For all its hype and status as media darling – turn on any news and you’ll see something about ‘tweeted today’ – Twitter is really struggling to become.
More. Better. To reach. To fulfill the promise that maybe never existed in the first place.
Good ideas, everyone’s got one
Here are a few of the ‘save Twitter’ or ‘how to make Twitter suck less’ posts I’ve read and shared of late:
What Twitter Can Be. Long read, very smart by VC Chris Sacca. As always, I’m like real human people it needs to be about that.
Some people think Twitter needs Nuzzle. Filters and controls, I’ve been typing that for years.
I totally respect HBR author Alexandra Samuel for asking Buffer to remove her content from their suggestions, disappointed about How Bots took over Twitter.
What’s not helping.
If it’s not part of the solution, you know what it is.
Celebrities reading Mean Tweets may be fun, but celebrity Twitter feuds – real or fake – don’t help. Or at least to me, aren’t going to do anything to make people want to spend more time on Twitter. Time matters.
Random changes from TBTB don’t do it any favors. Seriously, why zap wallpaper Twitter? Sharing block lists seems like something that should be automatic, not make the user’s work for it. By hand HUMAN curation via Project Lightning, I’ll believe when I see it.
Horrid, manipulative, self-involved navel-gazing first world problem tweets pretending to be inventive storytelling does not elevate Twitter into some kind of art form. (No really, I hated this. Tweet 53 made my blood boil and the non-shock and subsequent pandering of tweets 60 and beyond… bleep bleeping BLEEP. YMMV.)
Gimmicks and stunts aren’t solutions. Attacks, trolling and threats are common place, while real human conversation isn’t. Read Facebook comments on any media story covering ‘news of the Twitters’ and it’s rife with ‘still don’t get Twitter’ or ‘that’s why Twitter sucks.’
R-O-I are three of the most dangerous letters in business, social media ruined as its used solely to sell crappy products, horrible services, and holy terrors, build personal brands. Ergo people who once loved the platform are either fleeing or unfollowing en masse (but leaving all that automated link dumping behind).
I share too many links (relative to conversation), I’m muting when I should probably be unfollowing, I’m ‘using’ Twitter for myself, my career – which admittedly makes me part of the problem. The solution? If I knew, I’d put it in my cover letter.
You: Has the magic died? Are you still there out of obligation, for the social shares and occasional chat? What would make Twitter better for you, professionally and personally?
P.S. If Twitter would give me the source filters on the native, mobile apps like there are on TweetDeck, I’d be ever so grateful.
I never understood Instagram either, but I thought that was just me. So please do break it down for us Davina-style when you can.
I can see that Twitter appears to have died out while I was… well, I wasn’t helping, either, was I?
What were we talking about again?
Oh yeah. Here’s what Twitter needs if we’re going to make it work: people who can make it work (like you!), not just for themselves, but for others who–once you demonstrate–catch it and spread it to others. It’s the only way. I know, because I was pretty awful on Twitter at first–until I starting watching you, Davina, and others who were excellent models of what being social is.
Now, Twitter’s numbers have swelled mostly with those who don’t have the experience or the models they need. Maybe (dream with me!) they’ll learn better, and then Twitter will get better. For you and for me and the entire human race (come on, dream!)…
Glad to see you’re back out there. 🙂 We’ve all known the apps did it better – controls, filters, streams – making it more user friendly. Twitter needs more spam control, more better easier ways to fight, block abuse and trash. There has to be a crackdown on the automation, but then .. that’s all for ‘marketing’ and that’s Twitter trying to make money, so tough to get them to limit the crap and noise. Sigh … so so many things.
Like you, it’s HUMANS that they need. Have ideas on that, always have.. and FWIW, it’s where other networks have sort of failed in some aspects. (See also Instagram: it’s nice enough, but I don’t get the big deal.) Yet another post I’ll write, someday.