Twitter failed to scare legacy verified accounts into paying for Twitter Blue

On April 1, Twitter owner Elon Musk was supposed to strip all legacy verified accounts of their blue checkmark badges. 

However, that didn't happen. It's unclear as to why Musk backtracked on this date. But, maybe this has something to do with it.

Only 12,305 of roughly 420,000 legacy verified accounts have subscribed to a paid Twitter Blue plan as of Tuesday. That's just above 3 percent of the celebrities, pro athletes, influencers, and media personalities who make up the platform's power users.

While Twitter Blue does provide some additional features such as being able to edit tweets and write longer posts, the major selling point promoted to users is the ability to simply get a checkmark next to your username by paying $8 per month (or $11 on mobile devices.) 

The latest Twitter Blue data comes from independent researcher Travis Brown, who has been tracking Twitter data since January. Brown's data accounts for roughly 90 percent of all Twitter Blue subscribers. Previous internal Twitter Blue data leaks have matched with Brown's estimates.

If one adds government accounts with grey verified badges and business accounts which appear alongside a gold checkmark to the pool of legacy verified Twitter Blue subscribers, those numbers go up just slightly to around 15,000 users (or 3 and a half percent of these accounts in total).

Again, this is after Elon Musk threatened to take away approximately 420,000 users' verified blue checkmark badges. And this is also following Musk's announcement that only Twitter Blue subscribers would be promoted in Twitter's default "For You" feed. 

With its biggest motivator yet to subscribe – the removal of the blue tick – Twitter was seemingly unable to even double its legacy verified Twitter Blue subscribers. One week before the April 1 date, Twitter had only converted 7,901 government, business, and legacy verified accounts into paying subscribers, so there was a slight uptick in subscribers as the April 1 date loomed. However, many celebrities – from LeBron James to Jack Black – have since gone public saying that they were not planning to pay for Twitter Blue.

And with that looming threat of verification removal gone at least for the time being, Twitter only saw around 67 of those legacy verified accounts subscribe to Twitter Blue in the days after April 1. If Musk's moves were meant to result in a big uptick of legacy verified Twitter Blue subscribers, it just didn't work.

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In a since-deleted tweet, Musk claimed that Twitter would give legacy verified accounts a "few weeks grace, unless they tell they won't pay now, in which we will remove it." However, the New York Times appears to have been the only legacy verified account that lost its checkmark badge. The news organization publicly stated it would not be paying for Twitter Blue last week.

How many Twitter Blue subscribers are there now?

Musk officially launched Twitter Blue in November of last year, but quickly suspended the service as users started paying for a verification badge to impersonate companies and brands. To combat this, Twitter rolled out a feature that showed who paid for Twitter Blue and who was a legacy verified account. Twitter Blue then relaunched in December.

This past weekend, amid the lackluster Blue signups, Musk reverted course and removed the note that distinguished the difference between a legacy verified user and a Twitter Blue subscriber with a checkmark. The Twitter Blue mark often resulted in mockery among Twitter's most influential users, who often point out when a user paid for Twitter on the website.

Over the course of the nearly 4 months the subscription service has been live, Twitter has just barely crossed the 500,000 Twitter Blue subscriber threshold, according to Twitter Blue data from Brown. This would put Twitter Blue's revenue at approximately $4 million per month. 

And, it should be noted, that those numbers may very well be even lower. Multiple Twitter users have shared instances where the Twitter Blue checkmark continued to appear on their account even months after they canceled their paid subscription to the service. Brown explained that those accounts would be included in his data as Twitter continues to mark them as Blue subscribers.

Many Twitter Blue users have very few followers

As Mashable previously reported, half of Twitter Blue's paying subscribers don't even have four-figures worth of followers and this is still the case with the inclusion of the latest data. Per that data, 244,562 Twitter Blue subscribers have fewer than 1,000 followers. Of those, 88,085 accounts have fewer than 100 followers. And then there's the 2,585 Twitter Blue subscribers with no followers at all.

In a recent report from Bloomberg, web analytics company SimilarWeb found that of the 2.6 million people who visited the Twitter Blue subscription page on the web last month, only 116,000 people actually signed up for the service. And in a TechCrunch report from March, mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower estimated that Twitter Blue had accrued around 385,000 mobile subscribers over the three months since its relaunch.

