Twitter: A Viable Marketing Tool for SMEs?

The new runway terminal would be integrated with UK Central and HAS, deliver capacity of up to 70 million passengers per annum (map), and runway capability of up to 500,000 Alarm Transport Movements (Tams) off both runways. By moving the second runway to the new site, the Airport would have the potential for further, very long-term expansion post- 2050. One of the primary benefits of our proposal Is the extent to which capacity could be “turned up” and provided to cater for demand as it arises.

Expansion to map would be fully in line with the commitments made ender the UK Climate Change Act 2008, remove 13,001 people out of the dub night noise contour and 34,063 out of the dub night noise contour. This represents a reduction of c. 100% and c. 91 % respectively, a substantial improvement for local communities. The indicative timeshare for any new runway development would be around 2030.

At this point, the Airport would be operating at close to, or over, the point at which the marginal benefit of developing a second runway would outweigh the marginal cost of more Intensive utilization of the existing runway. Is likely to be en of the cheapest to deliver in terms of overall costs because of the relative open nature of the site and the way It ties In excellent and proposed local and national Infrastructure. Beyond that the estimated cost of the proposed expansion scheme would be E. 99 billion.

Birmingham Airport’s proposal, therefore, forms part of a network solution for the UK which would deliver Great Airports for Great Cities, Promoting connectivity at four strategic airports, whether hub or point-to-point, recognizes that transport infrastructure and international connectivity are economic enablers that provide a pathway to a virtuous cycle of growth. The new scheme would be a full-length runway to the east of the current airport site. In summary, the proposed new second runway location and terminal developments would enable Birmingham Airport to expand from the 8. map it handles today to map by 2050, subject to growth In passenger demand, with the potential to expand further In the very long-term. Recent trends are threatening the stability of the global alliances, the mainstay of consolidation. This has been driven by a shift to long-haul hubs In he Middle East, airline fragmentation and new market entrant, Dub Airport is expected to overtake London Heathers as the world’s busiest airport (based on largest number of international passengers) by 2016.

The construction of additional airport infrastructure in and around London will not remove the threat to the gateway hub because the Gulf carriers, and Emirates in particular, have already established critical mass and have identified their airports in the minds of travelers as acceptable alternatives The airline Industry is likely to witness more liberation’s, fragmentation and a shift sat.

The difficulty Is predicting the speed at which each of these trends will take place, and how they respond to each other. What this analysis shows Is that the Auk’s reliance on a constrained Heathers as Its dominant gateway Is unsustainable. Focal airports are important, and airports such as Birmingham and Manchester may or I-J catchments around these airports can support thick network airline spoke routes from a wider range of international focal airports, and long-haul point-to-point offered by new aircraft.

We need long-haul airport assets across the country to liver the flexibility and resilience the I-J needs, both to engage with any development in the airline industry, and to better connect UK Pl. Egg’s analysis found that the 100% of residents in the UK are within a maximum of 2 hour Journey time from one of four macro regions – London, Birmingham, Manchester and Scotland. Each of these regions, London excluded, has one major long-haul airport.

Using this catchments analysis, Capital Economics studied the economic activity in each region. They found that each of these macro regions has its own economic identity and requires unique international connectivity to cater for hose needs HAS, and associated rail service improvements, will fundamentally change Birmingham Airport’s surface access offering, and the potential shape of the I-J air-rail network..

By 2032, 15. 1 million people will live within 1 hour of Birmingham Airport, and 45 million people – or nearly three quarters of the total UK population – will live within 2 hours of the Airport. People likely to be exposed to noise levels of dub (daytime) for traffic levels of 13. 079 million passengers per annum (map his scheme aims to create 100,000 Jobs and generate EYE. 5 billion by 2040,

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Jack Dorsey Explains Why Elon Musk Has One of the Best Twitter Accounts

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says his platform gives business and government leaders a tremendous ability to “humanize” and appear a lot smaller than their larger than life titles, which is why Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s account is one of his favorites on Twitter.

Speaking at the Dmexco digital marketing trade show in Cologne, Germany, Dorsey explained why Musk does Twitter right.

