Twitter is updating its platform, which means big changes – and opportunities – for brands, says Michael Litman

Twitter is seeking to become a more viable platform for brands and advertisers alike by launching one of the biggest redesigns in its history, updating its functionality, and bringing a more integrated, richer experience via mobile.
It moves the focus towards richer use of media and a greater building of brand engagement whilst at the same time simplifying the platform.
This new and improved version of Twitter makes it easier for users to discover what’s happening right now and comes with enhanced profile pages that help marketers create an even more compelling destination on Twitter for their brands.
 

What’s changed?
Now brands have the ability to customise their pages more, with a large header image for displaying your logo, tagline or campaign related visuals. This is basically like your brand’s shop window to use as your brand sees best.
Importantly, you can now also control the message visitors see when they first come to your profile page by promoting a tweet to the top of your timeline. Twitter now hands over the control to you to define the experience you provide for your fans.
This is free of charge to brands and the tweet at the top of your page’s timeline is like the welcome tabs, which you default to on Facebook when you’re not a fan of the page already. This should not be underestimated, because it changes Twitter for brands, overnight, providing them with more of an opportunity to promote what they want to and make it ‘sticky’.
We’ve seen from the early adopting brands so far that as the promoted tweet at the top of the brand page appears auto-expanded, not using rich media is a missed opportunity. This is a subtle shift for Twitter moving towards more imagery and video on the platform.
 

Why now?
In previous months, Adam Bain, Twitter’s chief revenue officer, has shared that in meetings with CMOs, the one thing he’s been asked the most about is when there will be brandable pages.Clearly it’s something that they’ve been working on, in conjunction with Promoted Tweets, . And there’s the example of Google+, which only launched recently but has already launched Pages for Brands.
What does this all mean for brands?

1. Twitter isseeking direct competition with Facebook and Google+ in building a customisable, branded experience within Twitter, keeping users engaged and therefore staying on the network for longer.
2. Twitter has now handed over the control to brands as how to how they want to customise their experience for users. Rich media is now more than ever an important visual accompaniment and stimulus.
3. Based on the effectiveness of the new pages for brands, it seeks to entice more brands in to using its paid-for suite of products including Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts. Recent reports have indicated that Promoted Tweets are seeing between 200%-300% increases in engagement.
4. The new ‘Discover’ section gives a richer visual insight into what’s happening right now, providing more value around trending topics. Previously, trending topics have started to become erroneous and spam ridden and this seeks to give them more currency.
5. It remains to be seen whether the same brand experience will be carried across to mobile and iPad. This could be a real bonus for Twitter against the competition, if they can ensure a unified and integrated approach across all platforms.
 

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February 2012 Communicate