Are you worried about how to avoid Twitter penalties because of the new rules about duplicate tweets? Does it seem like using a content scheduler won’t save you time anymore? Don’t worry, you can still save time and create better content through the smart use of content queues— you just need to be strategic about it.
Understanding Twitter’s “Why”
Twitter didn’t introduce the new rules about duplicate content for the fun of it. If they want to keep us engaged and on the platform, they have to create the best possible user experience. No one wants to see the same content circulating over and over again– especially when so much of it is pushed by bots that don’t care about creating value for the audience.
However, this move does impact social media managers that have used duplicate content responsibly as well, so many of us need to make some adjustments.
Using Content Queues the Smart Way
Up until now, most of us have been using content queues to schedule content in advance. It helps us save time, grow that Twitter following and increase our reach. Even with the changes, there’s no need to abandon content queues completely– we just need to change up the strategy.
Sharing the same article on different accounts
As a social media manager, you are managing a lot of different accounts. Sometimes, the same article might be absolutely perfect for two different clients.
For example, one of my clients is a yoga non-profit, and another is a child and parenting blog. If I find a great article about how mindfulness helps children, or about parents and their kids doing yoga together, it is relevant to both audiences.
In the past, I would have queued the article and not thought about it again. However, because of the new changes, the Agorapulse tool will not let me schedule both of the tweets together, even if they are scheduled to go out at different times.
In this case, I simply need to schedule the content twice. This is where the Agorapulse browser extension comes in handy. When I’m reading the article, I can click on the extension, schedule the content for one specific account, and then schedule it for the other one.
This also gives me the opportunity to customize the text that goes along with the article– a crucial step if you want to avoid penalties in the new Twitterverse. For example, I may adjust this post to focus more on the benefits of yoga for the yoga group, and to focus on parent/child relationships for the second one.
If you don’t like the idea of adding the same article to your content queue more than once, you can share it organically.
In other words, share it in one place first, and then retweet it from the second account. You can do this manually, or you can do it within the Agorapulse app by setting up your listening tool to find content from one account or another. Create a search that has the hashtag you are using. This makes it super easy to retweet or comment on posts from one account to another.
Scheduling Content
To avoiding Twitter’s penalties, you need to set up your content queues for different times. In order to do this, check each of your publishing calendars and make sure that similar categories are set to post at different times.
For example, if you are posting a #MotivationMonday tweet with an inspirational quote about the start of the week, you will want to schedule this for one account in the morning, and another one in the afternoon.
If your accounts are very different in nature, this will be easier than if you manage accounts in similar niches.
Use Hashtags to Set Tweets Apart
Another way you can differentiate when you are sharing the same content in more than one place is to use different hashtags for each set of posts.
If you haven’t yet created a list of target hashtags to use for each account, now is a good time to do so!
Hashtags on Twitter are both used as a way to find and organize content, as well as to coordinate chats, and keep up with trending topics. There is more to it than that, but the bottom line is that they should be an important part of your strategy.
Not sure where to start? Create some content queues around routinely trending topics like:
- #MotivationMonday
- #TechTuesday
- #WednesdayWisdom
- #ThrowbackThursday
- #FridayFeeling
There are tons of these that you can tap into and there may be some that are specific to your niche. You will want to keep a closer eye on these particular publishing categories than you might on some other evergreen content categories, as hashtags do come and go.
You will also want to keep an eye on your reports to see how the engagement and results that you get from these categories compare. While more people may see your tweets when you use general hashtags, you may attract fewer people that are really in your market.
It’s All About Original Content
You can still share some of the same content if it’s relevant to more than one Twitter account– you just need to do it with a little more finesse and craft original tweets every time.
The good news is that tools like Agorapulse make it easy to stay on Twitter’s good side. And, you might even find that making some tweaks to your content, hashtags, and scheduling, improvs your Twitter engagement and performance.
What about you? Are you using similar content on multiple accounts? What strategies will you use to keep your Twitter accounts fresh and engaging?