Twitter Blue was originally available exclusively on iOS devices. However, following a brief feud over Apple's cut of Twitter Blue subscriptions on iPhones and iPads, Twitter rolled out an option to subscribe via web. Musk has pushed for users to subscribe via Twitter's website at $8 per month instead of the mobile price of $11 in order to avoid the revenue share with Apple. However, based on the data, it appears the vast majority of Twitter users have opted not to listen to Musk.

If Musk hopes that Twitter Blue subscriptions will one day make up for the loss of half its advertisers, the company has a lot of work ahead of itself. A recent report found that among the Twitter advertisers that did stick around, ad spend is down 89 percent compared to before Musk acquired the company.

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Substack launches a new Notes feature

Immediately after Elon Musk sat down at his throne made of doge and began slashing through everything we liked about Twitter, people began looking for alternatives. Is Mastodon where we go? Is everyone moving to Hive Social? Will we simply be forced to participate in Instagram Notes?

That's about the time Substack, a newsletter platform, launched its chat function, a space for Substack writers and creators to host Twitter-like conversations with their subscribers. It was — and still is — a space that feels a lot like AOL Instant Messenger or a group chat, and looks a lot like Reddit. It wasn't exactly a social media substitute, though. In fact, when Chat launched, Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie told Mashable that he thinks "people are kind of fed up with it all in the public brawl of social media, and the idea of having a space where you can hang out with the people who actually want to be hanging out with you and talking about the things that you have a shared interest in … having that greater control. It's just more fun." 

Now, Substack is launching a new feature that actually is a lot like other social media feeds: Notes. Newsletter writers can already recommend publications through Substack's Recommendations feature, but the Notes feature will "give them the power to recommend almost anything — including posts, quotes, comments, images, links, and ideas," co-founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi wrote in the announcement. The feature will be available to all users in the coming days.

"Our goal is to foster conversations that inspire, enlighten, and entertain, while giving writers a powerful growth channel as these interactions find new audiences," Best, McKenzie, and Sethi wrote, adding the incredibly realistic: "Imagine Kareem Abdul-Jabbar leaving a comment on Margaret Atwood’s note about trends in science fiction; or Alison Roman sharing a quote from an amazing recipe developed by a little-known food writer who then gets a flood of subscriptions. Think of your favorite Substack economists nerding out in a deep thread about the latest jobs report; or Joe Posnanski and Molly Knight going back and forth about Major League Baseball’s Opening Day."

The team admits that Notes will look similar to other social media feeds, but, since the Substack network runs on paid subscriptions, you won't see advertisements. This, Substack says, "changes everything." It should be noted that even though Substack isn't ad-motivated, it isn't without its problems. Take a look at anti-transgender British writer Graham Linehan, who was kicked off other social media sites but whose harassment, transphobia, and hate speech continue to flourish on his Substack account to the tune of thousands of paid subscribers. 

But the Substack co-founders are steadfast in their insistence that removing the ad-based system will allow for a more nuanced space to flourish.

"The lifeblood of a subscription network is the money paid to people who are doing great work within it," the creators wrote. "Here, people get rewarded for respecting the trust and attention of their audiences. The ultimate goal on this platform is to convert casual readers into paying subscribers. In this system, the vast majority of the financial rewards go to the creators of the content."

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The power of brand advocacy and its uses

When a brand is able to create positive buzz around their brand by just mentioning a product enhancement or product drop, you know they have a great marketing strategy behind them. But how are some brands, like Apple, able to attract new customers and elevate their positioning in the market with a simple announcement? One way is through brand advocacy.

Brand advocacy is when individuals who love your brand share their positive sentiment about your product or service to their followers and audience. These are loyal brand followers who can sing your praises.

Harnessing and amplifying this advocacy should be an integral part of your social media marketing strategy. And, with the right brand advocacy strategy, you can realize a stunning ROI.

In this article, we define what brand advocacy is, examine different types of brand advocates, and highlight the many benefits of brand advocacy. We also show you how to measure the effectiveness of your program.

Table of Contents

• What is a brand advocate?
• Is brand advocacy right for you?
• Who is a brand advocate?
• What does brand advocacy look like?
• Why brand advocacy matters for your company
• How to determine if brand advocacy is effective

What is a brand advocate?

Brand advocacy occurs when people become excited about your product or service and they share that excitement with others. This could be through word-of-mouth, or by posting to their social media networks, in blog posts, on review sites and other corners of the internet.

