Stop Writing Twitter Threads

Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by bachmeier on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @01:36PM (#33333708)

> a zillion people may see it as opposed to your mom and best friend who read it on your blog.

The same zillion people will see your short summary and the link to your blog on Twitter.

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by rglullis on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @01:39PM (#33333753)

How many people actually click on a link, instead of scrolling down?

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by jabroni_salad on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @01:46PM (#33333863)

1% or less. Threads work because the content is already on the screen.

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by kazinator on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @01:52PM (#33333960)

I suspect that a decently large proportion of the readers will click who would have scrolled down, if you sufficiently engage them with three or four tweets followed by a link promising they can read the whole thing as a nicely formatted article.

Or heck, just tweet the whole article as a thread, but have a link to the blog version somewhere near the top. "Read in article format here ...".

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by Alex3917 on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @01:45PM (#33333849)

No they won't. Twitter threads generate tens or hundreds of times more engagement than blog posts linked to from Twitter. Even getting 20 or 30k page views from making the front page of HN is nothing compared to the engagement that Twitter can generate.

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by jasode on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @01:58PM (#33334037)

>The same zillion people will see your short summary and the link to your blog on Twitter.

No, that isn't what happens and the author of this thread's article makes the same mistake when he writes:

> do not use Twitter. Your ideas, your findings, your knowledge deserve better. Put your thoughts on your own website or blog, and share it with the World using whatever social network you see fit.

Agree that Twitter is terrible reading experience for long form text but the advice given above (by many complainers) misses a crucial issue: tweets with just a link to a blog article has less engagement and that's a penalty writers don't want pay.

https://blog.hootsuite.com/linkless-tweets-experiment/

Writers prioritize reaching maximum audience size.

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by xg15 on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @02:22PM (#33334311)

That's true in the sense of "that's just how the world works", but it also seems like a really shitty state of affairs - a state that Twitter is actively pushing, for its own benefit and to the detriment of everybody else.

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by tomjakubowski on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @02:02PM (#33334072)

Probably less than 1% of those people would click the link, and 10% of those would read it after clicking. Maybe do both: write the thread with some detail, and link to your blog with even more detail in the first couple tweets.

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by shagie on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @02:02PM (#33334080)

Twitter threads, as awkward as they are, give the option for people to engage with each tweet.

Engaging with a blog post involves leaving the site, reading it, returning to twitter, and then tweeting an out of context something.

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by simonw on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @02:07PM (#33334130)

Twitter's analytics will reveal that a depressingly tiny portion of them will actually click on the link.

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by bachmeier on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @03:36PM (#33335143)

True.

Also true: Very few of the Twitter engagements mean anything at all. Clicking a Twitter link is extremely low cost. If you're not even willing to do that, you don't care about the topic or the person that tweeted it.

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by abnercoimbre on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @04:19PM (#33335601)

Unfortunately these Twitter metrics are then packaged up to show on the next investor pitch. It's a vicious cycle.

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by paxys on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @02:08PM (#33334147)

They will see the link. They will not click on the link.

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by asenna on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @02:34PM (#33334463)

I think I read somewhere recently that Twitter is actively throttling distribution for anything containing links externally. They want you to remain on their platform.

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Re:Stop Writing Twitter Threads by baxtr on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @02:37PM (#33334512)

This is exact opposite of good product management. Don't introduce barriers for consumption. Instead realize that people are lazy. Some might click on a link to get them to a page inside their twitter app on their mobile. Most won't. Missed opportunity to get into the head of your audience. btw: Did you just read this comment? Would you have read it if I had linked out?

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