Why You Should Avoid Tweeting Your Dead Content

If you’re reading this blog, it’s likely because you found it via Twitter. I say that because I just started my blog and haven’t done anything to promote it before now. I see Twitter as a very useful tool for promoting my blog. It gives me an opportunity to add value to my followers by announcing the availability of new information for them to consume, which they can do at their convenience. As a blogger, however, it is now incumbent upon me to provide fresh content on a relatively consistent basis. If I don’t, then all of you who may choose to follow my blog will stop doing so when you see that it has likely died on the vine. And I won’t have a useful source of information to share with my followers on Twitter.

This reality doesn’t stop some bloggers, though. I’ve noticed many who try to keep their relatively dead blogs alive by repeatedly posting links to old blog posts on Twitter. I think this is a mistake. Yes, as your Twitter following grows you will be able to direct to your blog those followers who have not yet read it. Over time, though, I believe you’ll alienate faithful followers of your Twitter feed who will realize that you don’t really have anything new to say. The end result—they’ll eventually stop following you.

I think what you have to ask yourself is this—what kind of person do you want following you on Twitter? Do you want to have a core group of people who are faithful to you over time because you provide them with value, or will you be content to cycle through followers as they come and go? This isn’t just a Twitter/blogging question—it’s a question at the heart of branding and loyalty marketing. Is there more value in maintaining current customers or getting new ones? I’d suggest that only by supporting the interests of your current followers will you find new ones, and that only by consistently adding value will you turn new followers into loyalists.