I have tons of Twitter drafts, so I’d love to support Twitter’s new Fleets feature that lets you send ephemeral tweets. The first time I tried Fleets on Twitter, I got 3 views in 3 hours and I have 1,000+ followers. Clearly my first experience was disappointing; however, I’d still like to discuss the potential benefits of Fleets because other accounts could have better results. It was also reassuring when I DM’d a popular content creator who said his Fleets have more views than his Instagram Stories.
Tweet and Share More Freely
Fleets may satisfy that urge to tweet random thoughts. You could give yourself permission to say what’s on your mind and then move on. For example, sometimes when I listen to music, I get inspired to share something that I wouldn’t otherwise. Fleets might become a good place to do that!
Control Your Audience
Sometimes you want to share an update, but you don’t want others to find your post in search. I have a special example from work. I have my own video game character and I love sharing updates about my in-game appearances, but I want my posts to reach my followers and not the whole game’s community. This seemed tricky on Twitter where my unique character name or the game title could be found in search, so I posted about it on Instagram Stories the most. With Fleets, I could easily share the same cute updates on Twitter!
Get Audience Insights
My Twitter audience is filled with lurkers who see my content, but rarely acknowledge it through likes, replies and retweets. Now with Fleets, I can start to understand who are my most engaged followers. That’s huge! For example, the first 3 people to see my first Fleet were all male, which I didn’t expect. I’ve nicknamed my core Instagram Stories viewers as “the usuals” and I’m curious if my Fleets’ viewers will be recurring too.
More Cross-Posting Potential
There is tons of potential to cross-post content between Instagram Stories and Twitter Fleets. It’s already easy to cross-post between Instagram Stories and Facebook Stories, so now you can hit 3 of the biggest platforms with 2 uploads.
Personally, I regret spending so much time and energy on Instagram in the last few years with minimal results. I created lots of fashion and lifestyle content for Instagram that only lived on Instagram because it wasn’t the right fit for other channels. That could change now! My mission for 2021 is to balance my social media channels better and I think Fleets could help me become more active on Twitter again.
Curate and Surface the Best Content
Imagine if people share their best ideas on the feed and less important stuff on Fleets. If Twitter users follow this approach en masse, then it sets expectations. This type of curation could be similar to Instagram where my most polished photos go on the grid permanently and my spur of the moment posts go on Stories.
That said, it is odd to start seeing selfies on Fleets and I’m curious how Twitter content will shift. Will mirror selfies and food become more commonplace? If people cross-post everything, then what will happen to the conversation and vibe on Twitter?
Although my early results with Fleets on my personal account are discouraging, it has many use cases. Major accounts like Netflix, Disney and Kim Kardashian have started embracing Fleets, which may encourage their followers to adopt it. One of my marketing friends announced her pregnancy on Fleets before her Twitter feed, so you never know what might pop up! Hubspot has more information to help you understand and share Fleets.
If you think in tweets like me, this is a perfect feature! After all, it’s no secret how much I love Twitter and that meeting Jack Dorsey was a major highlight. By the way, many of my Twitter drafts were written pre-pandemic, so they’ll remain saved in my drafts until it ends and they make sense again. I guess you’ll have to wait and see!