As we continue our look at different social media platforms, let's turn our attention to a platform that may be the most immediate of them all, Twitter. Did you know that Twitter was originally inspired by text messaging? Jack Dorsey created Twitter as a platform that focused on real time status updates. A way for people to update others on what they were doing at the moment, which is why some people refer to Twitter as a micro-blogging platform. When Twitter was released in 2006, TechCrunch called it a sort of group send SMS application. And because of SMS limitations, posts or tweets were limited 140 characters. The first tweet, it was from @Jack and read, just setting up my Twitter. But it wasn't until the 2007 South by Southwest conference when Twitter really took off. Attendees were able to text message to sign up quickly and they were given access to follow ambassadors at a conference. Today, 340 million people use Twitter worldwide, on both its desktop and mobile app. To give you a sense of how popular the platform is, there are 165 million daily active users, and those users are sending 500 million tweets per day. 75% of Twitter users are under the age of 50, and a majority of users are millennials. So people between the ages of 26 and 40 years old. Additionally, Twitter users in the US tend to be more educated when compared to the general population. As for gender divide, Twitter has more male users at 69%, which women making up 31% of users. According to pew research, nearly 1/4 of Americans use Twitter. But their findings also discovered that only 10% of Twitter users are generating 80% of the content. Who are the biggest Twitter accounts out there? The most follow the count on Twitter is Barack Obama, at 190 million followers. Followed by Justin Bieber, at 111 million followers. The most followed brands, number 1 is PlayStation, at 80million followers, followed by Xbox at 40 million followers and Chanel, at 30million followers. Because of its real time updates and direct conversational nature, Twitter users engage with it for everything from following breaking news to following niche interests, to sharing personal updates to simply casual chats. Businesses can use it for everything from real time customer service to interacting on a personal level with their followers. Let's take a closer look at Twitter. Twitter is all about immediacy, as the platform was created for real time updates that capture the present moment. The heart of Twitter is it's timeline, a constantly updated stream of tweets of what's going on in the world. Sometimes, new users to Twitter get overwhelmed by the amount of information coming at them, but will give you some ways to utilize Twitter to your advantage. First time users to Twitter will create an account, with a short bio, a profile picture, and all that information you want to include, like your city or a link to your home page. Users can have multiple accounts and also with personal accounts who also manage business accounts can easily switch between the two. Users with large followings can be verified by Twitter or have their identities confirmed and receive a check mark next to their name. Tweeting is easy. Simply tap the tweet button and write your tweet. You can add pictures, a video, a gift or a pole. You can also add links to articles or websites and Twitter will add a Twitter cards or a picture and link preview to your tweet. As you type it will tell you when you're approaching your character limit and won't let you tweet if you're over. Have something longer to say? You can add tweets into what's called a thread, which will post connected to one another's on the timeline. Users typically note that are using a thread, by marking them as 1, 2, etc, or by writing a thread. Because of the rise of smart phone usage, the original 140 character limit was no longer needed. So in 2017, Twitter expanded tweets to 280 characters, giving users the ability to say more while still preserving the brief simple nature of the platform. Twitter isn't just about what you want to see. Twitter works best when you follow others and curate your timeline. You can follow new sites, celebrities, authors, organisations working for social justice or, Anything you like, but keep an eye on your timeline or you may miss content that will be useful to you. Twitter isn't just a site you can check just once or twice a week, because active users tweet multiple times a day. And because the timeline is constantly being updated, tweets from even a few hours ago may already be long forgotten and out of the timeline. Twitter's immediacy appeals to immediate interaction as well. As with all the social media platforms, you can like peoples tweets and share or retweet them. You can even add your own comment when you retweet. You can also comment or reply to specific tweets because so many people from famous to unknown are on Twitter with the same kind of access to one another. Twitter provides an opportunity for celebrities and companies to directly interact with their followers. Twitter also has a direct messaging function for private conversations. One of Twitter's greatest advantages is its use of hashtags, which was actually a user created function many years ago. Hashtags are used to collect all related tweets on the single theme, and Twitter allows you to view all tweets under one hashtag in one place. For example, if you want to follow what's going on in Boston, you would follow hashtag Boston. If you're at your cousin's wedding and wanted to follow along with the festivities, you could follow hashtag Bob and Jen get hitched. Hashtags are a way for users to have a concentrated conversation around one specific topic, and many companies and events create hashtags specifically so their followers can interact. Even though Twitter is free for all, that open nature of the platform has given rise to malicious parties, creating fake Twitter accounts or bots. Fake account presence has been so high that many believe these accounts may have interfered with elections. And getting out to write information about COVID-19, for instance. However, Twitter has taken significant steps in reading out spam accounts from their platform. And has just recently started adding labels to tweets that warn users of potentially incorrect or misleading information. Twitter presents a great opportunity for companies to interact in real time with your customers and followers. It also offers companies a place to engage followers with content and update their followers with any breaking news or changes. Twitter also gives companies a chance to discover what topics are relevant to the moment. Let's take a look at ways businesses can maximize Twitter. One of the benefits of Twitter's platform is that companies can interact directly with customers on a real time basis. Whether it be providing in the moment customer service, having a conversational exchange, or tweeting along with followers on the hashtag. Companies may set up separate customer service accounts that handle just customer feedback. For example, Starbucks handles direct customer service at Starbucks Care and Hubspot provides support at HubSpot Support. This is a great way to not only help customers, but build trust and loyalty by responding quickly. But of course, it also means that companies need to monitor that account at all times to give a quick response. Another way companies can engage their followers on Twitter is through direct interaction and conversation. By asking direct questions or responding to followers comments in light, informal ways. One account that does this surprisingly well for a business is fast food restaurant Wendy's, which has chosen a very informal, conversational voice for its Twitter branding strategy. In addition to regular promotions, Wendy's will often post games, cryptic tweets, roasts other fast food companies, and even weigh in on things not related to food like video game culture, for instance. The whole point is to get conversation going with their followers, and they typically reply to everyone who replies to them. To go with this informal interaction is to make the brand fun and relatable. Businesses can also gather followers to interact with them and others around hashtags. Recently, Hulu has done this in hosting watch parties for its new series, Little Fires Everywhere and Mrs. America. While new episodes of shows are released to be watched whenever, Hulu took to Twitter to get those who want to join a watch party to hit play at a certain time. And hold a big discussion on Twitter under the hashtag. Hulu also invited actors, writers and producers to join in the conversation. This way of using hashtags allows followers to feel part of a community around something that's inherently solo. Examples show that not only is Twitter an excellent platform for businesses. But also shows that a business needs a thoughtful, detailed engagement strategy. And that editorial planning posting tweets multiple times per day, as well as re tweeting and commenting is crucial. Platforms like TweetDeck and Hootsuite which provides scheduling tools and a dashboard to monitor engagement are very helpful. Businesses wanting to advertise on Twitter can do so through what's called promoted tweets. These advertising tweets have a similar format to the rest of the content on Twitter. They are inserted in the timeline so users see them as they scroll. Twitter ads are also targeted so businesses can be very deliberate in their campaigns putting content in front of those most likely to respond. Still, advertising may not cause as much response on Twitter as thoughtful organic engagement. Hopefully you've learned more about what kind of platform Twitter is. How its users can engage with topics, trends, and one another, and how businesses can use it to increase engagement and build brand loyalty. Now let's look at a different kind of social media platform, Pinterest.
