Twitter turns 11 this month but it has been a bit lost of late, with slow growth and rampant trolling. However, their revenue was actually up by the end of 2016 as they signalled a new direction – a drive to be really news focused: CEO Jack Dempsey declared, “We’re the people’s news network.” They have since announced their intention to be the fastest and first platform for news both globally and locally.

Worth bearing in mind when planning your Twitter strategy for the coming year – as businesses and brands, how can you utilise this newsworthy element to be fastest and first in your industry? With this in mind, Twitter intend to focus on the following:

 

  • Live content and broadcast partnerships, especially within sport. This opens up opportunities for reactive content, real-time conversations and adverts around events broadcast on Twitter
  • Enhanced customer service. In this sense they’re taking the ‘fastest and first’ mantra to brand engagement with consumers as well as news
  • Eradicating abuse. People are turned off Twitter as a source for news because of the amount of abuse. They’re introducing mute options and a ‘hateful conduct’ reporting option to try and make the space more inclusive
  • The fake news problem, especially the eradication of fake news Twitter bots
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Kate Tyler is the founder of Shake Social and our long time social media expert. A regular speaker at events, Kate offers consultancy and training on a range of digital marketing topics, in particular safeguarding and using social media in an educational setting.