How to Focus on Quality Over Quantity

When we’re so focused on improving our social media presence, it’s easy to let the pressure of being aware and recognized get to our heads. And so a common mistake that most Twitter users, novice and experienced alike, make is to spend too much time and effort in creating a number of tweets, without considering the quality of their content.

After all, the more you tweet a day, the more chances you have of becoming popular, right? Well—not always. We invited Joana to clarify some of the most critical questions about why quality matters more than quantity when analyzing Twitter. Joana is a social media strategist, ghostwriter, marketer, and a beloved team member of #TwitterSmarter. She was an ideal choice for a guest.

Here’s a summary of the chat.

Guest: Joana Rita Sousa
Topic: How to Focus on Quality Over Quantity
Format: Eight questions directed at the guest. Everyone’s welcome to answer.

Q1: How often should you analyze your Twitter account?

Joana checks her analytics every week. However, she also looks at her analytics on a need-to-know basis. For instance, whenever she hosts her Twitter chat or when she’s live tweeting at an event. That way, she can keep up with engagements and interactions instantly.

https://twitter.com/JoanaRSSousa/status/1189955245981474821

A lot of our community members agreed with Joana—for the most part. They check Twitter’s native analytics every week, but do a deep dive analysis about once every month.

Hannah takes things a step further. She maintains weekly, monthly, and even quarterly reports of her analysis. That’s a great way to get a larger picture of how you’re progressing in the long term.

A1: I like to analyze each account I manage once a week and then keep the statistic weekly, monthly, and every three months. #TwitterSmarter

— Hannah Richards (@actsocialHannah) October 31, 2019

As our friend from OnePitch mentioned, monthly reports help them correlate their Twitter data with other marketing metrics like website traffic, click through links, and registrations.

Same with us on all fronts! We get a pulse check with analytics weekly and do a deeper analysis monthly. For the monthly, we are looking for spikes and can correlate that with other things (website traffic, emails, signups, etc.). #TwitterSmarter

— OnePitch (@onepitchsaas) October 31, 2019

That said, what works for Joana or Hannah may not work for you. Regardless of how often you analyze your account, make sure you set a routine that suits you. You can use Twitter tools if you want, or just default Twitter analytics—most of our community vouches that it’s comprehensive enough for them.

https://twitter.com/JoanaRSSousa/status/1189955445991100416

Q2: What are some important metrics to consider while analyzing your Twitter performance?

Of course, the basics like impressions, mentions, and engagement rates are always crucial. If people have spent time mulling over your content and cared enough to share their thoughts about it, then it’s worthwhile to read through their comments, and acknowledge in kind.

Also, if you’re using a popular hashtag or your own branded hashtag, it’s necessary to track its progress and reach. There’re plenty of tools to help you monitor hashtag activity. Joana’s favourite is SociAlert.

https://twitter.com/JoanaRSSousa/status/1189957007257874432

The most important thing before you start looking at your metrics, though, is to define your goals. What metrics you’ll need to follow depends on your goals. If you’re running a campaign, for instance, and want to spread the word, then impressions and retweets are your top metrics.

Like Tamara said, align your goals with your analysis and you can easily identify the metrics that are most valuable to your account.

A2: It depends on your goals. If you want to increase engagement, look at mentions. If you want to increase awareness, profile visits. Followers, follow count, etc. Align your analysis with your goals! #twittersmarter

— Tamara (@itstamaragt) October 31, 2019

Q3: How do you differentiate between quality and quantity?

When you analyze your account, it’s important to take a close look at the responses you’ve been getting. For example, like our guest said, getting 50 mentions a day is great, but if a majority of those mentions are complaints then you need to buckle up and do some serious work. It’s the same case when your branded hashtag gets a bunch of traffic, but it’s mostly spam bots going crazy. That’s why you should aim for quality in your analysis.

https://twitter.com/JoanaRSSousa/status/1189958311204007939

Getting quality responses directly relates to sharing quality content too. Like Lucille pointed out, when you share content that’s useful an educational, you will get genuine responses from your audience. But if you’re posting random tweets just for the sake of posting, you’re churning out quantity without quality.

A3 Quality posts will resonate with your audience and inspire conversation. Quantity tweets are just taking up space. #TwitterSmarter

— Lucille Fisher 🦉Kindness, Compassion, & Marketing (@sageandsavvy) October 31, 2019

Gene reminded us that in some situations, quantity is ok too. Find the right balance, and you’ll be fine.

https://twitter.com/JoanaRSSousa/status/1189959039553343490

Q4: Why is quality more important than quantity?

Aim for high-quality tweets. They help you understand your audience. It isn’t easy, though. It takes time and persistent effort to continuously post useful content that’ll entice your followers to respond and engage. The more quality tweets you post, the more conversations you’ll initiate with your community.

https://twitter.com/JoanaRSSousa/status/1189960511598796800

When you’re just starting out, it can be quite tempting to prioritize quantity and tweet more often than necessary. But as Joana said, it’s important to be contextual. If that means tweeting only a few times a day, then so be it.

