Twitter is one of the most dynamic social platforms. It is like a living organism that changes and evolves all the time. And blogs on Twitter have to be the same, because users here are receiving tons of information through the news feed on this network. Likes on Twitter, formerly known as favorites, are something that is used for indicating the mood of the community. It is also a friendly wave of the hand towards the thought that is exposed in the tweet.
By hitting the little heart, users trigger the algorithm that collects and interprets this data. Based on the gathered data, Twitter’s algorithm shows the blogs that users consider interesting and trendy, as for each personal account, as for the whole community. That is how it works. There are other reasons why getting many faves for your tweets is an important metric to watch over. And the bloggers who neglect it, can lose tempo of their growth, and have bad results. In this article, we will dig deeper about why do people need Twitter likes and what is their real effect on the development of your blog.
The indication of attitude
Likes on Twitter are needed for communication in the first place. And their main function, which is important to bloggers, is showing approval and appreciation of the tweet. That’s why this feature is called “like” practically on all social media. By gathering many faves you can increase your influence within the community. Even though the recent changes made like and retweet counters hidden (on secondary app Twttr, a user has to tap, to see these features), they still matter as they are a mirror of social approval. Sort of a mark for actual and worth noticing this particular content. As a result, the interest to the author of the tweet rises as well. For instance, likes from your followers and occasional viewers can be applied to the replies you leave under random discussions. That could mean that your thoughts are similar to the opinion of many other people, who can be considered as your potential followers. So, we see a simple logic, where the number of likes helps you to understand if your course of thought will be interesting, engaging, and trendy.
Rating of Potential Followers
As it was mentioned in a previous paragraph, likes can show you the direction where you should move with your blog. Analyze what tweets that you post gather the biggest number of likes and retweets. This will help you to build a plan for your posts and overall mood of your blog. In general, the Twitter crowd prefers a light and witty style of conversation, that resembles a party with light tones. It cannot be stressed enough that your replies can also gather likes. This is a sign of appreciation by your readers, and you have to be attentive to it. Knowing what your audience reacts best to, you will be able to foresee and plan your further growth.
Back to the question of gaining more followers. Favorites are a great help to define what are the preferences of your target group, and by focusing on the most successful style and tactic, you will get more readers easily. If people see the constant flow of high-quality content that gathers many likes and retweets, they will be more likely to follow your profile, to stay connected to something that is highly appreciated by the community. The mechanism of social approval is at your service here. The only job is to maintain your blog in the proper state.
Bookmarking
Yep, many people use this feature of Twitter for saving something they find worthy. Those can be not only the thoughts they liked, but links to different articles or videos that the user wants to keep in his close access. The amount of information that appears on Twitter every single minute is huge, so sometimes people can hit the fave button to save the material for later exploration. Twitter has a special tab designed for the tweets you liked, so all the important things are stored at one place. This is quite comfy and allows you to come back to the discussion or visit interesting links again. So when you see many likes under your posts with links you can be sure that this content is engaging and interesting enough so that people are saving it.
Spreading the word
Another interesting aspect of favorites on Twitter is that everyone can see what you like. This method works along with replying and retweets for expanding the influence of your profile. Many likes and that your tweet is visible to the whole lot of other people, who are not aware about you just yet.
Remember that your likes are visible as well, so keep it clean and corresponding to the theme of your microblog. Likes are often used for collaborations between brands and bloggers, because they require less efforts and yet are effective for promotion. As you may remember from paragraphs above, this little heart is a silent indicator of approval. And people are eager to get things that their favorite influencers approve of.
Adding a Blush of personality
This point comes straight from the previous one. When you reach a certain level of popularity, people start looking after you to see what you consider as trendy and interesting. So things that you marked as favorite are a part of your public image on Twitter. No joking with that, my friend!
Tweets you like can show to your audience different sides of your online persona. For example, brand accounts can add some personal flair to their newsfeed by liking some witty tweets.
By likes you can show your social position as well. If you are a feminist, it is natural that you fave not only tweets of other feminism activists, but also random posts that are related to this topic. Again, there is a ton of information hanging there and likes are a good tool for highlighting what is interest and important to you. After all this is what social media are created for – they help us to show our personality at its fullest.
Ending the Discussion
Sometimes likes on Twitter can be used as a silent marker that the conversation is over. Or won’t even start. Users are sending you a message without words, like “this is an interesting thought and I agree with you, but I have nothing more to say about it”. Well it looks like greeting and saying goodbye at once.
For a blogger, having his posts gathered many hearts is a positive thing, because it means that even if you have an opponent in your replies, your statement still has support, even without it entering the discussion directly.
Sometimes people use faves to mark that they have nothing to add, and to end the conversation politely online.
Spamming
Many bloggers and especially businesses, are using automatic liking for all the reasons we have seen above, they hope to increase their rates faster and more effectively with this instrument. But this is a wrong decision to make. This method is detected easily and usually the ultimate reaction is ignoring the tweets from such an account. People prefer sincere and filled with sense liking. They won’t fall for this stupid fraud.
Conclusion
Getting many likes on Twitter is necessary for your growth. This is a unique feature that has a powerful impact on the development of any influencer. And the ones who do not forget to include hitting likes in their schedule can really get first results faster than the ones who neglect it.
Vital thing to remember for any blogger on any stage of his pursuit for popularity is that high-quality content is what will bring you all these hearts for sure. No CTA can encourage people to hit the like button like a good post does. Stick to your niche and don’t be afraid to express your opinions. All that, along with active presence online, will shortly give you the fruits of joy. Sincere attitude is a key to get your account to the top, because people love following personalities, who have their life filled with experiences and impressions.