Dorsey said: “He’s constantly on Twitter, constantly talking about what they are doing — and how he’s feeling about it as well. He’s very open and using it to correct press and if people aren’t focused on the right things. I think he’s a really good model of how to use it well.

“He gets into conversation, he loves what he does, he’s a scientist and he geeks out on the platform and he has conversations about this as well.”

Dorsey noted when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin announced its latest rocket project, only for Musk to retort that SpaceX had been there and done that years ago.

Dorsey said: “There are interesting dynamics that occur organically, naturally and it humanizes the entire organization.”

Dorsey on what makes Twitter different and what Twitter needs to do better

Elsewhere in Dorsey’s appearance at Dmexco via video link, where he was interviewed by WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell, he spoke about what sets Twitter apart from other social networks: its focus on live.

His comments came a day after . Content will include 10 NFL Thursday Night Football Games, and video from MLB Advanced Media, Bloomberg News, and NBA.

“There’s a real opportunity for us to continue to strengthen our spirit of showing what’s happening and that news use case,” Dorsey said.

“When you ask people ‘what do you get from Twitter, what [do you see] from Twitter?’ usually news comes up. This is how I found out Michael Jackson died, or there was a protest, or a new product release. The iPhone just launched, what are people thinking about it? Are they going to buy it? Should I buy it? We carry a lot of the world’s conversation about every single topic under the sun and we also enable people to have this broadcast mechanism where they can reach the entire world faster than anyone else.”

Jack Dorsey was speaking at Dmexco 2016 via videolink. Interviewer Sir Martin Sorrell commented: “We love your bedroom and we love your pyjamas.”
Image credit: Dmexco

In terms of improvements, Dorsey repeated, as he has said in other interviews, that Twitter is doubling down on making sure people immediately understand how to use Twitter and why they would want to use it — although he didn’t elaborate on what the company is doing to help people get there.

“We are making sure we are resetting the expectations around what Twitter is. Clearly making sure people understand Twitter to be the place to see what’s happening, to get the news topics they care about, and what’s happening around them locally as well,” Dorsey said.

“Anything that you have an interest in you can usually get opinions on, and insight, and commentary, and that’s really special and we want to continue to strengthen that, but also simplify the ability for anyone to get into and participate.”

Dorsey said Twitter is also making “safety” one of the company’s top priorities, having seen a recent “flare-up in targeted abuse and harassment.” Earlier this summer, abuse on the platform hit the headlines when “Ghostbusters” actress Leslie Jones received a torrent of targeted racist and sexualized tweets, in an episode that culminated with high-profile conservative writer Milo Yiannopoulos — who was perceived to be the ringleader of the incident — being permanently banned from Twitter

Dorsey said Twitter is now becoming “a lot more aggressive” about dealing with the problem and admitted that in the past, the company hadn’t been thinking cohesively enough about how it could put its engineering, product, and design resources behind the issue.

He added: “We are really confident in the roadmap we have before us and the tools we give to people to make sure they have an experience that helps them feel safe and safe enough to continue to express themselves and continue to express their strong opinions about what they see in the world. We need to take a stronger stance to make sure we are minimizing targeted abuse.”

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Drawbacks of twitter to businesses

For example, A Snacks fan might get caught up on tweets from the Snuck players and his Job performance eight hinder resulting an increased cost to the business and loss of potential revenue to the business. According to Twitter, as of early 2012, 340 million tweets appear per day on the social network. Since twitter users follow hundreds of pages and people on Twitter, a company who sends out a tweet stating a stock price increase has the disadvantage of its tweet getting buried in a matter of minutes.

If a company wanted to send out a DMS ‘Direct Message’ from Twitter to Its shareholders, it would be inefficient, because twitter still doesn’t have the option of essaying to more than one recipient at once. A company who is trying to expand their finances will have no use of twitter at all because, to finance a business, a company will have to seek for potential share holders.

