Technology

Thursday Buzz: Twitter’s Influence Isn’t Enough for Web Traction

How to best use your favorite 140-character social network. Plus: what Facebook revealed at this week’s F8 conference.

Twitter is easy, fun, and social, but does it hit your organization’s business goals?

Research by the digital analytics firm Parse.ly shows that Twitter has an “outsized influence” on the overall discussion but drives limited web traffic to media websites, Nieman Lab reports.

An average post from the typical content publisher online gets about eight tweets, three clicks per tweet, and less than one retweet per original tweet.

If an organization wants to aim high, take a look at publishers who have the best luck with Twitter. They garner higher traction, with 11 percent traffic from Twitter, 180 tweets per post, 18 clicks per tweet, and about four retweets per original tweet.

“There is no ‘secret sauce’ for digital publishers looking to improve their success on Twitter,” the Parse.ly report states. “Sites that are doing well on the platform—achieving high levels of engagement—are not necessarily the most active; rather, they are sites that are producing interesting and shareable content that appeals to a large number of people.”

What’s the advice for the best success on Twitter? Focus on content your audience will most enjoy or share. This works really well for niche groups and hyperfocused associations with strong missions.

Check out the full report here [PDF].

Topic of the Week

Facebook had their annual developers event this week, unleashing info on many new features for the global social network. And it is still the talk of the town online.

Some key points: Facebook-owned chat messaging apps Messenger and WhatsApp host 60 billion messages a day—and for publishers, Facebook released a chat bot feature. Also geared toward publishers, a lesser-known “Save” option was used by 250 million people, and a “Save to Facebook” button is coming soon.

Head over to The Verge and take a look at all the other things that were showcased.

Links For Your Day

Thanks to financial tools like 401(k)s and pensions, we often plan our careers in terms of retirement. But should we? Author Neil Pasricha, writing for Harvard Business Review, suggests a different path for scoping out our lives.

Need help managing a busy schedule and loads of tasks? Google Calendar now has an automatic feature that fits goals under any time constraint into your free time slots.

Business travel can be entertaining, exhausting, and distracting. So how do you get work done? Robin Camarote at Inc. shares eight tips to grow as a professional and be productive while traveling.

(iStock/Thinkstock)

Patrick deHahn

By Patrick deHahn

Patrick deHahn is a contributor to Associations Now. MORE

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