But did you know customer service is a huge part of brand advocacy? When you please your customers and clients, they will be more likely to share their experience with you with others.

But brand advocates aren’t limited to customers. In fact, there are several groups of individuals who can be advocates for your brand, including employees and partners.

The best thing about brand advocacy is that it costs little to nothing to obtain. Even if you have yet to launch a brand advocacy program, you likely already have advocates working on your behalf. They post positive content about your brand simply because they love what you offer.

Is brand advocacy right for you?

Brand advocacy can be one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal. With it you can extend your reach, find new audiences, generate leads and find top talent all while amplifying brand awareness. Enthusiastic brand advocates can help new brands get before larger and more engaged audiences. With the boost by advocacy, brands can magnify their market share much more easily, faster and farther.

For customers it’s about products, services and customer service. It’s about the relationships brands develop with their customers through engaging with them on social media or other customer care channels.

For employees it’s about loving their work, the company culture and, of course, the product.

Advocates can create enough buzz on social media to reinvigorate a brand’s position in the market. Of course, you still need a great product or service for people to get excited about.

More and more people are turning to social media to research products and services. Studies show that the vast majority of people will trust recommendations from people they know. So think word-of-mouth, and reviews and ratings as well.

And, considering most of this type of organic marketing is free, or of little cost to you, brand advocacy has a lot to offer any brand.

Who is a brand advocate?

Clients and customers

These are some of your best brand advocates. Their user generated content (UGC) is considered to be much more authentic than brand messaging. Their contacts, family and friends trust this content. In fact, recommendations of this type, earned media, are trusted by 92% of consumers around the world beyond all other types of advertising. And 70% of consumers will trust other consumers’ opinions posted online.

This type of advocate works for you right now because they love your product or service. They do this without any thought of reward. Imagine what they could do for you with a little incentive.

Employees

Employees know all about your company, your product or service and your culture. This makes them powerful brand advocates, and perfect to represent you to consumers and potential hires. Not only does this increase brand awareness, but it helps bring in top talent. And, research by LinkedIn has shown that employees have an average of 10 times the connections as their company’s Page followers. This means that what your employees post about the company reaches 10 times more people, and their message can continue beyond that. By encouraging your employees to share news, updates and successes, your brand’s reach can extend to audiences you might not have been able to reach before.

Industry partners

Any other organization or company affiliated with your brand can also be a brand advocate. What they say or post about you can improve brand awareness and influence buying decisions. Think: comarketing or cobranding campaigns with your industry partners as an opportunity to also increase your reach.

Influencers

Influencers make great brand advocates because of their large audiences. Harnessing them as part of your marketing and advocacy strategy allows you to target audiences who are interested in your brand’s offerings. Influencers as brand advocates can help you raise brand awareness in specific markets and help you capture a new cohort of consumers.

What does brand advocacy look like?

Some ways clients and customers advocate are by talking up your product or service in person and online and by posting positive reviews. They act as your customer service representatives by answering questions for other customers. Whether on your website or elsewhere, this is powerful PR for you. But how can you harness this advocacy and amplify it?

First, you need to find out who you already have as advocates. Look for those who are leaving positive reviews. Who is liking and sharing your content? Who is producing content about your brand? One excellent way to identify brand advocates is through social listening. Sprout Social’s Social Listening tools let you search for specific terms and hashtags related to your company. You will then be able to tap into conversations online.

Once you have an idea who your advocates and audience are, offer incentives for further engagement. Some incentives could include running social media contests, sending company swag, or shout-outs on the company website or social media.

To maintain relationships with current or prospective advocates, respond to reviews, comments and posts quickly. Provide excellent customer service. Conduct surveys and ask for reviews in newsletters, chats, receipts and phone call confirmations. Google provides an easy way for you to get Google reviews through a direct link.

Remember, with brand advocates, it’s all about the relationships you forge.

When we talk about employee advocacy, it’s a bit different. What is employee advocacy? As mentioned earlier, your employees are some of your best advocates because they know about your brand inside out. Some will already be posting about you, but you could harness their networks to increase brand awareness, create a wider personal network for sales team members, and showcase subject-matter expertise for industry leaders. Having employees in an employee advocacy program will be to your benefit.

