02 May Twitter Keeps Changing Everything But Revenue Levels | Social You Should Know
Twitter has made countless changes over the last year, as their revenue came in well below analysts’ target levels, in this week’s Social You Should Know.
Nothing Twitter is Doing is Working
The headline of this article sums things up very nicely. Despite replacing their CEO, launching Moments, changing to an algorithmic feed and integrating Periscope into the newsfeed, revenue fell short of goals, coming in at $595 million instead of the $607.8 million that analysts expected. At the same time, a new app called Talkshow launched this week, describing itself as “texting in public,” which was the way Twitter was sometimes described back in the day. It’s getting a lot of buzz today, but we’ll see if it’s the next Pinterest (success) or Peach (which fizzled).
Purple Shame: Most Brands Botch Prince Tributes
The last week saw praise (in marketing circles) for Chevy’s Little Red Corvette tribute to legendary musician Prince, but many other attempts fell flat. The difference? Whether the post “seems more of an appropriation than an appreciation.” AdAge quickly shared tweets from brands they felt “failed” while marketers in my social circles debated whether the outrage over these brand tweets was just among other marketers. Some felt that if we ask brands to “be human,” then mourning is a natural thing for brands to do. This event won’t close the book on the topic, but we advise brands to only get involved when the event is clearly related to their brands. Being in the same state? Probably not enough.
— Chevrolet (@chevrolet) April 22, 2016
Maybe This Yelp Thing Will Work
Speaking of trying everything, Twitter announced this week that they are expanding a partnership to more countries (but not yet the U.S.) in which users can attach Yelp location tags to tweets. This will, ostensibly, provide context to the tweet. It will also hopefully increase the engagement with these posts, as it makes responding easier for brands. Finally, it could help Twitter revenue grow by enabling it to serve more ads based on location. A win-win-win? We’ll see.
