants to make sure the topics reflect the genuine sentiment of the users and isn't manipulated.
- Talk to people. You can no longer ignore your account while a rotator does the work for you. Actually get on Twitter and speak to people. You know? The way we did back in 2009, when it was a rocking little bluebird of happiness? Go retro. You know you want to!
If you need help, hit me up on twitter and ask me about coaching on this stuff. I've won awards for influence on the platform. Ethical influence. Happy to help you crush it like a summer strawberry.
Keep grinning!
Rebecca.
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