Data from Sprout’s Employee Advocacy Report reveal that 72% of all employees would post company content on their personal pages if their company wrote it for them. And engaged users (spending 60 minutes or more daily on social media) are 11% more likely to post this content than casual users.

In their role to increase brand awareness, 73% of employees (engaged users) believed that posting company content helped. And 72% believed that it helped them in their social selling. It’s clear from these employee advocacy stats how valuable an employee advocacy program is.

The easiest way to institute such an advocacy program is to use Sprout’s Employee Advocacy. With Advocacy platform, you can provide curated, branded content to your team that they can share with a click or two. You can even create approved message ideas for your employees so they can post with confidence that they are staying on-brand.

With Advocacy by Sprout Social, it’s easy to upload photos, videos and links for your employees to share to their networks. And, you can use the “Send to Advocacy” feature from within Sprout to duplicate social posts you’re already sharing to your brand’s social networks.

Why brand advocacy matters for your company

1. Improved brand perception

Brand advocacy improves how people view your company. It increases trust. Instead of your company, a “real person” – a customer, employee or influencer – is extolling the virtues of your company, product or services.

2. Reflection of brand authenticity

For the same reason, people see the information provided by the advocate as more authentic. This reflects well on your company, conferring authenticity to your brand by virtue of this perception.

3. More organic brand awareness

Advocates provide an organic way to grow brand awareness. Brand advocacy creates positive, enthusiastic conversation around your products and services. This is invaluable to increasing your visibility, which can lead to more leads, sales, hiring prospects and growth for your company.

4. Higher likelihood of media attention

The more conversation your advocates generated about you, the more likely the media will notice you. News outlets and publications may start writing about you because of all the talk. Not only does this attention open the potential for new and broader audiences, but it also helps boost your brand’s trust levels in the community.

5. Wider audience reach

Your reach becomes more extensive with brand advocacy. Brand advocates post excited, positive content about your product or services to their own social networks. This gives you access to their friends, family and followers, and to untapped markets.

6. Saves you money

With all this free or low investment marketing, brand advocacy saves you money. Imagine what it would cost you to produce all that organic marketing yourself. This is money you can allocate elsewhere, if needed. Despite what advocacy programs might cost initially to implement, the ROI would be more than worth it.

In fact, read how we use Sprout’s Advocacy to overcome social media challenges and its payoff.

How to determine if brand advocacy is effective

It’s important to have clear goals for your advocacy program. Once those are set, you can better determine which metrics you need to track. Some common metrics that help determine generally if your advocacy program is effective are

• Number of likes, shares, impressions, hashtags and mentions, as a measure of brand awareness
• Number of likes, shares, clicks and comments, as a measure of social engagement
• Conversion rates based on completed CTAs
• Number of posts and actions of your advocates, which relates to your overall reach. It gives you a sense of an advocate’s number of connections
• Online reviews and ratings, as they affect buying decisions
• Where your advocates are posting, as this helps understand which channels work best
• Net Promoter Score (NPS), at minimum a measurement of customer loyalty, helps to predict the number of brand advocates you have
• Earned media, which is publicity or media generated by organic means aside from your marketing efforts
• Employee conversion rate, as the percentage of employees actually participating in your employee advocacy program

Sprout’s Employee Advocacy measures shares, engagements, potential reach and earned media value automatically. With this dynamic tool you can monitor effectiveness in real-time.

And with Sprout’s Advocacy ROI Calculator Tool you can clearly see the benefits of your program.

Amplify brand advocacy on social media to launch your brand to the next level

Brand advocates work for you enthusiastically with or without incentives. Why not take this enthusiasm and ensure that it not only continues, but intensifies? Getting your social advocates to continue and even increase their efforts on your behalf can be as easy as posting their UGC on your company’s social accounts. How far will your social advocacy strategy take you?

With the might of your employee advocates behind you, you can use advocacy to overcome social media challenges. Your social strategy ROI and organic reach can be dramatically improved with brand advocacy. Don’t you think it’s time you upped your advocacy game? Try with a free trial of Sprout Social today.

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Twitter cuts many app developers' API access, even those willing to pay $42,000 per month

When Twitter announced it would no longer provide free API access, some disappointed third-party developers said that they would have to deactivate fun bots they had made in their spare time.

When Twitter rolled out the pricing for its paid API tiers last week, many indie developers announced they would have to shut down apps they had made for the platform. These distraught devs included those that had created services making hundreds to thousands of dollars a month, as the new API subscription tiers from Twitter would even priced them out.

