I set up Twitter about 10 years ago but couldn’t make any sense of it, so I just forgot about it. I suppose I’m pretty much a Twitter virgin.
This post is about my encounters with Twitter, one of the social networking sites I am exploring that could help me promote my new blog. Although I have used B2B marketing methods for decades, I have no hands-on experience of social media apart from LinkedIn and Facebook and I need to learn.
I set up business pages on Twitter and Facebook because Hootsuite advises that linking your website to social media platforms improves your search engine optimisation (SEO) rankings, and therefore helps people find your site. I chose Facebook because I know my target visitors use it. I am currently trying out different approaches to attract them to my site/read my blog/join my mailing list and will share my learning in later posts.
I chose Twitter because it seemed like an easy option. I tried to call my page @silverstartups, but the name was taken. Fair enough, but this page hasn’t been active since October 2017. Why is it still there?
So I called my page @Silver_startups and my first objective was to gain sufficient understanding of the platform in order to formulate a plan.
First Tweet!
My first tweet ever was on 11 January 2019, introducing Silver Startups to my future followers. The next step was to find some. My approach was logical. First, search for UK-based retired or almost retired people or organisations that target them. Excited to find thousands of pages in this huge database, I prepared to find my followers.
What?
I searched #olderpreneurs, #seniorpreneurs, #retired uk, #businessstartups, #startups uk, #almostretired etc, etc, the list is endless. A significant number of pages were inactive and some were just strange. For example, the page @startupsuk365 tweets the same message every day and is actually a French company. Many pages were filled only with retweets. One page, @startup2uk, apologised on its’ website that the project failed to make money, so it closed down. In 2016.
For curious net surfers like me, sifting through all these pages takes a long time with little return. I now understand why heavy users of social media never really switch off. It is strangely addictive.
Should I bother with Twitter?
It occurred to me that my target website visitors may not be on Twitter. According to Hootsuite’s article Top Twitter Demographics That Matter to Social Media Marketers, Twitter users are young, and the majority of users in Great Britain are under 34 years of age (in the US it’s 40% aged 18-29). But if there are 13.6 million active Twitter users in the UK and if the user demographics are at all similar to the US, then at least 20% of users are aged 50+. Well, 2.7+ million users sounds good to me, but where are they?
The term startup has been hijacked by Silicon Valley
I spent many years helping startups, some lifestyle businesses, others high growth. To me the term startup has always meant ‘a small business that has just been started’ (Cambridge English Dictionary). But many Twitter pages aimed at startups write their tweets, pages and websites for businesses ‘started by individual founders or entrepreneurs to search for a repeatable and scalable business model’ (Wikipedia). They are written for young, tech savvy, opportunistic, growth hungry and wildly-ambitious entrepreneurs and everyone else seems to be excluded from the startup scene. It’s no wonder I can’t seem to find older startup entrepreneurs on Twitter. The term has become exclusive and intimidating.
What next?
The blog post 28 Twitter Statistics All Marketers Need to Know in 2019 states that 75% of B2B businesses and 65% of B2C businesses market on Twitter. So, for now, I am mainly following organisations that may be relevant and hope to learn something from their tweets. I have spent hours reading tweets and blogs about digital marketing shared by Growth Hackers and The Startup Nerd. There is so much information that it will take me time to absorb, implement and then share in my blog. I am also learning about using Twitter lists, influencer marketing, how to grow your brand with Reddit and how to automate your social media posts.
I now have 30 followers. This number changes hourly, as Twitter deletes fake or spam pages. My followers include 26 who are interested in my page for various reasons and four totally random people. Like, who is @FicheuxG? Who is @tOxik_Y?
So is Twitter worth the bother?
Only if your target customers are active users. I just reread this post after two years. I abandoned my Twitter ambition a while ago as, for me and for now, it hasn’t been worth it.
Best wishes
Viv
Silver Startups