Three New Biz-friendly Twitter Changes that Brands Will Love

Twitter announced several changes to their platform, some of which seem to actually change (in a good way) how the whole thing works, not just how it’s consumed. For example, Twitter recently rolled out the ‘activity’ tab, which lets a user know what their followers were doing (tweets, retweets, new follows, etc.). More information, certainly. But how did that streamline engagement?

This most recent updates affect both the originating tweet and how others can access and interact with that account. Meaning, tweets are now deeper in the web fabric itself, therefore as shareable as anything else online.

First, the actual changes.

Embedded tweets: Twitter has made it dead-simple to embed a full tweet rather than links or static screenshots. You can now copy and paste HTML directly by visiting the details page for the Tweet you want, click the embed link and customize your options. Then paste the HTML which includes the real Twitter user ID (detailed instructions here). HTML, Shortcodes (popular with blogging platforms like WordPress) and Link are all readily available.

Bonus: oEmbed endpoint makes these tweets dynamic. Which means you can click, follow, retweet, share, etc., as it renders the URL as an image, video, even rich HTML. It’s an extra step (Make a request to the GET statuses/oembed endpoint) but worth it for the added interactivity it invites.

Buttons: Improved button functionality makes it easier to include a specific hashtag or @ mention, which makes it easy for people to find and tweet about specific topics.

Branded pages: There are only a handful of brands that have rolled out with this, but it’s another step closer (following Facebook, then Google Plus pages recently) to full Twitter+brand integration. Highlights include large logos, extended taglines, and most importantly: control over how to promote your company’s own tweets (or any in your timeline) on your own branded Twitter page.

Twitter started as a way to share content, and these updates take the ability to curate content to a new, more competitive level. What does this mean for the business application of Twitter?

• Companies can dynamically display content they choose to promote (steering clear of the controversial ‘sponsored content’ territory)
• They get credit for thought leadership (as well as referring traffic).
• In offering more options with the Twitter buttons, finding your audience and engaging around topics they love will not only be easier, but take fewer steps and time, increasing the beloved ROI of this particular social network.

Our gig is SEO and digital advertising and marketing, so we’ll be following these developments closely. If you have questions about what this means for your business, or have other online marketing questions, let us know – we can help. In the meantime, how do you like the new Twitter? Yes, no, maybe, meh?

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