360DigitalInfluence

While the majority of the social media world was getting excited a few weeks ago about the launch of brand pages on Google+ and the timeline feature rolling out on Facebook, last Thursday that other platform of the “Big Three,” aka Twitter, decided it would not be upstaged by the whales in the social ocean. In what’s being seen as a play to fend off Facebook and Google+, Twitter has given itself some new bells and whistles in a major reboot.

Twitter’s revamp comes at a time when they want to prevent their current user base at 100 million from eroding. The reboot consists of a major user experience overhaul of Twitter.com, updates to their mobile application (Twitter has had an explosive increase of 25% in new registrants in 2011 based solely on mobile usage) and an unveiling of two very large new features to help marketers. These include the debut of brand pages and embeddable tweets.

Some of the key takeaways on this revision are the following:

Twitter’s new long term strategy as a result of the reboot is to register new users because of platform simplicity while keeping current users on the network property for longer periods of time engaging with content. The later move to keep users on Twitter.com is Twitter’s ammunition to help attract more advertisers based on longer usage time on the platform. Twitter has always been a simple platform since its creation, but the revisions make it even easier for both current and new registrants to stay on the platform for longer periods of time. The new user interface is clean and does a good job of not trying to mimic other social networking sites. Twitter took a lot of heat in the past for its user-unfriendly layout on Twitter.com. These complaints are one reason its mobile usage grew at a more rapid rate than its online usage. With the relaunch, Twitter is trying to attract users it has stated for years it was not primarily interested in: casual social networkers who login from their home computer or smartphone and want the ability to quickly find trending items of interest and communicate between friends. While the goal of longer usage time is nothing new on social networks, Twitter plays to its strength in real time search and communication functionality. This is emphasized with the new “Connect” and “Discover” buttons which are featured prominently on the new function bar. As a result, the new Twitter now overshadows both Facebook and Google+ in becoming the dominant “in real time” search and communication tool of social networks.

One of the reasons for this dominance is because of its mobile-friendly nature. With the reboot, the mobile interface is upgraded to make it simpler to find direct messages and @mentions while on a hand held device using the Twitter application. This new functionality is a move by the service to make it easier for one-to-one communication between users. If a user sees a brand communicating with them and can find this conversation in seconds, they are more likely to continue to engage with said brand. It also is a power play by the platform going directly after SMS provider market share and is a function not yet offered by either Facebook or Google+.

Twitter’s new brand pages will ultimately be most useful by companies who want to do the following: a) engage with others for customer relationship management purposes b) use the service to generate new leads in the B2B space c) build engaging experiences on a platform without having to push the user to third-party website real estate for deeper discovery.

Because Twitter has an open API, smarter brands will not only build a page, but will go deeper with an engagement strategy that is Twitter.com-specific for their brand by allowing followers to interact with brand content directly on the platform. There will be less users clicking on links redirecting them to content elsewhere. New brand page experiences will consist of photos, videos and other experiences crafted by technologists, developers and coders inhabiting the halls of social agencies like Ogilvy Digital Influence. One possible scenario may see brands using the platform strictly for CRM to help service this sector. Another usage may be brands using the tool which separates @replies and mentions heavily to their advantage for real time communication with customers and/or bloggers on Twitter. This change makes it very convenient for brands to communicate marketing messages in a more time-efficient manner. This addition will really help B2B companies who actually want to turn engagement with followers into demand generation leads and ultimately sales.

Finally, brand pages will allow those who are following a brand to go to the profile page on Twitter to engage deeper with the brand. Twitter has always been about spreading information through links that push users to a third-party site such as a company website. As a result of this revision, Twitter is trying to keep users on the site for longer periods of time in which to help build an attractive experience for brands and their followers, while generating a viable advertising revenue model.

Embeddable tweets are probably the biggest armament to “Word of Mouth” marketers in the revamp. Ever since the dawn of the platform, it was impossible to embed a tweet on a third party blog like Wordpress or Posterous. Since many influencers blog and tweet alike, this feature allows for gatekeepers to share Twitter content more easily. Embeddable tweets can also be used to register new followers by providing a frictionless user experience. Users can click on embedded tweets on a brand website or blog and with one-click begin following that feed without having to be logged into Twitter. This “open graph” experience is similar to the user experience Facebook implemented with Facebook Connect to help popularize that platform across the web in 2008. Ultimately, embeddable tweets will have the biggest effect on digital word of mouth marketing because tweets can be brought directly to a blog post or brand website giving readers a sense of real time conversation around a subject category.

In summation, the reboot was necessary for Twitter and has come at the right time in the platform’s relatively short tenure. For users it makes the network much easier to use for real time search and communication. For brands it puts emphasis on using the platform for creation and management of content through an official brand page and a real time communication strategy with advocates. For influencers it allows for more dynamic blog experiences through integration of tweets into their posts.

With proper planning and execution using their social agency partner, brands across the board from B2B to B2C to CPG to travel to financial services to retailers to healthcare can use the new Twitter in better ways to communicate with current customers, potential customers, critics, advocates, influencers and bloggers/journalists all in real time. By making two-way dialog more efficient in the hope of attracting new users while keeping the experience simple, Twitter is now set up to ultimately become the primary brand communications tool in the new world era of social marketing.