To attract shareholders, twitter has so many barriers such as impossibility to show a graph of sales figures. The biggest barrier is not having the ability to share a financial statement on twitter. I noticed almost all the websites I researched to search for material for this Business Communication project stated that Twitter haven’t help them gain more sales or raise UAPITA compared to face book, Linked, blobs, or you tube.

Some Interesting Information gathered by a survey done by Wall Street Journal and Visage International: This is what Mr. Lopez, the owner of ALL consulting had to say about Twitter, “We will tweet 10-plus times a day, and we will put roughly the same number of posts on Linked per day, yet we get dramatically different results,” A popular opinion among businesses was, people on twitter have “short attention ps”.

I think this is because, people who use twitter do not actively read the posts. Caught their attention. There is a less possibility for twitters to catch their eyes on a company’s tweet over other interesting or entertaining tweets. According to the survey, Sixty percent of the entrepreneurs told Wall Street Journal that social media is an important element to grow their business, but the majority of those individuals aren’t happy with twitter.

Among 835 surveyed owners of small businesses only 25 owners believe that twitter could help their business, which is only a 3% from the 835 owners. My Opinion In my opinion, Twitter is a great social network to find information and when using Witter you will find many interesting facts that you never would have known or found by doing internet research, because it’s a real person tweeting to the public and the public can read them as live feeds.

Twitter has so many barriers that can prevent a potential finance raise and an increment in a company’s revenue, but Twitter doesn’t have the ability to cut back finance or revenue of a business, so the use of Twitter in a productive way might help the businesses. Recommendations I believe businesses might be more benefited if they use twitter as a media that gives dieback to its customers or any other stakeholder, rather than using twitter to finance or do marketing.

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Without Twitter’s 140 Character Limit Brevity Is No Longer the Soul of Wit

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Some things just can’t be said in under 140 characters. How many times have you written the perfect Tweet, only to see “-1” in the character count field? I know I have.

One of the unique aspects of Twitter’s character limit is that it inspires brevity and challenges you to be creative, but I think many who work in marketing can agree that it can also be a source of frustration for many social media managers and content creators.

If 140 characters has been a challenge for you, breathe easy, friend. Twitter recently changed what counts toward its character limit and it’s going to have an impact on your content marketing strategy.

Change is good.

Twitter . When Twitter launched in 2006 it was a simple SMS service intended to let people communicate with small groups of people.

Fast forward 10 years with a myriad of enhancements, I believe Twitter’s new character count can be lauded as one of the more major updates in recent Twitter history. With it, you can now do more with your Tweets without sacrificing valuable characters.

Related:

Media attachments like photos, GIFs, videos, polls or Quote Tweets will no longer count against the 140-character limit in your Tweets and replies. This is very helpful because a picture is worth the proverbial thousand words and can convey more of what you want to say than text alone. With the new update, you can poll your audience, express yourself through photos and videos, react with GIFs or broadcast live moments with Periscope all without chipping away at your character limit.

But be careful — URLs that are typed or pasted into any Tweet will continue to count against your characters; a typed or pasted link of any length will — even if the link itself is less than that, like when using a URL shortener.

You get a tweet, you get a tweet.

As much as I’d love to have Oprah’s social media influence, the reality is that many of my Tweets won’t reach my entire audience. But the new character limit can help you prevent your Tweets from getting lost in all of the noise. Keep these tips in mind as you’re navigating the expanded limits.

Focus on quality content.

Your business objectives might be to increase sales or attract new customers, but your goal as a content creator is to that people will find valuable.

The new rules surrounding the Twitter character limit allows you to be more expressive with your audience (GIFs for days) which can incite engagement with them.

Maintain brevity.

Embrace 140 characters. As humans we have a tendency to overcomplicate what we’re trying to say. Even with the new update, practicing brevity in as few characters as possible is a great way to challenge yourself.

Related:

A good way to accomplish this is by focusing your Tweet on one message rather than trying to relay multiple messages in one. Producing more clear and concise content on Twitter can even off the platform.

Have something longer to share? Include a link to a blog post for elaboration. It’s not easy relaying news in 140 characters, but by including a compelling image and link, readers will be able to consume more with less.

Incorporate hashtags.

