The first time I deleted Twitter was a few years ago on vacation. I spent half a week sitting by a pool, staring at my phone, annoyed at people with the temerity to be wrong on the internet while I was trying to read a book. I deleted the app and spent the rest of the vacation reading happily without an ever-present reminder of everything annoying in the world. A year later I locked myself out of my account entirely, and I’ve never looked back.
Except for work purposes, of course. The urge for an organization to distill their entire ethos into 280 characters of text remains strong. Until recently, at least, the time-and-dating function of posting a tweet was useful for crisis comms. And, although many of us hate to see it, the brands still want to talk to each other somewhere.
But does it need to be on Twitter? As the now-known-as-X cesspool gets larger and engagement shrinks, we’ve gotten that question from many clients, and we’re here with our final thoughts on the matter – as of January 2025, at least.
At Pisano Slater, we’ve been recommending that our clients cease their efforts and investment in Twitter. It’s no longer useful as a tool of mass communication, and it might be actively damaging to an otherwise-neutral reputation. Keep your account handle so no one can spoof or take your name, but no need to keep posting. So then, where to?
Let’s face it: personally, I was never going to get rid of social media entirely, and a few years ago I found a new font of community and irritatingly incorrect people to chat and gossip and complain with as an early BlueSky adapter.
So, that’s my top pick, and the only one of the new text-based replacements that I’ve found to have an almost-comparable level of shitposting, breaking news, expert commentary, and goofing off. It’s not Twitter in its golden years, but neither is Twitter today, and in some ways it might be better.
The good and the bad: it emphasizes links, has no algorithm unless you want to opt into a curated feed, and sends traffic to media sites at a shocking pace. (Outlets from the Boston Globe to The Guardian to EUObserver reported substantially higher engagement and click-through rates on Bluesky than on other sites, with the Globe in particular noting 4.5x higher conversions to paid subs. Anecdotally, many newsletters writers concur.)
Despite the Bluesky userbase’s reputation for being schoolmarmish, it’s not a particularly safe space for many users from marginalized groups, and there are scandalously few politicians to yell at — although this is starting to change. But at least now you can post somewhere without hearing from Matt Yglesias or Jesse Singal.
If none of that appeals, though, here’s what else is out there:
Want to talk social? Drop us a line at info@pisanoslater.com and we’d be happy to advise further!
~Annmarie
Because the last word is rarely the end of the conversation.
Much like penguins, we enjoy bringing you little gifts to show we care:
The climate justice nonprofit Anthropocene Alliance is looking for a fully remote Executive Director, with full benefits and a salary of at least $130k.
Regardless of how badly you messed up the holidays, at least you probably did better than the Charlotte Hornets’ PR genius who gave a 13 year old fan a PS5 during an on-court skit—and then took it back once the cameras stopped rolling.
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In many ways, “know your audience” is the comms world’s version of “profit = revenue - cost.” ... To be fair, few people in any line of work would argue that knowing their audience doesn’t matter. They just don’t know what they don’t know, or they put too much faith in what they think they know.
Like many of you, we were aware “the dog days of summer” referred to a stretch of the season when life moves at a languid pace. However, it was only recently while perusing The Old Farmer’s Almanac that we learned the term’s actual dates (July 3-August 11) and meaning (which is much more astrological than we’d imagined). The end of summer’s dog days lines up, more or less, with the two-year anniversary of A Better Way to Say That. To celebrate—a nicer motivation than “to fill space”—we’d like to share 24 observations, ideas, opinions, and other thought-varieties that have been on our mind grapes since we started sending you this newsletter 24 months ago.
We humans like to explore for exploring’s sake. We’re pleased when we find an unexpected beautiful thing, and we feel a sense of satisfaction when we “discover” something that’s not immediately obvious to the casual observer. People want to spend time in environments where these opportunities are available—which is something to consider when building (or updating) your website.
