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Are You Bringing Value to Your Audience on Social Media?

Posted on June 26, 2020

From live broadcasting on LinkedIn to cutting out the nonsense on Twitter. From curated guides on Instagram to quicker interactions with your fans on Facebook.

The social media giants have been busy producing new ways you can bring value to your audience. 

Plan your tweets in advance

Scheduling Tweets directly on Twitter is finally here!
No more messing around with third-party scheduling tools. You can now set up your tweets in the native Twitter app or website.
How? Here’s a quick guide. 
Compose a tweet as normal, but before you publish, click the calendar and clock icon below the tweet. Doing so will bring up a pop up where you can select the time and date you want your tweet to go out. 
On this pop-up, there is also a ‘scheduled tweets’ link where you can find all your draft and scheduled tweets and edit or delete them as necessary.
Unfortunately, you can’t schedule polls or threaded tweets at this current time.

Should you give it try?
The feature is still a little clunky and doesn’t come with the bells and whistles of many third-party scheduling tools so it might not be wise to completely switch away from your existing setup just yet. The best part about Twitter adding this feature to its platform however, is that it’s completely FREE!
If you want to know the best technique when it comes to scheduling content while keeping it fresh read why Social Media is Like Jazz.

Stay in control of your Twitter conversations

Another new addition to the ‘compose tweet box’ on Twitter is the ability to control who can reply to your tweets.
Now, the majority of your tweets will be intended for public discussion. But, sometimes you may want a more focused (albeit still public) conversation with someone specific. It’s annoying to have others chipping in and hijacking the thread. Now, with the ability to choose who can reply to your tweets, you can stay in control.
What are the practical uses for this?
First off, customer service. Imagine a customer has an issue with one of your products or services. You want to respond clearly and thoughtfully while still in the public setting, but without others jumping in with their two-penneth. Now you can allow only those mentioned to respond. 
Another great use could be a conversation with your most loyal followers. 

New Retweet Prompt

To limit the spread of miscommunication and encourage people to read articles before sharing them, Twitter will be prompting people via a pop up just before they retweet. 
It may mean your tweets get fewer retweets but hopefully, it will go a long way to discouraging some of the nonsense shared on the network. 

Twitter Lists get increased visibility

And finally, on Twitter, we’ve again heard rumours of the network improving its topics and list features.
This time we’re hearing about the potential of a ‘List discovery and directory’ which could help you both find and engage with your target audience faster. Of course, we’ll share about this in more detail once we hear more.
Are you using lists as part of your Twitter strategy?
Find out why you should be here. 

Share your voice on Twitter

Twitter has been testing a feature allowing users to record audio snippets or ‘Voice Tweets’ that are then shared publicly on the platform.
Great for sharing all your pearls of wisdom without having to type them out or worry about making a grammatical mistake.
Snippets are restricted to 140 seconds in length. However if you continue over that time, a Twitter thread will be created so your ramblings won’t go to waste.
You can share this voice snippet on its own or as part of a written tweet. The feature is only available to iOS device users however we expect this to cross over to other device types if successful.
Will it help you grow your business? 
The jury is still out with this one. If you’re an influencer in your space then it could be a powerful way to inspire or educate your audience. But, if you’re tweeting from your business account, it may be a feature that falls flat as your audience won’t be used to hearing an individual’s perspective.

LinkedIn Polls

LinkedIn has developed a new ‘poll post’ feature. It has a limit of up to four options your audience can choose from and can be active for between 24 hours and two weeks.
Will it help me get results on LinkedIn?
What’s interesting about the polls is that your audience are alerted to it through their notifications, rather than seeing it on their newsfeeds. Our early experiments have found that connections who don’t normally respond (or perhaps even see) our posts are taking part in our polls. That means increased brand awareness and an opportunity to engage.
LinkedIn polls Saxby

Online Events + Live Streams all in one place.

Thanks to the recent events, many digital and online tools have been booming! And the virtual events and webinar arenas are no exception.
Now LinkedIn wants a piece of the action. Given it is known to be a space where you can learn, provide value and boost your career prospects, it’s a wonder they haven’t done this sooner. 
LinkedIn is bringing together its live streaming capability alongside its relatively new and underused events tools, allowing you to sign people up for events and live stream to specific audiences. All while staying inside LinkedIn.

Make your Instagram content more valuable!

A new ‘Guides’ tab is showing up on business and creator Instagram profiles.
The new feature will appear as a profile tab along with your feed, tagged photos and IGTV posts. 
‘Guides’ allow businesses to group content into article style feeds with commentary of the selected photos and videos. The content can be owned by the business or shared from other accounts. Clicking on the content will take you back to the original posts.
How will this be used? 
We can think of many uses for this exciting addition. Think showcasing current events and product launches from multiple perspectives. Also tour guides of a city, must-try food recipes or even step by step how-to feeds. The possibilities really are endless.

Engaging with your Facebook Fans just got easier

Facebook is working on allowing you to switch between Personal and Business accounts in the Messenger app – a new feature that’s part of Facebook’s messaging integrations plan that will eventually bring together Messenger, Whatsapp and Instagram Messages.
How is this helpful?
We all know that when customers ask questions on social media, they expect a rapid response. Now, with your messages all in one place, there’s no excuse for long reply times.
Would you like to talk to one of our social media experts about how these features could benefit YOUR business? Then get in touch.

Header image by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash.

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