How to be Twitterific, 10 Years Later — What Do the Experts Think Today?

In 2015, at arguably the peak of Twitter’s (now X, yes, but definitely Twitter at the time), I compiled the thoughts of 39 marketing pros and influencers on how to make the most of the platform. To indulge in a bit of understatement, a lot has changed since then.

A decade ago, Twitter was the undisputed #2 social network for B2B marketers, second only to LinkedIn. It had a wide open opportunity to be like LinkedIn but pithier, faster, and with less narcissistic bloviation passing for thought leadership. Just four years ago, Twitter was still arguably in that spot, but slipping.

The downfall in the value of Twitter for B2B marketing began in the 2016-2017 timeframe. Jack Dorsey and his team made mistakes. He was offered lots of advice to help reverse course:

Three Things Twitter Needs to Thrive (August 2017)

Three Things Twitter’s Marketing Team Needs to Do (November 2018)

Despite Missteps, Twitter Reports Strong 2Q Performance — What’s Next? (July 2019)

Twitter for Business: Is It Time? (March 2020)

Best Social Media Platform for B2B Marketing: Can Twitter Stay #2? (May 2021)

But the advice went unheeded and the platform continued to lose value until Elon Musk acquired it in October 2022. He was offered advice as well:

Five Changes That Would Vastly Improve Twitter (August 2022)

Alas, these ideas were ignored as well. If Twitter was starting to seem like an out-of-touch college faculty lounge discussion in the late days of Dorsey, under Musk it’s been renamed “X” and now resembles a junior high locker room more than a serious business space.

Part of the problem lies in how X (as reflected by its AI tool Grok) views itself (see the image above). The pictures are nice, but: all the users are very young; none look like business professionals; and none of them are using a desktop or even a laptop, they are all on their phones. Weirdly, most of them appearing to be looking at the backs of their phones, but Grok struggles sometimes.

Those are my thoughts. What about those 39 Twitter pros and influencers from a decade ago? Here’s what some of them had to say back in 2015 and what they are doing (if anything) on X today.

How to Be Twitterific, Revisited

Lisa Buyer:

Then: Lisa shared “eight ways to boost the visibility of your tweets, from pinning ‘your Tweet to the top of your profile before your event or to highlight your news for the week’ and changing your logo or profile image to highlight a holiday or cause” in a now deleted post.

Now: No new tweets since December 2023; only seven tweets since March 2023.

Danny Schreiber

Then: He wrote about how to use “Twitter advanced search to monitor brand mentions; monitor sentiment about a competitor; and build a Twitter list of potential customers in this post from Zapier.

Now: No new tweets since September 2024, only two tweets in all of last year.

Ruby Rusine:

Then: Ruby provided an amazing list of Twitter tips from A (“Automating posts save you time.  One thing that you can NEVER automate on Twitter, however, is building a relationship which begins when you interact with followers.” ) to Z (“Zero in on strategies that will help you attain your marketing goal/s. It is one thing to engage, but it is another to get people to do what you want them to do. “).

Now: She’s apparently locked out of her personal account on X, though she’s still active on Social Success Marketing.

Aaron Lee

Then: Aaron offered six ways to get your tweets noticed, such as including trending topics and using visual content.

Now: Still quite active on X.

Jacob Pastrovich

Then: Jacob wrote about three ways to engage with audiences, such as scheduling similar tweets to go out at different times, in a now deleted article.

Now: His account is locked and appears inactive.

Kevan Lee

Then: Kevan wrote The Twitter Strategy Guide: 14 Twitter Tips to Take Your Tweeting to the Next Level on the Buffer blog.

Now: No tweets since September 2023, only five tweets since February 2023.

Frank Strong

Then: Frank highlighted “a whimsical yet useful infographic guide to Twitter in Dr. Seuss style rhyme and illustrations, produced by Hootsuite. Among the five tips for growing one’s Twitter following and influence: ‘First, let Tweets breathe. Give your message some time. Clogging up feeds has no reason or rhyme. If you send Tweets too much, you’ll risk looking like spam. But not the good kind you fry, with green eggs and ham.’”

Now: He remains active and among the “must follow” B2B comms professionals on X.

Lauren Kaye

Then: Lauren detailed 5 Twitter marketing tactics that generate the most engagement on the Brafton blog.

Now: Inactive since February 2019.

Roy Povarchik

Then: Roy wrote a pretty incredible piece on how to Get More Followers And Increase Engagement With These 7 Counterintuitive Twitter Tips, such as “using tools like Tweepi to ‘get tons of followers but also make sure you have a qualified and engaged following.’”

Now: Inactive since May 2024.

Jim Dougherty

Then: Jim wrote a post that walked “through how to use tools like justunfollow (now Crowdfire), manageflitter, and socialbro (now Audiense) (as well as Twitter advertising) to help quickly build a targeted Twitter following ( with some work)” on a website that no longer exists.

Now: It’s a mystery. Jim was a big thing across several social networks until February 2019, when he seemed to just disappear.

Kim Garst

Then: Kim revealed How to Build a HUGE, Targeted Twitter Following In 20 Minutes a Day, which is still useful though some of the tools recommended in her post on longer exist.

Now: Still active on X!

Suzanne Delzio

Then: Suzanne wrote a post for Social Media Examiner about the massive growth Twitter was experiencing at the time, and how that was expected to continue. If only.

Now: Inactive on X since May 2023.

Ian Cleary

Then: Ian outlined “four questions to ask to help determine if (and how well) your Twitter marketing strategy is working, and how to gather the supporting metrics to answer each one” in a since-deleted post.

Now: Inactive since February 2024 (only two tweets in all of 2024).

Dorien Morin-van Dam

Then: Dorien provided a list of “more than two dozen of her favorite Twitter productivity tools in nine categories” (many of which are still around, such as Feedly) in a now-deleted post.

Now: Inactive since September 2024.

Ann Smarty

Then: Ann had three mentions in the original post here, highlighting tools for analyzing Twitter data, researching follower demographics, and using hashtags wisely. She continues to write awesome guest posts.

Now: Still active on X.

Mitt Ray

Then: Mitt shared an “infographic featuring 15 Twitter stats to help you ‘get better results on Twitter…(including) statistics that can be used to get more retweets, clicks on the links you share and followers.’” Those stats are certainly outdated at this point, but like Ann Smarty above, Mitt still writes stellar guest posts.

Now: Inactive on X since March 2023; only one new tweet since December 2018.

Carolyn Nicander Mohr

Then: Caroline explained how Twitter’s photo tagging capabilities had evolved, with benefits for brevity but potential impacts on privacy.

Now: Not super active, but still posts occasionally on X.

Final Thoughts on How to be Twitterific, 10 Years Later

These observations aren’t statistically significant but seem directionally accurate. Of the 17 Twitter marketing pros and influencers noted above, just six (roughly a third) remain at least somewhat active on X.

Two-thirds have fled the excessive (and often toxic) politics on X. The rest of us soldier on, trying to capitalize on the B2B social value that remains. Because although X isn’t what Twitter once was, there’s still no practical alternative.