It is absolutely no secret that Facebook organic search results are including fewer and fewer businesses. The algorithm that determines which posts Facebook users see is purposely being manipulated to make it so you have to pay for advertising on Facebook, rather than reaching your fans they way they preferred when they ‘liked’ your page – organically.

This has lead many social media marketers to start moving their Facebook organic reach time and dollars away from the Facebook giant. They’re taking that money and investing it wisely – in Twitter. Algorithms play a very small role in Timelines as they’re still largely dictated by users curating the content streams themselves.

Proof of the Twitter takeover

If you need further proof of the Twitter takeover, take a look at this Snickers campaign that Marketing Land looked at during the 2014 World Cup. Snickers sent out the exact same photo, with similar messages, on both Twitter and Facebook at the exact same time:

• Snickers Facebook page had over 11 million fans.
• Their Facebook status had less than 5,000 likes, shares, and comments combined.
• Snickers Twitter account had over 54,000 followers
• The tweet on Twitter had 39,000 retweets, and 17,000 favorites.

The post goes on to talk about Trident gum with a similar scenario where they posted the same message on Twitter and Facebook at the same time in a World Cup related post:

• Trident’s Facebook page had 13 million fans
• Their Facebook status update received a miniscule 100 likes, shares, and comments combined.
• Trident’s Twitter account had 33,000 fans.
• The tweet on Twitter had 1,500 retweets, and 790 favorites.

Those are some interaction numbers that are impossible to ignore as Facebook’s relevance falls more and more to the wayside for marketers. Here are some ways that you can maximize your Twitter outreach as you put your Facebook page on the backburner.

Start with outreach

Your first goal on Twitter should be to start reaching out to people who are in a similar industry to you. The key to viral marketing on any platform is knowing people who know a lot of people.

Do a simple search on Twitter for keywords that you use on your website, see who’s using these words, and then focus on those who are influential. Now follow them to start getting familiar with who they are. Many of them will also give you a follow back.

Create a list of key influencers

Start working on a spreadsheet of all the people on Twitter who can most likely help your account. Interact with their tweets and build a name for yourself in their minds. This will increase the likelihood that they’ll retweet and reply to your own content later on.

For smart list making, be sure to bring up your Twitter account at trade shows and conferences where many industry relevant influencers meet. You can commonly get a few to pull out their phones right there and follow you, and nothing beats that personal connection.

Have great content

Twitter isn’t where you go to send out your bland marketing message. It is where you go to share great content. Some of that content will be from those in your industry, some of it will be yours.

Even the content that is yours must have a light marketing message. An easy way to do this is by sharing content from your blog, or YouTube account. This content isn’t as threatening as a piece of marketing content usually is, and will see better click throughs and interaction. 

Work on a content schedule 

No one on Twitter likes to see the account that is active once a week, sends out 15 messages all at once, and then disappears. Twitter is a real-time social platform, you’ll look like a fool with all those posts concentrated at one time!

Instead, try using a tool like Hootsuite to plan out your content. You can have consistent tweets ready to go, even when you’re busy all day, and you’ll keep your Twitter fans happy. You still have to log in to respond to comments periodically, but at least you’ll get the conversation started.

My personal strategy is to sit down every Monday morning and plan out at least 5 tweets per day. Back when I first started my account I planned for more content so that I could build up a good backlog of tweets. Then at the end of the day I’d take a maximum of 30 minutes to reply to everything that had gone on for the day. My organic reach continually rose! 

Twitter as the new home of organic reach

Facebook has long since passed its expiration date. You need to invest more of your time and effort into Twitter organic reach to get the most out your money now, and to get the most from your fans! Use the tips above to get yourself going, and build from there as often as you can.

Author bio:

Matthew is the writer on the Social Media Marketing Blog for Devumi.com. You can find him there every Friday talking about what’s going on in the online world of social media marketing, or you can find out more about Devumi here. Stop by on Twitter and follow the @Devumi Twitter account for daily updates.