Dive Brief:
- Twitter is testing a new tab called "Featured Tweets" that will allow brands and publishers to curate a collection of featured tweets, according to Marketing Land.
- Twitter is also testing another new feature: a line below the profile description that tells followers how quickly a brand account responds to tweets.
- Brands testing out the Featured Tweets tabs include AT&T and Alaska Air. The new features appear on both the desktop and mobile app version of the social media platform.
Dive Insight:
Besides its growing live streaming video presence, Twitter has been having a rough year. Wall St. analysts lowered recommendations to “sell” earlier this year, investors have been grumbling about the stagnating growth of its user base, and the platform has been surpassed by Instagram and Snapchat on key user metrics.
At the same time, the social platform — once considered part of the “big three” along with Facebook and LinkedIn — has shown a willingness to innovate, offering brands and publishers new features and ad formats. The new Featured Tweets tab could help brands better curate their Twitter pages, while the response time in the profile description may help set expectations for customers who want to get in touch via Twitter.
The future of Twitter may hinge on its big bet on live streaming video, particularly its partnership with the NFL to live stream 10 Thursday Night Football games this upcoming season. Those games provide Twitter with ad inventory that should be attractive to a number of large brands interested in reaching NFL’s audience. If it can successfully bring new users in with live streaming video — and sell ads against them — then Twitter could revitalize its challenged business.
