Shhhh! Twitter Introduces New ‘Mute’ Function

Are you following a Twitter user that you sometimes wish would just stop tweeting? At McCauley Marketing Services, we understand your pain. Sometimes, it can seem like an emotional commitment to unfollow someone and deal with the hurt feelings that may ensue. Fortunately, Twitter has your back.

On their official blog, Twitter laid out exactly what the mute feature does in basic terms: “In the same way you can turn on device notifications so you never miss a Tweet from your favorite users, you can now mute users you’d like to hear from less.” While you won’t see Tweets and Retweets from the muted user in your home timeline, the muted user will still be able to favorite, reply to and retweet your Tweets—you just won’t know it. And thankfully, they won’t know they are muted, either. We’ve seen a similar function before on Facebook, where it’s easy to hide users who you prefer seeing less frequently without clicking the dreaded “unfriend” button.

So, while this function is great for cleaning up your timeline while leaving feelings intact, what happens when your content leads you to be the muted user? For companies, this could become a common occurrence if the proper steps aren’t taken. This means limiting your usage of constant commands to retweet, share, and follow-back in order to create and keep an audience who cares. We’ve talked before about valuing engagement with social media fans and followers, and now is the perfect time to really learn what that means and put it into practice. An easy way to do this is to shift the focus from your company to your users. What are they engaging with? What’s trending today? Is there an applicable topic that you can jump in on? If so, create content that will blend nicely into your followers’ timelines and not seem so “phish-y”.

Overall, there is no reason to fear the mute button, especially with a team like McCauley Marketing Services on your side. Our team of social media writers uses their current event savvy to accompany analysis of your needs and audience to enhance your respective company’s brand identity and engage followers. For more information, check out our frequently asked questions about marketing with social media. Be sure to follow McCauley Services on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest or contact us for assistance with your social media strategy.