Change seems to be the 2018 motto at all the social media giants, including Twitter. If you want people to see your content on Twitter going forward, you might need to make some adjustments to your strategy. Let’s unpack some of the changes that will impact authors who actively use Twitter:

longer tweets—Twitter now offers users 280 characters for tweets, instead of 140. Take advantage of the extra characters to talk to readers. This change has been live for awhile, but not everyone is taking advantage of this new feature. Give it a try.

less automation—Twitter is cracking down on users who post identical content across multiple Twitter accounts. You can still use scheduling tools like Hootsuite or Buffer, but if you schedule the same tweets to multiple Twitter accounts from those platforms, you’ll need to consider a new approach.

more GIFs—Twitter now makes it easy for you to add GIFs—a type of animated image file that loops. You’ll notice the GIF icon right under the box where you write your tweets. It’s next to the icon you click to add an image. Give GIFs a try. They are a fun and effective visual tool to share with your Twitter posts.

less duplicate content—This update could be a game changer for many authors. Your content could get flagged by Twitter “If you post…multiple duplicate updates on one account…”

At Bublish, we love retweeting our authors’ tweets, especially when they link to book bubbles. However, for those who post the same tweets over and over to introduce the same book bubble or other content multiple times each day, you’re content is going to start getting flagged by Twitter. Though making your tweets more diverse can be time consuming, this change is for the best. There is a reason the team at Bublish writes unique teaser tweets for each book bubble that is included in our Weekend Reader Marathon. Though it’s a time-consuming effort, it keeps your book bubble tweets fresh and engaging for readers who flock to this weekend event by the thousands.

Going forward you’re going to have to vary the content you post to Twitter…and at Bublish we’re going to have to stop retweeting redundant content. If your tweets are new and fresh—no worries!—we’ll retweet them as we always have (as long as you include @BublishMe so we can see the tweet and as long as it links to a book bubble). But if you’re tweeting the same content over and over, we won’t be able to retweet those posts anymore. It’s going to get you and Bublish in trouble on Twitter.

Social media is all about engagement, so “think like a reader” and put yourself in their shoes. Do you like to see the same content over and over in your Twitter stream? Probably not. It’s boring. So “think like a reader” before you post a tweet. If you need inspiration, go back and read some of the previous blogs we’ve written about reader engagement on social media. You’ll find plenty of ideas there.

And remember, it only takes only a few minutes to create an engaging new book bubble. Don’t know what a book bubble is? Click here to see an example. We’ve tried to make sharing fresh content easy for you at Bublish and give your engaging book bubbles plenty of exposure through popular events—like the Weekend Reader Marathon. So head on over to Bublish, start a free trial (we don’t even take your credit card), create a book bubble today and share it on Twitter!