Twitter is changing. Again…
“Retweet” is becoming “Share with followers” and “Quote Tweet” is becoming “First add comment”. It sounds subtle but Twitter is taking a page from Facebook’s playbook. The Twitter mobile app was updated yesterday with these changes and now Twitter users can upload several pictures at once and tag uses in the photos, just like on Facebook. Twitter users will be notified when they are tagged in photos, just like Facebook.
Twitter is also updating it’s website to make it easier to use. Twitter’s userbase grew from 185 million to 241 million over the past 12 months which is around 30% growth. Not bad but user engagement has dropped and Twitter is realizing many users don’t know how to use Twitter effectively. Making Twitter similar to Facebook may help users understand how to use Twitter and make it more engaging. Time will tell.
Another change is tags or hashtags, a very popular feature of Twitter, will not count as part of the 140 characters allowed in the Tweet. Users can also create a collage of four pictures in a single Tweet.
It’s interesting that both Twitter and LinkedIn are modeling Facebook since there is a high level of engagement on Facebook. What’s more interesting is Facebook is continually changing it’s features and content layout trying to keep engagement high. Using this model, Twitter and LinkedIn will constantly be a step or two behind Facebook which may not be a bad thing. Let Facebook do the testing and figure out what’s working, then model what’s they’re doing.
Stay tuned because social media is changing rapidly as companies try to figure out how to keep our attention and loyalty for more than a few months.
