Known as the home of pithy proclamations, fresh takes, and short-lived trends, X (née Twitter) has understandably played an important role in the social media landscape. After all, who hasn’t indulged in the occasional scroll through the platform, taking in the latest news or cultural phenomenon?
As of 2024, 77% of businesses use social media to communicate with their audience—and around 41% of small businesses even use it to support revenue. But as the X rebrand continues and AI puts fast content at our fingertips, it’s time for businesses to consider the following: Are we doing all we can to make ourselves heard?
Today, audiences have seen it all—and they have less patience than ever for content that is anything less than engaging. To get back in the game, businesses have to get back to the core of what makes the best tweets so impactful: humanity.
The rise of generative AI in the form of ChatGPT and other chatbots has flooded the internet with stiff phrasing, artificial word choices, and clichés. When emails, advertisements, and social media are suffused with inauthenticity, injecting fresh humanity into your content is a powerful way to connect more deeply with your audience, stand out from competitors, and promote trust and engagement.
Here are a few ways you can humanize.
Speak directly to your audience—in a tone that matches your brand
According to a study of Twitter users from 2012, only about 36% of tweets are worth reading. To get people to read your posts—and keep coming back for more—your business’s tweets need to have a special appeal to your customers. That’s why a humanized Twitter account addresses your intended audience’s challenges and triumphs directly. The posts should sound like they came from a real person—sympathizing the reader’s struggles, aligning with their ambitions, and offering new ways to move forward.
Not every account invoked with authenticity will look and sound the same. Just as brands have different identities and communication styles, being humanized doesn’t mean that every business must take up an ultra-casual tone. Instead, you can maintain your trademark style—whether formal and authoritative, laid-back and friendly, or witty and irreverent—while addressing your audience’s inner dialogue and dilemmas.
One key element of achieving this human feel is formatting. Your posts should be broken up into small paragraphs—even if only a sentence or question long—or bullet point lists. This will keep your content from reading like miniature essays and increase the ease of browsing for readers with limited attention spans.
Stop posting. Start curating.
When it comes to social media, authenticity also means variety. Strong content calendars should include a mix of content, not simply self-promotion but sector insights and noteworthy snippets of information or inspiration. By treating your account as a curation of all things related to your industry and audience, you can build brand trust and authority among your customers, as well as other sector leaders.
What does a varied feed look like exactly? Here are a few ways you can keep your posts dynamic:
- Thought leadership: Break up mentions of product or service offerings with short thought leadership blurbs related to notions of success or the state of your industry, demonstrating your business’s unique insight and attracting those interested in your sector.
- Repurposed content: Get more mileage out of the long-form content on your website—blogs, eBooks, whitepapers, and more—by posting quotes, summarized takeaways, and links back to the piece.
- Industry resources: Look for opportunities to retweet or quote posts from other thought leaders in your industry. Not only will these become valuable contributions to your curation, they can also help you build industry ties.
- Company successes: Whenever possible, share your business’s wins and milestones. Any concrete statistics or awards you can post will add interesting variety to your feed—while celebrating the business’s progress.
In an age of AI, be the human voice in the room
When everyone has access to the same AI writing capabilities, sticking with status quo content can devalue your brand’s reputation—and even introduce heightened plagiarism risks. The creative process may not always be straightforward, but when allowed to proceed, human writers produce compelling, relatable insights that delight readers and inspire action.
Ready to meet your audience where they are? Contact MarketSmiths to inject your social media copy with fresh humanity and authenticity.