Studies have shown that Tweets with hashtags get twice as much engagement as those without them, and . With Twitter’s new update, there’s more room to flex your creative muscles and start thinking about how hashtags can be incorporated into your social content.

Hashtags are a viable (and easy) way to increase message visibility and track campaign objectives. Keep in mind that the longer a hashtag is, the more you’ll eat up from your allotted 140 characters, so it’s important for them to be short, brand relevant and easy to remember.

It’s all about understanding how you use them to your advantage, so the key is to use a good mix of popular (wide appea) and branded hashtags that are relevant to your business or industry. And don’t be afraid to test — you might be surprised with your results.

Related:

What’s old is new again.

Twitter’s new update is boldly addition by subtraction and I for one am a fan of it. Content gets new life; engagement gets more breathing room, all while staying true to what makes Twitter unique: what’s not to love? And while I can’t speak for all social media marketers, I have definitely noticed that the new update has made content publishing and audience engagement much more enjoyable. You know what they say: a small change can make a huge difference.

Follow to get the latest stories and news.

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How to Get Verified on Twitter

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Have you ever felt like a celebrity on social media?

I’ve had a moment or two when someone I really like or admire , or when people from across the world happen to come across my content and like or follow.

Social media has that unique ability to take non-celebs like me and thrust us  every now and then.

Related: 

Well now Twitter’s gone one step further. You can apply to be Twitter verified and receive a blue checkmark badge next to your name. To become verified on Twitter, you simply update your profile with current information, verify a phone number and email address, then fill out a form requesting consideration as a verified user.

It does provide a bit of an ego boost and celebrity moment to see the blue badge, but here’s the real kicker: There are significant business/brand advantages to being Twitter verified.

How to get verified on Twitter

  1. Fill out your profile completely with profile picture, cover photo, name, website and bio
  2. Add a verified phone number and confirm your email address
  3. Add your birthday
  4. Set your tweets as “public”
  5. Visit

(Note: If you’re applying for verification of a personal profile as opposed to a business profile, you’ll also need a copy of a photo ID like a passport or driver’s license.)

In Twitter’s announcement about verified accounts, they listed a few particular elements that might be a factor in which accounts they choose to verify and which they don’t. The biggest factor in getting verified on Twitter is that the profile is of public interest.

To explain a bit further, Twitter mentions that “public interest” might include public figures and organizations in the fields of:

  • Music
  • TV
  • Film
  • Fashion
  • Government
  • Politics
  • Religion
  • Journalism
  • Media
  • Sports
  • Business
  • and other key interest areas

So long as you meet the minimum guidelines with your profile (things like having a profile photo and a verified phone number, etc.), the verification process seems to be a bit subjective in ultimately deciding what is of “public interest.”

If you go through the process once and don’t get verified, no worries. You can try again in 30 days.

In terms of the minimum guidelines, here’s a bit more about how to complete each one successfully.

Verify your phone number on Twitter.

; to verify the number, enter the verification code that Twitter sends to your email. This is what it looks like if your phone number is verified:

Confirm your email address.

You can add your email address here; to confirm the email, click the link that Twitter sends to your email address. This is what it looks like if your email address is confirmed:

Add a bio, profile photo, cover photo, birthday and website.

To add or edit this information, visit your profile on Twitter (in my case, twitter.com/kevanlee). If you’re logged in, you should see an “Edit Profile” button to the right of your Twitter stats.

Clicking the edit button will make the various aspects of your profile editable. You can click to change your cover photo and your profile photo. You can edit the text areas directly from this screen.

In editing this information, Twitter recommends that your profile name is the real name of the person or the organization, that the profile photo and cover photo accurately represent what you’re about, and that the bio mentions an area of expertise or company mission.

Related: 

Here’s a pro tip for adding a birthday: When you’re entering the birthday information on the web, click the lock icon to choose who can see your birthday on your profile.

Set your tweets to “public.”

Visit this page in your Twitter security and privacy settings, and make sure the checkbox for “Tweet privacy” is unchecked.