Now, the Elon Musk-owned company has seemingly cut off API access to even some of the largest Twitter-based apps – including some that wanted to pay the exorbitant new fees which start at $42,000 per month.

On early Tuesday morning, a number of tech founders found that Twitter had suspended their apps from accessing the Twitter API. Twitter previously said last week that it would "deprecate current access" to the old free Twitter API day plans over the next 30 days. However, the move to suspend the API access today took many by surprise. 

Perhaps the most surprised, though, are the few developers who actually agreed to pay Twitter tens of thousands of dollars per month.

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"Tweet Hunter has been banned from Twitter," tweeted the founder of the Twitter content-creating web app TweetHunter.io. "5,426 Twitter power users are affected. No warning, no email, nada. We have no idea why."

Enterprise plan applicants were cut off while on the waitlist

According to these developers, Twitter hasn't even responded to their application to move onto its new Enterprise plans. Today's move completely breaks their app.

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

"@TwitterDev is this the new developer ecosystem that you're excited about?" tweeted the founder of the social media management app Publer. "Despite the 30 days notice and the Enterprise application wait time, you force us to switch today."

Like Publer, Tweet Hunter says it also applied to the Enterprise API plan when it was first announced and yet have received no contact from Twitter since.

Some other Twitter-based apps, like FeedHive, have also been cut off today. However, the founder of FeedHive has previously said it was not planning to pay for the high-priced Enterprise API offerings.

It's important to note what many of these apps do. Unlike Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Twitterific, which Musk's Twitter banned earlier this year, none of the apps replicate Twitter's platform. Users still have to regularly go to the company's own website, mobile apps, or clients. What these apps do is help facilitate more content creation for Twitter and encourage usage of the platform. By destroying its third-party app ecosystem, Twitter is essentially shooting itself in the foot.

In a private Slack group which has now ballooned to nearly 850 members who specifically run Twitter-based apps, many still hold out hope that Musk will hear their pleas and roll out more affordable API plans than the $42,000 per month entry point for Enterprise tiers. The company's actions today affecting even those businesses who are interested in paying those pricey API subscription plans do not bode well for the future of third-party apps for Twitter.

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How to use ephemeral content in your marketing strategy

Most brands expect to drive engagement and generate leads with social media strategies. However, ephemeral content is often overlooked in favor of long-form and feed content to achieve these goals.

If leveraged properly, ephemeral content can help you beat the algorithm and keep your brand top of mind.

Let’s look at why ephemeral content works for brands, how you can use it to drive results and examples from real brands.

What is ephemeral content?

Ephemeral content in social media refers to any kind of content that is visible for a short amount of time, typically for 24 hours. Also known as disappearing content, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok stories are all examples of ephemeral content.

It’s the opposite of evergreen content—your audience won’t be able to view it later, except if it can be manually saved to your profile, like Instagram Stories Highlights. The subject often only has relevance for a short period of time, like a flash sale announcement or a daily update.

Ephemeral content allows you to engage with your audience on a more human level through more authentic, less produced content. You can also generate an immediate response or action with the right kind of content.

Types of ephemeral content on social media

Let’s briefly look at the different kinds of ephemeral content available on social media platforms:

Instagram stories

Instagram Stories are photos or videos that have a lifespan of 24 hours. It comes with many interactive elements like polls, question boxes, stickers and links. You can save your stories into Story Highlights and keep it visible even after it disappears from you stories feed.

Stories can be a great way to drive leads and customers. According to a study, around 43% of social media users watch Stories more than other types of video content on Instagram.

Facebook stories

Facebook stories are similar to Instagram Stories and stay on your feed for a day. They are displayed at the top of the newsfeed and allow users to add filters, stickers and text to their posts. Facebook stories can be viewed by friends, followers or a custom audience chosen by the user.

Snapchat stories

A Snapchat story is a collection of ‘snaps’ that are captured within the past 24 hours. You can save your stories to Memories to extend their lifespan. They can be a fun way to document your activities as a brand and share them with your audience.

TikTok stories

TikTok stories, also known as TikTok moments, are videos that stay on your feed for 24 hours. You can add links, hashtags, tag other accounts and add location tags. ​​Unlike Instagram Stories, TikTok stories can only be created by capturing content in the moment.

