New Twitter Changes Open Up Opportunities for Marketers and Sellers

I was really happy to see the recent Twitter changes announced last week. I've been a huge fan of Twitter and have always seen it as the place to go for news. I first realised the power of Twitter's news worthiness when Michael Jackson's death (25 June 2009) broke on Twitter before being broadcast on the regular news channels.

Since then it has been my destination of choice for news and never fails to deliver. I guess that's why Twitter rebranded itself on 28 April 2016 as a news app rather than a social network. 

Twitter has had a big influence on how I consume news; I no longer buy newspapers and rarely buy magazines when I can get all the news I need from Twitter, there's no need for paper news which are instantly out of date once printed. Jack Dorsey Twitter's CEO has become increasingly under fire to change the platform and acquire new users. Subtle changes have been made to the platform in recent months with unlimited characters for Direct Messages and the favourite icon was changed from a star to a heart, which I thought was a step in the right direction but many Twitter users being were incredibly negative over these changes. Last week saw some much needed changes to Twitter, which have be overwhelming welcomed by power users and brands, I've listed the changes below, but first watch Jack Dorsey talk about the said changes;

The 3 Twitter Changes that will Benefit all Marketers and Sellers

1. More characters and more meaningful content shared; @names, URLs and attachments (photos, videos, GIFs and polls) will no longer count towards the 140 character limit in a tweet. This change means microblogging will make more sense to readers and better messaging can be delivered to the intended audience.
2. Retweeting and quoting yourself becomes an option; power users that want to add additional information or context to historical tweets will soon be able to retweet their own tweets. This is a great feature for those creating content as there will be no need to write multiple promotional tweets when you can recycle your most newsworthy tweets via retweeting.
3. No need for the ".@" hack; Twitter will fix the need to use a full stop before a username mention at the beginning of a tweet when a user wants the tweet to be seen by everyone. Reducing the need for hacks will make Twitter much easier to use and encourage more usage of the platform.

 
Why are these Changes Good for Marketers and Sellers?

Anything that makes a news/social media platform easier to use is going to be good for consumers, marketers and sellers. The main benefits of these small changes will enable a better user experience and more meaningful targeted messaging on the platform. Twitter is the best platform to receive the latest news, customer and competitor intelligence helping marketers and sellers to build out robust account intelligence. If you haven't started using Twitter as part of your account based marketing and social selling programme, then you're missing a trick. With the platform becoming easier to use expect more of your targets to be present and utilising this news channels.

What are your thoughts on the latest Twitter changes? Please share these in the comments box below. Thanks!