And remember, quantity without quality is also a turn off for your genuine followers. People may just as easily unfollow you if your tweets don’t make sense to them. As Megha said, a quality tweet aims to speak and converse with your audience, whereas irrelevant tweets for the sake of quantity talk at your audience. Social media communication should be mutual.

A4) Speaking vs Talking is what makes Quality > Quantity. Is more and more #content leading to engagement, conversations or not? Nobody would want to keep tweeting to a wall. #TwitterSmarter

— Meg (@WanderlustGirl_) October 31, 2019

Q5: What are some Twitter quality metrics to keep in mind?

Although your metrics depend on your goals most of the time, there’re also some metrics that always indicate quality. For instance, followers. The number of followers is often a vanity metric but the identity of these followers can be useful. As our guest told us, it’s good to check if your followers are from your industry, if they have relevance to the type of content you share, or if they’re an influential person you can collaborate with in future.

https://twitter.com/JoanaRSSousa/status/1189960687063310338

Another great metric, as Eddie shared, is click through rates. If you share links on your tweets quite often, make sure you’re monitoring the number of people clicking on that link to land on your website or blog. You can even set up Google Analytics and heat mapping tools to identify how far through the article people read. This is a useful way to know the ideal length for your blog posts and web pages.

A5.

📍Engagements
📍Impressions
📍Clickthroughs
📍 Engagement Rates#TwitterSmarter https://t.co/QB30TW2YT7

— Eddie Garrison (@EddieGarrison) October 31, 2019

Q6: Are there any instances when quantity matters more than quality?

We’ve been advocating so strongly for quality over quantity. But that doesn’t mean quantity doesn’t have its place on Twitter. Like Gene answered to question 3, finding the balance is key.

One example is to schedule the same content to go out multiple times a day. It could be evergreen content like ebook downloads and webinars, or a seasonal campaign. That way, you have a higher chance of your audience consuming your content. If you do this, though, just make sure the copy of the tweet if different every time, because Twitter penalizes duplicate tweets.

Joana also agreed that in some cases, quantity—like number of followers, retweets, likes, or just replies—can help increase the integrity of your profile.

https://twitter.com/JoanaRSSousa/status/1189961836629823488

Also, if you’re launching a campaign and want to spread the message as wide as possible, you can even promote your tweets to increase impressions.

Ardella shared an excellent example of how a mobile phone carrier triggered a conversation that got them hundreds of responses. That’s another case where a large quantity of replies (and essentially mentions) can help your brand be seen.

a6 This week, there was a phone carrier that tweeted something like "What does your lock screen say about you?" That was brilliant because many replies were screenshots, which obviously said who their carrier is. LoL. This is when quantity matters #Twittersmarter

— QuestLearningOnline (@ArdellaQuest) October 31, 2019

Q7: How do you use your analysis to improve your Twitter account?

Joana uses her Analytics to identify her evergreen content on Twitter. Based on popularity, she can easily single out content and tweets that perform well. She can repost them and also share more of similar content.

https://twitter.com/JoanaRSSousa/status/1189962988083650560

When you follow this strategy, you’ll notice that you can schedule some of these high-performing tweets while you’re busy engaging in real time. It also means you won’t be overworking yourself.

https://twitter.com/JoanaRSSousa/status/1189963276580466688

Our community members talked about how they use their Analytics. They conduct experiments and compare data afterwards, observe audience interaction and find out what works and what doesn’t, and, as Kathy suggested, define their buyer personas more clearly.

A7 Use Twitter data to further define your buyer personas and to analyze the reach of your Tweets to discover when your community is online. #TwitterSmarter

— Kathy Kopacz (@kkopacz1) October 31, 2019

Q8: Share some tips to tweeting quality content.

Joana’s tips covered the basics of Twitter.

• Understand your audience.
• Be consistent in your branding.
• Maintain a list of relevant industry leaders.
• Share useful content.
• Choose your battles wisely.
• Don’t stress out—have fun.

https://twitter.com/JoanaRSSousa/status/1189964972601880576

https://twitter.com/JoanaRSSousa/status/1189964807442763777

Our community rose to the question as well. Here’re some insights from our group:

• Use threaded Tweets to connect a series of content. It makes it easy for your audience to follow the conversation. Number each tweet and it’ll be even easier to read.
• Ask your audience what they expect to see from you. Don’t be afraid to use polls and ask open ended questions. You could also create a survey and link to it.
• Share good images with clear calls to action.
• Keep your language simple and jargon-free.
• Post relevant and useful content consistently.
• Tag and credit your sources.
• Don’t take yourself too seriously. Use humour, GIFs, images, and emoji to showcase the human behind the handle.

Alright, folks. That’s all I have for this week’s summary. Hope you got some useful ideas. Check out this great Twitter Moment Joana put together. It has more insights from our chat.

If you’ve got some time to spare on Thursday, join us for the next #TwitterSmarter chat at 1pm ET.

About me, Narmadhaa:

I’m a writer of all things—technical and marketing copy to fill the pocket; haiku and short stories to fill the soul. A social media enthusiast, I’m a member of the #TwitterSmarter chat crew, and always happy to take on writing gigs.

Say hello: Personal blog | LinkedIn | Twitter