Read this blog to know more about what social media stories are and some of the best ways you can use its features.

Why ephemeral content works for brands

We see many brands using ephemeral content across channels. Is it because they’re easier to create or do they contribute to the marketing goals of the brand? It’s both!

Short-form videos and images boost engagement

Ephemeral content fits perfectly in a world where people love shorter forms of content.

In general, short-form video content works well for brands and is the most engaging type of in-feed content according to Sprout’s Content Benchmarks Report. We can safely assume that this is true for stories as well because they are quick to watch and have interactive elements.

Short-form content in stories can be used to make a spontaneous purchasing decision or signup. Or to quickly connect and share updates with your following. Consistently publishing ephemeral content can help increase brand awareness by creating a frequent, low-lift touchpoint with your audience to stay relevant in their minds.

Leverages FOMO to attract viewers

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a feature unique to ephemeral content and is a major reason why it works for brands and creators. Your followers know they only have a limited time to view the content which brings about a sense of urgency.

Let’s say that your favorite brand answers audience questions during the weekend and you wouldn’t want to miss the chance to ask your questions. You can do the same for your brand, leveraging time-sensitive activities to fuel interest and engagement.

Many brands often announce their latest product launches and promotional discounts via stories. This limited release of content drives urgency which further drives engagement.

It builds authenticity

Social media users prefer “real-life” content from brands on social media. In a study by Sprout Social, 64% of consumers say they want to feel connected to a brand.

Ephemeral content allows you to show the human side of your brand on social media with ‘in the moment’ content. This makes your content and brand more relatable and personal because it’s casual and not heavily edited. You can share behind-the-scenes or exclusive content and foster a deeper connection with your target audience.

It’s more interactive

While in-feed content is more for gaining reach, ephemeral content is for engaging with your followers.

Most platforms have a variety of interactive features unique to ephemeral content. These include asking questions, running polls or adding specific call-to-actions.

Brands can easily use these features to generate the kind of interactions they want from their audience, whether it’s building brand awareness or driving sales.

Another reason why ephemeral content brings more engagement is because of its “low pressure.” As they are only available for a short period of time, users can engage w​​ith the content without feeling the need to carefully consider their response. So users who are too self-conscious to comment on a post or DM may be more willing to engage, because their response isn’t automatically recorded within in-feed content.

3 examples of brands that drive engagement with ephemeral content

Here are three brands that use ephemeral content in different ways to drive engagement.

Nike

Nike uses Instagram Stories to build a buzz around their new product launches with short videos. This particular story covers the launch of the Nike React Infinity 3 running shoes introduced in June 2022.

Similarly, if you’re hosting an event like a conference or convention, covering it with ephemeral content is a great way to generate engagement, both for attendees and those tuning in virtually. You can then repurpose these short snippets into other formats.

Using a tool like Spout Social, you can schedule the content across different networks and at the optimal times for engagement. You can also track your ephemeral content performance and compare it to the metrics of other content forms for a comprehensive view of your event’s social performance.

Semrush

To promote their latest blog post or YouTube video, Semrush shares valuable highlights in their stories. They also leave a link to the content piece to encourage viewers to click through to their website.

If you want to drive traffic from social media to your blog or website, follow something similar. Share a link to the page with a preview of the content and a compelling hook or highlight.

Additionally, you can create a trackable link with Sproutlink to measure the impact your ephemeral content has on traffic to your website.

Brainify

Brainify, a brand that offers practical parenting advice, uses Facebook stories to learn about their audience’s interests with interactive polls and questions. This is a simple way to gather data about your target audience while building relationships with them.

Like Brainify, you can leverage the interactive elements not only to boost engagement, but to also hear directly from your audience about what they think. This can be used to inform future content or even improve your products or services.

How to fit ephemeral content into your marketing strategy

Although ephemeral content is spontaneous compared to other forms of content, it’s still best to have a strategy in place.

Similar to other marketing content, the three key steps to incorporate ephemeral content into your marketing approach are: establish goals, create content and monitor results. But before this, understand your audience.

Know your audience

First, get an idea of how motivated your audience is in viewing and engaging with disappearing content, and when they’re most often viewing it. You can determine this through native analytics or a social media management tool, like Sprout.

For example, if the daily unique reach of your Instagram Story is higher, there’s potential for growth in your ephemeral strategy.

