Twitter Engage to enable users to post videos to Twitter up to 140 seconds in length
Twitter unveiled a new mobile application Tuesday designed to help video creators increase their audiences on the social network and make money in the process.
The stand-alone app for Apple iOS devices, called Twitter Engage, is designed to help creators easily post videos to Twitter. It also will give users live information about how their tweets are performing, and provide tools to help identify mentions from “influential” users, among other things.
Videos posted through Engage may include pre-roll video advertising, sold to marketers through Twitter’s automated ad systems, provided the creator is enrolled in Twitter’s Amplify Open ad program. Around 120 content partners are currently enrolled in Amplify Open, including some individual content creators, but the company said it expects that number to grow.
“Video is becoming increasingly central to the real-time conversations happening on Twitter,” said Twitter CEO and co-founderJack Dorsey, in a statement. ”We’re investing heavily in videos and creators. We want to be the best place for creators and influencers to build an audience and make it easier for creators to make money on Twitter, and soon, Vine.”
Video is now a focus for Twitter, as it is for rivals Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Google and others. The companies are increasingly competing to attract video content to their respective services, and Twitter’s Engage app is designed to help its cause.
Video tweets have increased over 50% since the beginning of 2016, the company said, and the new video updates are designed to make it easier and more profitable for creators to make videos and for fans to discover and share them.
Starting Tuesday, all Twitter users will have the ability to post videos of up to 140 seconds in length on Twitter, up from the previous limit of 30 seconds. A select group of Vine creators will also begin testing longer videos on Vine.
Twitter said it is also “exploring monetization opportunities” to help creators make money on Vine. This could involve selling video advertising through its Twitter Amplify Open automated ad marketplace.
Some video creators have recently aired frustrations with Vine, saying they felt the app wasn’t supportive of their work and hasn’t implemented a sustainable advertising model. The new updates and the Engage app might help assuage Vine users’ concerns, or at least push them to post their content to Twitter instead.