As you’re going through the verification process, Twitter will ask that you be logged in to the account you wish to verify. There will also be a paragraph section toward the end where you get to tell Twitter why you should be verified (this was the most time-intensive part of the process for me). You can share links to support your claim, too, so this might be something you want to think about or plan ahead.

Here’s what the form asks for specifically:

10 Ways to maximize your chances at getting verified on Twitter

I was very fortunate to get the favor of the Twitter verified team on my first attempt. I’m still not sure I fully deserve it! However, I was glad to see that a bunch of the pre-work I did to ensure my profile was looking its best seems to have paid off.

There is no way to know for sure what factors go into the decision to verify a user or not. These are some of the things that I tried for myself and feel might be useful if you’re thinking of giving it a go.

1. Make sure your Twitter profile has been active, consistently, for the past two weeks.

There’s this cryptic bit of advice from Twitter: “Before you apply, take a look at your account to make sure it’s ready.”

What does “ready” mean exactly?

It’s hard to tell, but one possibility might be that a “ready” profile means an active profile.

When I first heard that Twitter was allowing users to request the verified badge, I wanted to do it right away. The only snag: I realized I was in a bit of a Twitter lull and hadn’t posted for a couple weeks. So did a bit of work:

  1. and filled up the Buffer queue for my Twitter account for the next 30 days.
  2. I also made sure that I was actively engaged with my @-mentions and direct messages in the days immediately before and after I submitted the verified form.

I’m not sure to what degree it actually helped. These things tend to matter when we check out Twitter profiles , so my sense is that the Twitter verified team would notice the same!

2. Link to other verified Twitter accounts in your bio.

This one seems to give a bit of social proof to one’s chances of being verified. Within your Twitter bio, you can @-mention any other profile on Twitter. Bonus: It’s a good practice for .

If you’re an individual, you can add your current employer, past employers or connections you have with other members of the Twitter community (“husband to @mywife” or “building a product with @partner”).

If you’re a company, you can mention parent companies or VCs that have funded you.

I was lucky to be able to @-mention Buffer in my bio.

3. For organizations, add numbers and specifics to your Twitter bio.

Put your best foot forward by being a bit self-promotional about what you achieved. Here are a few ideas:

  • +3 million customers and counting
  • We’re a $10M startup …
  • Member of the INC 5000
  • celebrating 25 years in business

4. For individuals, use the biggest job title you can in your bio.

Similar to the above tip for organizations, this one requires that you sell yourself a little. Before I reached out to Twitter, I had my profile listed as “Content @buffer.” I changed it to “Director of marketing @buffer.” Here are a few other semantic changes that might spark some ideas for you:

  • Content marketer = Published at @TNW and @Lifehacker
  • I run a blog = Founder of @ProBlogger

And here are on the Buffer blog:

  • If you started a company, welcome to the ranks of the “entrepreneur.”
  • If you helped a company, you are a “problem solver.”
  • If you run sometimes, maybe you can be a “fitness guru.”
  • If you give to charity, perhaps you’re a “philanthropist.”

5. For people profiles, add a cover photo that shows you doing something important.

For a long time, I had used an inspiring quote as my cover photo. It looked pretty nice, I thought (thanks to ). But it wasn’t quite as powerful or descriptive of a person of “public interest.”

Fortunately, I had the chance to speak at Unbounce’s CTA Conference a few months before, so I added a picture from when I was speaking on stage. does it really well here, too:

6. In your “why I should be verified” paragraph, write your pitch with empathy for the Twitter community.

One of the quotes I love from Dale Carnegie’s is this one:

It’s spot-on advice for filling out the Twitter verification form and writing the paragraph about why you should be verified. Show an interest in how your being verified can help the Twitter community. Does it help your audience find you easier? Are you often confused with others and are keen to help improve that experience? Are you a business who wants to provide great, fast, trusted support to your Twitter audience?

I took a Dale Carnegie approach with my paragraph for Twitter verification, mentioning how I’d love to be able to connect easier with the people who follow the Buffer blog and the other places where our content is syndicated. I’m not sure how much this approach weighted things for the Twitter team, but it felt like a good step!

