OK, OK. Twitter isn’t dead. Perhaps it will never die. Maybe the current hype is nothing but that… hype. Hypes die down. The world moves on.

But even if people decided to leave Twitter or Musk decided it wasn’t worth lugging around, what would happen? Truly?

Personally, not much for me.

A better traffic source is Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual search engine with certain social media-like features sans the annoying parts. Followers and likes do not matter on Pinterest. What matters is whether the *pin* image is interesting enough for people to click on. If it is, people will click the image, which will take them to the origin website.

If you’re a blogger, content creator, or online business owner of any sort, this is gold! That’s what you want! Traffic. Lots and lots of referral traffic.

Twitter can’t compete with that.

Pinterest took over Twitter in terms of referral traffic almost a decade ago. When I started my blog back in 2018, I had limited time. I may have made some mistakes, but there was one thing I did right: I focused much of my energy on growing Pinterest. Every day, without exception, I would Pin my blog posts on Pinterest. I’d use Tailwind to automate part of the task, but I’d also manually pin a few posts daily.

The result? My brand new blog surpassed 100+ daily visitors for the first time within two months and started receiving 100–200 daily visitors consistently on month-6. Now, four years later, my blog gets 50k+ monthly visitors and almost 40% of that comes from Pinterest (the rest is organic via search engines.)

Basically, as a blogger, I’m not worried about Twitter’s future. It doesn’t concern me at all!

If you have no clue how Pinterest even works, then I highly recommend you give this article a read:

Pinterest isn’t as time-consuming as Twitter

When time is of the essence, you have to find ways to preserve it. Consider how Twitter works, and how Pinterest works.

On Twitter, you have to create unique content. On Pinterest, all you have to do is make an image, describe what you’re linking to, and voila.

To save time, I have a few pin graphic templates I keep repurposing. All I have to do is change the text (and the image, if I use any) and pin it.

It’s a much better use of a few minutes of my time every day than having to come up with fancy content for Twitter threads.

Also, unlike on Twitter, I don’t have to deal with people’s comments, retweets, follows, and likes on Pinterest. Not only does it save time, but it’s also better for my mental health.

Speaking of…

Pinterest is an overall “nicer” platform than Twitter

I’ve been on Pinterest for well over four years now, and have had to deal with zero drama.

Being on Twitter, in comparison, feels like watching multiple soap operas every single day. Who has the time???

Trust me, the shit show that goes down on Twitter is bad enough even as a passive observant. I can’t even begin to imagine what would happen if I were to engage with any of it.

Pinterest focuses on connecting creators to consumers

Which is great for business owners such as myself. I’m a blogger, a content marketer, and an online shop owner. I don’t worry about “dialogues” which is what Twitter is all about (albeit it’s more like spats than dialogues…)

What I want is for people to discover my blog posts and my digital templates. And Pinterest provides on that end.

When a user who’s interested in my content and products sees a relevant Pin and clicks on it, they’re taken to my website, which often results in email list signups, purchases, and repeat visits from a newly minted fan!

Isn’t that what we, business owners, are after?

Really, who cares about Twitter?!

That said, Twitter serves a different purpose for me

As I’ve said, I’m not worried about Twitter’s future in relation to my blog. The blog is, for now, fine. And should be fine as long as Pinterest and good old SEO keep working their magic.

But I found something else on Twitter: A community.

Pinterest isn’t for folks looking for a community of like-minded people. For the most part, I have been fine with that.

But when I started working on creative writing projects, I found this community of fellow writers and editors to be immensely kind, supportive, and resourceful.

For example, a few days ago I tweeted about a journal sharing kind words in their rejection message; explaining what the editors liked or thought would make the piece more powerful. A fellow Twitter user and writer responded that it may have been a tiered rejection.

I didn’t even know such a thing existed!

Twitter is useful for writers. Editors often share pitch calls on the platform, writers share tips and inspiration, and publishers announce calls for submissions. That’s why I’m still on Twitter, albeit most of my personal activities are limited to sharing my daily Wordle score, LOL.

If Twitter goes south, that’s what I’ll miss about it: the writers’ community and the connections we can make with publishers, editors, and fellow writers.

But yeah, as far as my blog traffic and income are concerned, they’ll be just fine even without Twitter…