It’s especially frustrating when you thought you were finally getting a handle on the nuances and starting to make headway on reaching your best audience.

This has happened with Twitter which said recently it will be making two alterations. The first is a move to reduce the number of notifications that pop up. It will be limited to those from people you’re following.

That’s great news for Twitter users inundated and numb from pop-up notifications, but those who are relying on those pop-up notifications to reach people are not doing the happy dance.

The second is aimed at reducing harassment. The quality filters that have been used by celebs and well-known people are now open to all. As the folks at Twitter explained:

When turned on, the filter can improve the quality of Tweets you see by using a variety of signals, such as account origin and behavior. Turning it on filters lower-quality content, like duplicate Tweets or content that appears to be automated, from your notifications and other parts of your Twitter experience. It does not filter content from people you follow or accounts you’ve recently interacted with — and depending on your preferences, you can turn it on or off in your notifications settings.

Change Your Tactics

This is actually a positive move for many marketers. Keep in mind that this is a social platform. The goal of a credible marketer is to build relationships not to shout at people.  This will eliminate competitors who are doing just that and turning people off of Twitter.

It is now even more important to consider how to build relationships with Twitter users who are or may become your fans, supporters and customers. Some things to keep in mind:

1. Share information and media that is relevant to the audience you want to reach.
2. Think in terms of putting out information that they can share and send to their audience.
3. Be sincere.
4. Don’t harass your audience.
5. Reach out and be personable with your audience. Notice that quality filters allow content from followers and accounts that have had recent interactions. Interactions have always been good.

You can still use apps to put out content and you should still monitor and analyze the effect of what you are doing, but as you build your campaign and write your content, keep in mind that there are real people on the other side of that screen.