Twitter isn’t dead. We aren’t claiming it will die anytime soon. But we are suggesting that its usefulness to a specific group is on life support and many want to pull the plug.
Each time an agency talks to a new client there’s always that awkward conversation about social media. Everyone knows they need to have it. Seldom do they know how to use it. Part of this is due to the lack of a cookie-cutter program that works for everyone.
But there’s one thing that’s asked each time. “Do you think we should bother with Twitter?”
That’s a pretty hard question to answer. In many ways, Twitter is a tank. Twitter has over 30 million active monthly users and remains the third most popular social network worldwide. Although over the last few years there has been a decline in new users. It has also seen activity crashing too. Twitter is aware and taking some pretty big steps. The biggest is the increased character count from 140 to 280. Though some feel this was a step that took away a bit of its charm.
Twitter has also been slow to close dead or fake profiles. But quick to deactivate active accounts that slightly violate their guidelines. These are mostly related to freedom of speech issues. User who don’t understand why a President’s account is ignored for far worse. They aren’t making friends playing favorite. Their users are noticing.
But that aside. Twitter might want to begin to overhaul its usability. We’ve grown. We all do social media a little differently than we did 10 years ago. Twitter, you should too.
Idea 1: Include the ability to edit a Tweet after it’s been posted. We quickly thumb on our phones. Autocorrect is seldom our friends. Typos are as common as sneezes. We post “Just had a greet dinner at Asago’s” followed by 3 likes from our followers. We see the typo and have the choice to delete it and lose that hard-earned instant gratification or leave it and hope our Grammar-Nazi friends don’t see it.
Idea 2: Let us continue reading where we left off. It’s too much scrolling and uses too much mental capacity to try to remember the last tweet we read.
Idea 3: Get your act together handling your photos, Twitter. It’s a mess.
Idea 4: This could be combined with #2. Mark tweets you’ve already read with “seen”.
Idea 5: Enhanced Twitter Profiles. Twitter currently lets you post just enough information to hopefully let them know you work in an office and you dig cats. The profile can do so much more.
Any of these would change Twitter overnight. It would remind people how great Twitter is again. It is great. If we didn’t think so, we wouldn’t care. We want an answer again the next time a client asks “Should we bother with Twitter?”
