Originally written by Robyn Bloch & Francois Karstel | Revised & Updated by Carina Claassens



While playing on the net, you StumbleUpon something wildly interesting, relevant, informative and well written. Immediately you tweet it to all your followers, many of whom retweet it to theirs. You have landed on, and passed on, the perfect content to share. Posting the article has lent you some ever-evasive Twitter credibility. You are impressive. You gain several new followers. 

This is the perfect Twitter moment. It is why Twitter is a quality filter on a global level. No one retweets badly written, middling articles, and if they do follower numbers will drop dramatically. It will alienate their followers. Twitter is not only a way to share content but is, like all social networking platforms, a reflection of the person behind the profile. You define yourself in 140 characters or less. No one defines himself or herself as tolerable, mildly interesting or if-you-overlook-the-grammar-mistakes-I'm-OK. Everyone wants to look good, and so do businesses. 

Social Media platforms make good quality content stand out and bad quality content’s life span is shortened by it. Google uses Social Media Signals to ensure that the best quality and most relevant content come up in search results. This good quality content is Google’s answer to your search phrase questions.

Using Twitter to Successfully Market Content

You will only pass on the gems, the articles that combine compelling content with sparkling language. But what exactly makes for a Twitter-worthy article? And, more practically, how can you use Twitter towards successfully marketing your company’s content?

As an example I’d like to use, at random, a successful article from Mashable.com. This article has been tweeted1945 times and has, to date, been shared over 2,500 times on various social media platforms. It is a simple enough article, about the smartphone market, but several things make it successful: 

• It has a clear and precise introduction that states what the article is about.
• Its use of language is simple and reader-friendly.
• It uses facts and statistical data. Importantly, it uses hyperlinks to its sources so that you know where the facts are coming from.
• It is about something many people own, smartphones, and the heavy-hitters in that market.

Stay Relevant and Gain Credibility

Being relevant and being credible in an article are two of the most important factors in creating great content that is likely to be retweeted. Credibility means that all your facts are checked, or better, that you can verify those facts by using hyperlinks. Don’t underestimate your audience. All you need is one expert to discount your article and you lose all authority. Also, making the article word-perfect gains you easy credibility. 

Being relevant is also very important. The Mashable article is about something people own or hope to own. It also involves massive corporations that have an immense presence in our lives: Google, Apple, Microsoft. Thus, for people receiving the tweeted article on their Macs, iPhones or PCs, it is interesting, topical and relevant. 

Social Media Signals

The strength of your site’s social media signals is largely determined by the quality of your content. This is because, as mentioned above, people will only share content that carries a certain value. Your social media signals, in turn, determine where you rank in search results. 

Gone are the unreliable days in which key phrases and link building determined the strength of a site’s search engine ranking. Nowadays, Google places more focus on social media signals and the quality of content than on links that could have been easily manipulated.  

Make Social Media Signals Work for You

1. Create Content That People Love to Share

When writing content make sure to adhere to the same rules as the above mentioned Mashable article. Good quality content will be shared. You know this and Google knows this. Through social media signals Google learns that constantly shared content is quality content. On the other side of the spectrum we have content that’s lifespan comes to an end when people stop sharing it. These articles are irrelevant and dated. 

2. Mobilise the ‘Sharing Process’

You can pick and choose from a wide range of social media platforms, so sharing your content has never been easier. You need to tap into the different communities on these platforms, be they image, video or text oriented. Make people aware of the quality content that you are offering and engage, engage, engage. 

Through creating good quality content and utilising all that social media has to offer, your pages can ultimately receive the same status as the Mashable page. Remember, it’s all about what people are saying about what you are writing. Twitter can be a golden tool for disseminating content if you create relevant, credible, well written articles. 

Tweet you later.


Sound Idea Digital specialises in Social Media. For more information, contact 012 66 44 227 or email to info@soundidea.co.za

Carina Claassens is a Writer for Sound Idea Digital l carina@soundidea.co.za l @soundidea | Sound Idea Digital l www.soundidea.co.za