For Your Refreshed Twitter Strategy, Social Media’s Past is Prologue.

The 2010s were a volatile time for the internet. Facebook fundamentally changed how we interact with the web with the Open Graph, a new approach that began to connect all parts of the web, social or not. Facebook was evolving, and no longer just a place for college students to friend someone they met once at a party freshman year. 

Not to be outdone, Google introduced Google+ two years later, a social network platform with similar features to the “new” Facebook. Its most important innovation arguably was “Circles,” a feature that let users organize their connections into groups to make their updates targeted and more relevant. With Google+, you could truly keep your work and personal lives separate. 

But today, Google+ is mostly a punchline, just one of the many services Google introduced then “retired” a few years later (KilledByGoogle.com has documented 273 such services). Google+, even with its innovative “Circles” feature, joined Google Reader, Google Talk, and Google Buzz on the digital trash heap. 

Twitter, meanwhile, has survived the tumultuous 2010s, joined by other social media monoliths like Facebook and LinkedIn. However, Twitter apparently saw the value in Google+’s Circles feature and introduced their own — aptly named, “Circle.” 

Twitter’s new Circle feature is simple: it lets you choose a list of up to 150 Twitter users and tweet exclusively to that group whenever you choose, thus adding a layer of personalization that Twitter can lack at times. 

Here at Clyde Group, the opportunities for our clients were immediately apparent. Imagine: 

• A trade association that creates a Twitter Circle with their federal and state affairs teams, using Twitter to communicate legislative priorities in real time.
  
  
• A nonprofit that adds their top advocates to their Twitter Circle to update them on the latest ongoing actions.
  
  
• A corporation that uses Twitter Circle to communicate with the more “social network savvy” members of their team, providing opportunities for them to engage and cross-pollinate. 
  
  

Twitter’s introduction of Circle is just one example of how social media is trending back towards pushing creators to reach a core, relevant audience rather than chasing for a high volume of impressions. 

For example, look at Nextdoor’s growth: they went from 48 million users in 2019 to 69 million in 2021. Other platforms with social in their DNA, such as Reddit and Discord, have seen growth in the past few years, too — likely due in part to them allowing communities to organize themselves based on traits such as interest and location. 

What does this trend mean for you? It’s time to revisit your social strategy, and evolve alongside the platforms you and your team are using (or maybe even adopt new ones). 

Ready to reevaluate your social strategy? Clyde Group can help. Reach out if you’re interested in learning more about how we put clients in a position to win online.