7. Be exact with the location in your bio.

I’ve seen a lot of clever, original ways that people have used their location field in the Twitter bio. At Buffer, since we’re a fully remote team, we list our location as “Worldwide.”

Other people have chosen a humorous path. My all-time favorite is “Location: Spaceship earth.”

It’s very possible that the location field doesn’t matter much. I didn’t want to take any chances.

Related: 

My location was listed as “Idaho,” which I always thought was specific enough since not too many people know specific cities within my sparsely populated state. However, just to play it safe, I went ahead and added the city: Boise, Idaho.

8. Choose a variety of links to submit.

Submitting the Twitter verification form reminded me a bit of applying for a job. I wanted to give people the best, broadest sense of how I could be a fit. As a writer, this often means submitting links from a variety of sources where you’ve been published. For Twitter, I went one step further and added conference speaking engagements (both ones from the past and from the future).

Generally-speaking, share as many positive mentions of you or your business, from as many big sources as possible. This could be:

  • Bylines from major websites or publications
  • Author pages at major websites or publications
  • Press you received from major publications
  • Awards
  • Speaking engagements
  • Company profiles

9. You must submit at least two links. Be sure you submit the maximum five links.

Though Twitter lets you submit only two links, you definitely want to maximize this by filling in links for all five spots. Be creative (see the list above).

10. View the list of recently verified users for inspiration.

This is one that I wished I had found earlier. The Twitter account @verified follows all the verified accounts on the network. , you can see a list of everyone who has recently been verified. The full list is over 215,000 people and companies.

You can scroll this list for ideas and inspiration for what might be worth trying to get verified.

One thing you’re likely to notice: There’s a lot of variety! It seems there might not be any one right way to get verified. My best advice would be to find people or organizations that might be similar to you and take some learnings from the way they pitch themselves.

Another thing you might notice: You don’t have to have thousands of followers to get verified. There are many, many verified profiles with 2,000 or less followers. Don’t let follower count stop you from applying for verification!

Why it’s important to be Twitter verified

There are likely to be a lot of obvious benefits to having a verified status on Twitter.

  1. You might get more followers
  2. You’re bound to gain trust and respect from the community
  3. You have one more data point on your being an influencer/authority

There are some immediate , too. You can opt out of group DMs, and (this one’s quite cool) you can filter your notifications to include only notifications from other verified users.

It’s this last point that might be the most important.

By being verified, you will always have a closer connection to other verified users. Your likes, replies and retweets of other verified users can never be hidden.

And to look ahead into the future, this may be an area that Twitter moves toward for everyone. The “Verified” filter is only available to other verified users now, but it’s possible that this could be rolled out to all Twitter users in some form, perhaps even as a filter in the main Twitter stream.

Being verified ensures that your content and your interactions always remain visible for the maximum number of Twitter users possible.

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Twitter Case Study

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TWITTER SEARCHES FOR A BUSINESS MODEL

Twitter, the social networking site based on 140 character text messages, is the buzz social networking phenomenon of the year. Like all social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, and others, Twitter provides a platform for users to express themselves by creating content and sharing it with their “followers,” who sign up to receive someone’s “tweets. ” And like most social networking sites, Twitter faces the problem of how to make money.

As of October 2010, Twitter has failed to generate earnings as its management ponders how best to exploit the buzz and user base it has created. Twitter began as a Web-based version of popular text messaging services provided by cell phone carriers. Executives in a podcasting company called Odeo were searching for a new revenue-producing product or service. In March 2006, they created a stand-alone, private company called Twitter. The basic idea was to marry short text messaging on cell phones with the Web and its ability to create social groups.

You start by establishing a Twitter account online, and identifying the friends that you would like to receive your messages. By sending a text message called a “tweet” to a short code on your cell phone (40404), you can tell your friends what you are doing, your location, and whatever else you might want to say. You are limited to 140 characters, but there is no installation and no charge. This social network messaging service to keep buddies informed is a smash success. Coming up with solid numbers for Twitter is not easy because the firm is not releasing any “official” figures.

