The answer is yes. Twitter is still usable for the moment. Will it remain that way? Possibly not – probably not. The reason is basic and simple. When you cut staff by 50 or 75% in a social media platform, you don’t have enough folks left to maintain it. I keep seeing reports that Twitter is looking to hire specialists – ’cause they didn’t bother to figure out who was necessary ahead of time. Will former Twitter employees go back? Sure, some might but no one wants to work for a capricious egomaniac where your job hinges on his daily mood.

Whew, got that out of my system.

So what do you now?

I was going to start removing Twitter from my sites. I looked and gave up for now. Most sites I only have presence on Facebook and Twitter. Removing Twitter makes the social media bits look … wimpy?

Replacing with another social media site is preferred.

Here we’ve come to the problem. What site?

I’ve been trying Mastodon recently and it is a truly different experience for me as opposed to my Twitter timeline. So far, I’m simply seeing what one wants from social media experience – engagement. I’m not seeing sales. I love the engagement, but it isn’t a substitute for Twitter for me. It’s a nice place to visit with no ads. A dream, right? Yes and no. I used Twitter for more news gathering than anything else. Those news generators aren’t going to Mastodon.

Post.news may be the answer, but I can’t even get accepted, and it needs millions of followers before it rises to any level of usefulness. That is where many of the prominent folks I follow and read – reporters, constitutional lawyers, politicians – have gone. Appropriate for sales? Remains to be seen. Since I can’t get on there!

I’ve always recommended social media links – if they are active.

If you haven’t posted on Facebook in 2 years? Well, that makes you look like a dying business. Even when I was very active, I got little engagement. If not active? No engagement is likely.

So rather than substituting social media accounts for Twitter, look at your entire social media “campaign”. If you don’t have one, maybe consider removing those social media links? Time will tell if Twitter survives but look at your survival first. Update, refresh, rethink. The changing landscape requires this. The pandemic moved so many to online sales – have you benefited? If not, why not?