The Power of Twitter Spaces

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By now, you probably have a pretty good idea of what Twitter Spaces is and how it’s used. But it’s still a fairly new and unexplored frontier for most brands. Besides, with Twitter constantly bringing out new features and functionality to Spaces, there’s a lot for all of us to learn. So this week on our #TwitterSmarter chat, we asked resident Twitter expert and tattoo-wearing social media evangelist, Madalyn Sklar, about Twitter Spaces. Here’s a summary of our chat.

Guest: Madalyn Sklar
Topic: The power of Twitter Spaces
Format: Eight questions directed at the guest. Everyone’s welcome to share.

Q1: Why should brands use Twitter Spaces?

Social audio can be a powerful way to engage with your community. Spaces is also easy to get started with because you don’t have to have fancy equipment or extensive public speaking experience. That’s the beauty of it—it’s democratized public discussion, opening doors to anyone interested in genuinely-informed discourse. It’s also an excellent way for you to establish authority in your field.

You can learn more about Twitter Spaces and how best to leverage it from Madalyn’s article.

And if you’d like to see how it’s done, check out Madalyn’s weekly Spaces:

  • #AllThingsAudio every Wednesday at 3pm ET
  • #TwitterSmarter after chat every Thursday at 5pm ET
  • #TwitterAudits every Saturday at 1pm ET

As Sarah added, Twitter Spaces is a way to engage authentically on social media. It makes you more relatable as a brand and encourages people to continue to interact with your content.

Q2: How do you find Spaces to join?

Twitter has added a lot of ways for you to find Spaces you want to join. The clearest sign is the top band on your mobile app that displays currently active rooms. If anyone you follow is speaking, you’ll see that room on the top panel and you can join them right away.

Another way to find relevant rooms is through the Spaces tab at the bottom of your Twitter mobile app. This is a good way for you to explore a range of Spaces and topics, including from people you don’t yet know.

The Spaces tab looks like a microphone on the bottom panel of your app, along with your Home, Lists, Search, and Messages tab. Madalyn also explained that Twitter is trying out a layout for the Spaces tab which automatically categorizes live, upcoming, and recorded Spaces.

Another way to browse through Spaces is to use the search bar both on the Twitter web and the mobile app. Use filter:spaces in your search term, and you can also select “People you follow” option to make your results even more relevant.

Q3: Share some best practices for hosting on Twitter Spaces.

The most important thing to remember is to offer what the people want. This means staying on topic, being specific, and using relatable examples and stories in your conversations.

It’s equally important to let others share their opinions. Of course, it’s easier to stick to the topic when you don’t let others speak and shift the focus of the conversation, but doing so will alienate your listeners. As a host, it’s your duty to moderate people who speak and make sure they don’t stray from the topic. If you’re concerned about disruptions or are just starting out, consider holding a Q&A at the end of the session so that you don’t have interruptions.

Madalyn also shared Espree Debora’s tips on being a great moderator. These tips include focusing on the listeners’ experience, managing your time effectively—especially during intros and promotions, and pronouncing people’s names correctly.

Q4: Can you repurpose conversations so they live on even after a Space has ended?

Yes, and there are a few different ways to “immortalize” your conversations. The first and easiest option is to make notes during the conversation and create a blog post later to summarize the discussion. You can also create tweet threads or Moments to collate key discussion points.

The good thing about recording your Spaces is that you can use a transcription tool like Otter.ai to transcribe the conversation for you. This way, you won’t have to spend the time listening and re-listening to your conversation just to gather a few points.

Yet another way to repurpose your Spaces conversations is to publish them as podcasts—Madalyn and her co-host Suze Cooper do this with their weekly Space, #AllThingsAudio. Check it out here: AllThingsAudioPodcast.com

As we said earlier, you don’t need fancy equipment to join Spaces. Twitter has made it even easier to record your Spaces. You can turn on the feature and your recording will be available for the next 30 days.

Q5: Can you monetize your Twitter Spaces conversations?

You sure can. One easy way to do it is to use the Tip Jar feature. Connect a payment gateway to your account, and during your Spaces discussion, you can ask people to give you a tip if they found your content valuable. Apart from the popular PayPal, CashApp, and Patreon, you can also add your Bitcoin and Ethereum addresses to get paid in digital currency.

Another way to monetize is to run Ticketed Spaces. This is slightly regulated, though. If you want to run a ticketed Space, you have to apply to do so. Twitter will verify your application and approve it if you meet the criteria. Learn more about running Ticketed Spaces here: https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/spaces-ticketed.

Rosanna also pointed out the possibility of sponsored Spaces. If you’re an established Spaces host, you can accept sponsorships from brands that want you to either emcee their Spaces or host a conversation on their behalf. It’s a great way to monetize your Spaces skills.

Q6: Name some features that are unique to Twitter Spaces.

Reactions is a unique Spaces feature. Whether you’re hosting, speaking, or just listening, you can react to what’s being said or just welcome new people into the room with emojis. At the moment, you’ve got the heart ❤️ in purple, orange, red, yellow, green, and blue, the face with tears of joy 😂, clapping hands 👏, victory hand✌️, and waving hand 👋. If you’d like to speak, you can use the raised hand ✋ emoji to request the microphone.

Keeping in line with its efforts on accessibility, Twitter also introduced captions in Spaces. If you turn on the feature, the system will automatically caption everything being said on Spaces so that the deaf community and people who can’t listen in can still be involved in the conversation.

You can also add tags to your Spaces, helping you be more discoverable when people are searching for relevant conversations.

And if all that wasn’t enough, you can also create clips of certain portions of your conversation and use them across your promotional activities.

Q7: How can you measure if Twitter Spaces is helping you reach your brand’s overall marketing goals?

Twitter’s new analytics feature for Spaces gives you an insight into how many people listened to your Space live, and how many replayed it. You can use this information to make decisions like when to host a Space, what topics your should discuss, and who (and if) you should invite to co-host. Twitter is also testing out further analytics for hosts.

You can also observe how your stats are changing after you’ve spoken in Spaces. You might gain new followers, have an increase in profile visits, click-throughs to your website, and even purchases as a result of sharing your thoughts on a Space.

Q8: Who are some inspirational creators in Twitter Spaces?

Madalyn suggested checking out Joseline Mane who hosts a weekly Space called #MonetizeMonday where he talks about ways to make money on Twitter as a creator. He also co-hosts #BuggingOut with Twitter engineer Quynh, where they discuss common bugs in Twitter Spaces.

Pavel shared some of his favorite hosts, namely Madalyn Sklar, Christine Gritmon, Jennifer Navarrete, and Winnie Sun.

Spaces is booming. There are so many great hosts, and as Madalyn suggested, the best way to find them is to search. Have fun exploring!

Well, folks, that’s all from me this week. Thanks a lot for reading through and for more great insights from our chat with Madalyn, have a look at this Twitter Moment. If you think this summary is pretty good, you’ll love the real-time chat. Join us every Thursday at 1pm ET on #TwitterSmarter. We also hang out on Twitter Spaces at 5pm ET to continue our chat. Catch you there!


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About me, Narmadhaa:

I write all the things—marketing stuff so I can pay the bills; haiku and short stories so I feel wholesome. A social media enthusiast, I hang out with the #TwitterSmarter chat crew, and am always happy to take on writing gigs.

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