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Twitter moves fast, and I tweet more than 200 times – sometimes more than 300 or 400 times – per week. With that volume, it can be hard for new followers to figure out what my Tweets are about. New followers sometimes stop by my main page and look at my most recent Tweets. Depending on when they stop by, those Tweets might be interesting or less than interesting. As much as I love to believe that all my Tweets are great and totally reflective of the majority of my updates, let’s be realistic.
But Twitter has a function that allows you to pin a Tweet to the top of your feed. As long as you don’t unpin it or replace it by a new pinned Tweet, it stays at the top of your feed and on your main page. It won’t show up over and over in the stream of people who already follow you. People have to visit your page to see it.
I picked a Feb. 21, 2015, Tweet for my first pinned Tweet. It links to an article on influencer marketing on The Authentic Storytelling Project. I thought this post to be a good example of what I talk about on here and on Twitter – stories that sometimes offer a unique perspective about a current trend. Other stories on here are personal experiences that tie into the bigger content marketing picture.
Did pinning the Tweet work?
I would say so. On average each of my Tweets get around 300 impressions apiece. That’s not bad considering that I tweet 35-50 times a day.
But the pinned Tweet was viewed over 1,400 times in about a week. You can see that it also was favorited 11 times and retweeted five times, and eight people clicked on the link.
It’s a strategy that helps us make it easy for new followers. Using the pinned Tweet function helps them understand quickly what we are about and helps them decide whether they want to follow us.
How do you pick a pinned Tweet? When you share something really good – something that represents what your content is about – consider pinning it. If it’s not performing well, just swap it out with another Tweet.
How do you pin a Tweet? Find the Tweet that you want to pin. In the bottom right corner, click on those three dots. Click on “Pin to your profile page.” It will replace the one that’s currently pinned if you have one pinned. Other new Tweets will show up below it as they are published.
Is pinning a Tweet more effective than promoting a Tweet?
In February 2017, I was promoting an upcoming webinar and pinned that Tweet.
After it was pinned for a week, I also promoted the Tweet for $50. We hear many social media experts blab about how you now have to pay to reach an audience on social media. That’s true to an extent – especially on Facebook. But how about in this case? Here’s a look at the numbers. Blue is the organic reach and yellow is the promotion.
The organic pinning tactic was vastly more successful. More clicks and other numbers were close, which is a rarity. Usually paid promotions take things over. Maybe this would happen had I spent more.
Also, three times as many people clicked on the picture vs. the link. So while many are preaching that images are important with posts, if the goal is link clicks, maybe go without one.
In this case, I would say the pinned Tweet won over the promoted version.
[Tweet “”Pinning a timeless Tweet can help engagement.” – @ctrappe”]
This was first published in March 2015 and updated in February 2017.