Twitter is changing to the advantage of all content generators, particularly the professional ones.
It is changing into a media which is just followed by people. It was a social networking site where all of its members felt obliged to or wanted to tweet. But Twitter’s CEO, Dick Costolo, revealed this week that it is turning into a mass consumption site. He told Kara Swisher in an interview of the change.
Companies enter top tweets followed
Companies, not just individuals, are now in the list of the top followed tweeters. And they have to be good. They can’t just use spam to get their message across. They have to tweet to their voluntary followers before they can broadcast their tweets to everybody.
Twitter now has a mission statement: “instantly connect people everywhere to deliver what’s most meaningful for them.” And that can be the content of content generators.
The other main points from the interview are:
- Twitter is pouring development money into making its interfaces on all types of platform uniform and simpler;
- 40% of twitter followers are now using a mobile device: up from 25% a year ago;
- Take up in Germany is slower than other European nations because of the length of German words which don’t fit easily into the 140 characters of a tweet; and
- Twitter is being used increasingly to parallel other types of media. It is, for example, being used during broadcasts of TV shows.
Review Twitter strategy
Content generators in all types of media need to review their use of twitter as a result of these developments:
- Realise that people are now followers as much as contributors;
- Blend Twitter use into your own media cycle: for example on the day a magazine comes out; and
- Twitter is increasingly a multi-platform option.