It’s that time again: social media and all the changes!
Twitter is up to something again, and no one is entirely sure if this change will be detrimental or just something we can all easily shrug off. It has to do with share counts.
It goes along with a lot of the recent changes within the social media world, which means that the channel is moving away from third-party posting sites getting relevant data.
Is this something you need to be worried about? Maybe a little, but things are still too new to know for sure.
What is this change? What can you expect? And can you even begin to prepare for it now?
I am going to delve into this latest story and give you all the info we have at the moment.
What’s Twitter Up To Now With Share Counts?
Did you quake in your boots when I mentioned Twitter is making a change? Don’t worry; most marketers felt the same way when we heard the news. Social Warfare revealed in their newsletter that the end is near for share counts.
Twitter is going to make a change with their share and follow buttons that keeps data from third-party posting sites. These are sites like Hootsuite, Buffer, and anything else you use to schedule on the channel.
However, they aren’t being stingy with the data; they’re simply removing the share numbers that appear next to the buttons.
This is going to go into effect in October, and people are wondering just what this means for their blogs.
The biggest thing is that your blog button is no longer going to show the counts of how many times it has been shared.
When this new change goes into action, it will no longer show that number, meaning no one will know just how often it has been shared.
This is really bothering a lot of marketers and for good reason. Let’s say you spent a lot of time on a blog and it went viral. I’m talking 15K shares and you’re beyond excited about it.
With the new change, no one will know that your particular viral blog got shared so much; it’ll look just like your other blogs. This means, no share numbers whatsoever.
This could be good on one hand, but possibly irksome or even bad on the other. October will show us for sure which one it will be.
What We Know About the Change Right Now
Unfortunately, we don’t know much about this new change because Twitter hasn’t given us a more in depth look into it. We just know the basics and that no Twitter counts are going to be shown to readers and users.
This is also going to impact the follower counts that are shown for the same reason – the number simply won’t be shown.
Image Credit: Twitter.com
However, companies are noticing that where the biggest impact will be is with smaller publishers instead of larger sites like Mashable.
This could be potentially bad for smaller publishers, but we don’t know just how large the impact will be.
Should You Run Away Screaming?
No! Don’t run away – Twitter is still an important part of your social media strategy. You should still be focusing on using Twitter to the fullest potential, getting the most out of your Twitter content.
While waiting is rough work, especially when you’re waiting for a possibly huge change on a social channel, that’s just what you should do right now.
Before you start to panic and rethink your use of Twitter, wait to see just what this will mean for your business. And don’t forget to focus on still reaching out to your current audience and working to grow it.
How Can You Prep for This Possible Change?
It is hard to say just what you can do to prepare for this change until we know more details, but I fully plan on keeping you informed.
If you feel this change will be bad, let your voice be heard. Several businesses are already prepping for this, and some have even started the hashtag: #SaveOurShareCounts.
Make your voice heard before October hits!
As we wait, don’t fret about sharing your content – keep working with it and encouraging clients to share, tweet, and re-tweet. Just because we may no longer have those share counts doesn’t mean people won’t be reading.
Keep writing and creating for your clients no matter what.
Keep On Tweeting, Keep On Tweeting
Take a page out of Dory’s book and just keep swimming, or rather, tweeting. You can also keep an eye out here at Express Writers to see the latest news on the Twitter share counts front.
What say you? Do you think this change is terrifying and potentially bad? Or that it might not be something to get too worked up over?
