Twitter refuses to die. For months and maybe even for years, experts on digital marketing foresee the end of the microblogging web. Today, even after many attempts to keep up with the times, user perception is that Twitter is the platform for “oldies”, to this, Twitter answers by testing some new changes and fight discomfort and promote healthy engagement.
Recommendations but backwards
The first test applied on the last week of August was recommendations. Unlike Facebook or Instagram, Twitter recommended users to stop following based on the number of interactions the´ve had with the recommended. According to Twitter, they are trying this to push positive interactions between users and remove clutter. The test ran for a few days and only to a small group of people, the data of the test is yet unknown.
Sitting on the Splash Zone
We all know that if something happens on Facebook or Instagram it´s simply a matter of time before it happens everywhere else. It happened to the silence option, it happened to video and now it’s happening on ad labels too. Twitter has chosen to change the labeling format focusing on political campaigns, from now on the “promoted” tag will have a new marking that indicates it was paid by someone running for office or ta political party. Also, whoever wants to promote this posts will have to go through the Twitter verification process.
This new policy will start on september 30 in the US and will get to the rest of the world later.
Extreme Makeover: Twitter Edition
The last test happened on the platform right at the beginning of september, it was a change in the design of the replies. The original post will stay the same, however all the replies will be color coded by the user and they will come in the form of dialogue balloons in a style much like Messenger or WhatsApp. The color coding will help us understand who is replying to what exactly, also there will be a color for the most important replies and a green dot to know if the user is active on Twitter at the moment to help real time engagement.
The images were published in order to get the response of the users since none of these changes are final and Twitter keeps listening the people’s opinions and suggestions to create a better site. This way of ordering the threads reminds us of Reddit, which has been gaining a lot of share thanks to its unique way of organizing threads and subjects
For now, we cannot know exactly what will become of Twitter, but it is something quite something that they are willing to listen to the public and try to understand what they want to make their Twitter experience better.
Sources
www.socialmediatoday.com
www.twitter.com