Define your goals

Once you understand your audience’s interest in ephemeral content, set goals to align with content creation. Here are some common goals ephemeral content can support:

• Improve brand visibility
• Build your email list
• Get instant feedback on products and services
• Drive traffic to other platforms like blogs
• Generate sales

Decide on content formats

Don’t be afraid to experiment with ephemeral content. Here are a few ideas you can steal:

• Behind-the-scenes glimpse
• Fun polls
• Customer testimonials and success stories
• Features and use cases of your product
• Question and answer sessions with an expert

Getting started, you can repurpose some of your existing content into ephemeral content. For example, you can take out highlights from a podcast episode you recently posted and use them to create short, attention-grabbing snippets.

Make sure you incorporate storytelling into your ephemeral content strategy. A string of disjointed content pieces will likely not garner the desired results.

Alternatively, you can use ephemeral content to understand audience interest in other content you’re planning to create. Let’s say you want to create a YouTube video on a particular topic. How do you vet the topic using ephemeral content? You can either ask your audience directly with a poll, or post disappearing content on this topic to test out engagement.

When you’re ready to share the content, think about how frequently should you post ephemeral content. This will depend on the platform and audience. You can discover the best times by looking at the analytics on your social profiles, or using Sprout Social’s viral post technology to determine the best time to post for your audience.

Additionally, leverage a scheduling tool like Sprout to plan and publish Instagram stories and other forms of content ahead of time.

Track content performance

Keep track of the performance to determine the kind of ephemeral content that best resonates with your audience. It’s best to track the performance of each piece of ephemeral content you put out. Try to decipher how you can improve its performance. Here’s what you should find out:

• Which type of ephemeral content received the most views, replies and engagement?
• When are users engaging with it most?
• How are they driving traffic?
• How are they impacting engagement on posts?

Do a bit of qualitative analysis and identify concepts or language that work well for your audience. Here are some resources to help you learn more about tracking results on social media:

• Instagram story analytics
• Facebook analytics
• TikTok analytics

Go beyond the feed with ephemeral content

Ephemeral content can be a quick and engaging way to connect with your audience on a more regular basis. It’s a great way to engage them with minimal effort in content production.

As with any form of content marketing, ephemeral content is an excellent way to improve brand engagement, generate brand awareness and build trust—while adding some fun to the mix as well.

To start understanding the impact of ephemeral content on your larger social strategy, here’s a metrics map to help you analyze the right KPIs for your social strategy to make data-driven decisions.

The post How to use ephemeral content in your marketing strategy appeared first on Sprout Social.

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Andrew Tate and brother out of jail and on house arrest

Controversial social media influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan are being moved to house arrest, following a ruling by a Romanian judge on Friday.

The brothers had been detained in a Romanian jail for the last three months following their arrests on suspicion of human trafficking and organized crime. The two won their appeal to replace their detention with house arrest, the Associated Press reports.

A spokesperson with Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT told the AP that The Bucharest Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Tate’s appeal, which challenged a judge’s decision last week to extend his arrest a fourth time for 30 days. Tate's lawyer contended that detaining them in pre-trial detention was excessively severe considering that alternative judicial measures like being placed under house arrest were possible.

SEE ALSO: Who is Andrew Tate? And why is the controversial figure taking over TikTok?

Following his release, Andrew Tate took to social media, posting a surreal video of the influencer pacing around his living room. He tweeted: "Since last year I've been in 24-hour lockdown. No yard time. Pacing a 3-metre cell with zero electronics or outside contact. Absolute clarity of mind. Real thoughts. Real plans. Vivid pain. One hour home and I can't stand my phone. Some habits die hard. We must defeat Shaytan."

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His brother Tristan also tweeted following his release saying "4 months without putting on a pair of alligator shoes. The struggle was real."

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The two brothers have denied any wrongdoing in the claims of rape, human trafficking, and organized crime. Following the success of their appeal, Tristan told a scrum of reporters that he is an "innocent man" and that "the judges today made the right decision."

Leaked court documents obtained by the BBC allege that the Tate brothers were coercing victims of a webcam-based moneymaking scheme to hit certain quotas through financial and physical intimidation. Tate states that he and his brother earned their fortune by running an adult webcam studio and making footage available at the "myfreecams" website.

