One of the biggest myths around Twitter is that adding links to your tweets reduces their reach.
There’s no official information from Twitter on the matter, but experienced users know that this is true. Some have even been doing tests and the results speak for themselves:
From experience, we can 100% ensure you that adding links to your tweets impacts reach in a negative way. Tests like the one Ryan did only reaffirm this.
And it’s understandable. Twitter wants its users to STAY on the platform, so they reward content that does exactly that.
Knowing this, how can you take advantage of it?
You need to create content that makes people STAY on Twitter. You need to create Zero-Click Tweets.
Zero-click content is the type of content that can be consumed without the need for the audience to take any further action.
We are talking about the type of content that can stand on its own feet.
It’s the opposite of posting a link to a blog post or a newsletter that requires people to click through to read it.
This means engaging content that can be consumed quickly and easily. It doesn’t need links or anything “external” to be valuable to the reader.
Amanda Natividad popularized this term in her Zero-Click Content article for SparkToro.
Creators use platforms like Twitter as “top of the funnel,” meaning their ultimate goal is to use the platform to generate traffic for their projects and businesses.
One would think that the reasonable way to do that is by adding links to your content. But if we know that Twitter doesn’t reward links…what should we do?
Here’s where a Zero Click Content approach comes into action.
Its goal is not to drive traffic, at least not directly. The goal is to generate enough value for the reader that it builds trust and attention.
Then, once you have that trust and attention, you can turn them to whatever they want.
Let’s say you are a newsletter creator. How would you use a Zero-Click approach to grow your newsletter on Twitter?