More on Twitter again, I’m afraid.
This week, news that Twitter has been falling as a source of clicks for publishers, according to UK Press Gazette.
News publishers with less than 10,000 page views have seen their clicks fall by 98 per cent since 2018. Larger news outlets have seen volumes fall, too. You can read the full analysis here.
There’s several things to be aware of here if you are public sector. The one conclusion you can be sure of is to take a fresh look if you are not already at how you are using Twitter. I’ve blogged about this before and the general weather for the platform hasn’t improved.
What muddies the water
There are a few things that mean you can’t make a clear assessment of the data. These are newspapers. Their goal is to get you to click links to a website. Public sector organisations are not newspapers.
It’s possible that the newspapers – or news brands as they like to be called – may have been the architect of their downfall by insisting on links when they’re posting. Links have been penalised for some time on Twitter.
What you need to do
As I’ve blogged before, I don’t think that the Stephen Fry route is a sensible one just yet. It’s not time yet for quitting and deleting the account. I’ve argued several times that organisations should be slowly reversing away from Twitter. It still has a role to play in crisis communications.
But what is clear is that it would be useful to take a close granular look at how your tweets are performing. The important thing is how you’re doing not newspapers. But the light being shone on them yet again makes this important.