Andrew Tate, a former professional kickboxer and dual British-U.S. citizen, owes his fame to his time spent on Big Brother in 2016 before ultimately being kicked off the show over domestic violence allegations. Tate has been in Romania since 2017, having left the UK following a domestic violence investigation. As Tate claimed on video, 40 percent of the reason he moved to Romania was because of their "lax laws on sexual assault."

He gained further notoriety online through his podcast and MLM scheme "Hustler's University," which focuses on teaching young men the basics of picking up women and making money. The self-described misogynist has garnered attention online for his politics and views on women. Despite several social media bans, Tate still proves to be a popular figure among young men.

As the BBC reports, since investigations began last April, "six women have been identified by prosecutors as victims." As of now, no charges have been filed against the brothers.

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Twitter's biggest users say they won't be paying for Twitter Blue checkmarks

By the time you're reading this, Twitter may or may not have already removed the blue checkmarks from its legacy verified users. Elon Musk announced last week that he planned on removing the verification badges from its 420,000 "notable" users on April 1.

Following the legacy verified badge removal, the only way to get the little blue checkmark next to your Twitter name is by coughing up $8 per month (or $11 per month via mobile device) to Musk.

However, many of the platform's most famous users have already made their intentions clear: They're not paying.

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"Welp guess my blue ✔️ will be gone soon cause if you know me I ain’t paying the 5. 🤷🏾‍♂️" tweeted NBA star LeBron James.

William Shatner also tweeted that he was a no go for the move to Twitter Blue.

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"Hey @elonmusk what’s this about blue checks going away unless we pay Twitter?," tweeted actor William Shatner. "I’ve been here for 15 years giving my ⏰ & witty thoughts all for bupkis. Now you’re telling me that I have to pay for something you gave me for free? What is this-the Colombia Records & Tape Club?🙄"

And it's not just professional athletes and Hollywood actors sharing this sentiment either.

According to Axios, The White House will also not be paying for Twitter Blue subscriptions. An internal staff email leaked to the outlet shared that the Joe Biden administration sees this change on Twitter as diminishing the value of the blue verification badge.

"It is our understanding that Twitter Blue does not provide person-level verification as a service. Thus, a blue check mark will now simply serve as a verification that the account is a paid user," said White House director of digital strategy Rob Flaherty in that email.

Although, it does appear that official government accounts like the @WhiteHouse handle and @JoeBiden will still have the grey verification badge that Musk rolled out to denote a "government" account. These badges do not cost those users any money.

Major news outlets also shared that they would not be purchasing Twitter Blue at the organization level or for individuals journalists and staffers. The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, POLITICO, Vox, and BuzzFeed all shared statements declaring that they would not be paying for Twitter Blue. Each outlet said how the service changes the meaning of the badge and no longer designates an actually verified user on the platform.

Actor Karl Urban chimed in on the matter as well, saying he's not paying for the Twitter Blue service.

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"Hey y’all, I’ll loose the blue tick on Saturday," Urban tweeted. "I’m opposed to spending money on social media. I’ll go checkless. Please be careful of Imposters & money soliciting scams. I will never ask you for money on any social media platform."

Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame not only said he wouldn't be paying for the blue checkmark, but he indicated that he would no longer be using the platform either.

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"Friends, there are bigger issues in the 🌎than the blue verified ✔️next to my name on this account," Alexander tweeted. "But without it, anyone can allege to be me. So, if I lose that ✔️ know I will leave this platform. Anyone appearing with it=an imposter. I tell you this while I’m still official."

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Numerous NFL players like Patrick Maholmes, Michael Thomas, and Darius Slay tweeted that they would not pay for the checkmark as well.

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As TechCrunch points out, Twitter initially rolled out the free verification service in 2009 after it was sued by former St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa after an account on the platform had impersonated him.

However, Musk has displayed his disdain for the verification program ever since taking the company over. After losing half of Twitter's biggest advertisers when he acquired the platform, Musk rolled out the paid Twitter Blue subscription service. For just $8, anyone could be verified. However, that anyone included numerous accounts impersonating big brand names and companies. Soon after launch, Twitter had to pause the program due to these troll accounts.

Twitter Blue was relaunched earlier this year, but it's not been very successful. Less than 500,000 users out of Twitter's 254 million daily active users pay for the service. Recent data on the program found that around half of all those paying were accounts with less than 1,000 followers. And recent screenshots indicate that Twitter is worried that the paid verification badge is becoming a mark of shame, as the company tests out options to allow paying users to hide it.

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