I deactivated our Twitter account

A checklist to determine which social channels are worth it

Aug 17, 2024

This past week, a B2B marketing friend of mine asked for my thoughts about using Twitter (or ~~better~~ worse known as X) for their company.

Before we go any further, put your personal feelings about Twitter/X aside as that’s an entirely different conversation in itself. But here’s how I responded:

Short answer

I deactivated our Twitter account and haven’t looked back.

Long answer

I audited our social accounts when I joined Loxo in January of 2023. Along with that audit, I looked at where our audience spends their time online and the content that we can/could produce for those platform(s).

Our market is recruiters. Recruiters spend a LOT of time on LinkedIn, so that was a no-brainer to keep. I also learned that recruiters were surprisingly active in specific Facebook groups and using those as communities, so we kept that platform. We also had paid search running at the time, as well as starting to build out our content engine with a podcast, so as a massive team of 1, I was quickly spreading thin.

But what about the other social platforms we had, or could have, profiles on?

We had a profile on Twitter/X
We had a channel on YouTube
We didn’t have anything on Instagram
We didn’t have anything on Reddit
We didn’t have anything on TikTok

So that led to the inevitable question that I asked myself, and many of you ask yourselves or have execs/boards asking you: Are we leaving opportunities on the table by not being active on these social media platforms?

To that question, here’s my answer: Maybe, but if we aren’t able to show up at a level I deemed acceptable, it may be doing more harm than good.

Twitter simply didn't make sense for us to continue at the time (or to this day). Nothing had been posted since 2018 from the profile. I didn't have the bandwidth to keep up with it. There were other social channels that had more of our ICP + higher engagement.

It was time to unemotionally review everything we were doing and ruthlessly cut anything that wasn’t making a significant impact for us.

Twitter was one of those platforms.

Meanwhile, TikTok was blowing up left and right with growth and engagement, so I also had to ask myself that same question there: Are we leaving opportunities on the table by not being active on TikTok?

Yeah. I’m 99% sure we were. And as much as I wanted to get us active on TikTok to pull in those eyeballs, I knew it would be a bad idea.

With the current resources and content I had, I wouldn’t be able to have us show up at a level I deemed acceptable for the platform.

I’d be pushing videos out that didn’t match the medium/expectations of users on the platform. Yes, we’d be on the platform and checking the box for showing up, but at what cost?

This is something that’s too often overlooked and goes back to a previous point I’ve shared about negative touchpoints. TL;DR on that is that for too long, B2B companies have operated under the impression that touches are either “impactful” or “not impactful,” or more simply put, “positive” or “neutral.” Because this is often viewed from a “new customer acquisition” lens, it’s viewed as a binary yes or no response to “Did [activity] lead to better business results?” and not "Did [activity] result in the prospect thinking more positively or negatively of us?"

So if we pushed videos not suited to the platform, or pushed videos that matched the platform, but didn’t contain any real substance (educate, entertain, add value, etc.), we had a high likelihood of doing more harm than good - of creating negative touchpoints.

We don’t need to be on every channel

If our audience doesn’t spend as much time there as in other places, it should be evaluated.
If I can’t create relevant content that’s needed to meet users’ expectations of what to engage with on the platform, it should be evaluated.
If I can’t keep up with user engagement on the platform because my resources are limited, it should be evaluated.

Remember: strategy isn’t doing everything, all the time - that’s called chaos. Strategy is the art + science of knowing when, where, and how to leverage various elements to achieve a desired goal.

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Rarely do I actually laugh out loud when scrolling through the LinkedIn feed. But when I came across this post from Con Cirillo, it got me good.

In the US, we’re getting bombarded lately with political marketing campaigns. The terribly written text messages. The tacky slogans. The mudslinging TV commercials.

So when Con posted this, I could only crack a grin because this hits WAY to close to home for many of the things we’re seeing/hearing daily and pokes fun at it in a way that lands well.

One podcast episode I enjoyed this week

I have a soft spot for autobiographies. Especially from those who the public or media seems to have depicted a certain way.

It’s a chance to see the other side of the story. It’s a chance to truly peek inside their brain and put yourself in their shoes. I’m not saying they are always right or that their side of the story isn’t equally full of bias, but it’s an opportunity to see that other side.

This episode was an overview of John D. Rockefeller’s autobiography, Random Reminiscences of Men and Events. What I appreciate about it is that it was John simply writing down his thoughts as they came over time. No specific storyline. No specific goal. Just things he thought worth remembering.

And for anyone interested, here’s the playlist I add to each week with some of my favorite podcast episodes:

See you next Saturday,
Sam