By September 2010, Twitter, according to comScore, had around 30 million unique monthly users in the United States, and perhaps 96 million worldwide, displacing MySpace as the number three global social network (behind Facebook and Microsoft’s Live Profile). The number of individual tweets is also known only by the company. According to the company, by early 2007, Twitter had transmitted 20,000 tweets, which jumped to 60,000 tweets in a few months. During the Iranian rebellion in June 2009, there were reported to be over 200,000 tweets per hour worldwide.

In October 2010, Twitter was recording over 1. 2 million tweets a month. On the other hand, experts believe that 80 percent of tweets are generated by only 10 percent of users, and that the median number of tweet readers per tweet is 1 (most tweeters tweet to one follower). Even more disturbing is that Twittter has a 60 percent churn rate: only 40 percent of users remain more than one month. Obviously, many users lose interest in learning about their friends’ breakfast menu, and many feel “too connected” to their “friends,” who in fact may only be distant acquaintances, if that.

On the other hand, celebrities such as Britney Spears have hundreds of thousands of “friends” who follow their activities, making Twitter a marvelous, free public relations tool. Twitter unfortunately does not make a cent on these activities. The answer to these questions about unique users, numbers of tweets, and churn rate are critical to understanding the business value of Twitter as a firm. To date, Twitter has generated losses and has unknown revenues, but in February 2009, it raised $35 million in a deal that valued the company at $255 million.

The following September, Twitter announced it had raised $100 million in additional funding, from private equity firms, previous investors, and mutual fund giant T. Rowe Price, based on a company valuation of a staggering $1 billion! So how can Twitter make money from its users and their tweets? What’s its business model and how might it evolve over time? To start, consider the company’s assets and customer value proposition. The main asset is user attention and audience size (eyeballs per day).

The value proposition is “get it now” or real-time news on just about anything from the mundane to the monumental. An equally important sset is the database of tweets that contains the comments, observations, and opinions of the audience, and the search engine that mines those tweets for patterns. These are real-time and spontaneous observations. Yet another asset has emerged in the last year: Twitter is a powerful alternative media platform for the distribution of news, videos, and pictures.

Once again, no one predicted that Twitter would be the first to report on terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the landing of a passenger jet in the Hudson River, the Iranian rebellion in June 2009, or the political violence in Bangkok and Kenya in May 2010. How can these assets be monetized? Advertising, what else! In April 2010, Twitter announced it s first 386 Part Three Key System Applications for the Digital Age foray into the big-time ad marketplace with Promoted Tweets. Think Twitter search engine: in response to a user’s query to Twitter’s search function for, say netbooks, a Best Buy ad for netbooks will be displayed.

The company claims Promoted Tweets are not really ads because they look like all other tweets, just a part of the tweet stream of messages. These so-called “organic tweets” differ therefore from traditional search engine text ads, or social network ads which are far from organic. So far, Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony, Starbucks, and Virgin American have signed up. If this actually works, thousands of companies might sign up to blast messages to millions of subscribers in response to related queries.

A second Twitter monetization effort announced in June 2010 is called Promoted Trends. Trends is a section of the Twitter home page that lets users know what’s hot, what a lot of people are talking about. The company claims this is “organic,” and a true reflection of what people are tweeting about. Promoted Trends are trends that companies would like to initiate. A company can place a Promoted Trends banner on the bottom of the page and when users click on the banner, they are taken to the follower page for that movie or product.

Disney bought Promoted Trends for its film Toy Story 3, according to Twitter. In July 2010, Twitter announced its third initiative of the year: @earlybird accounts, which users can follow to receive special offers. Walt Disney Pictures has used the service to promote The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by offering twofers (buy one ticket, get another one free). The service could work nicely with so-called real-time or “flash” marketing campaigns in entertainment, fashion, luxury goods, technology, and beauty products.

So far, Twitter has over 50,000 @earlybird followers and hopes to reach “influentials,” people who shape the purchasing decisions of many others. Another monetizing service is temporal real-time search. If there’s one thing Twitter has uniquely among all the social network sites, it’s real-time information. In 2010, Twitter entered into agreements with Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to permit these search engines to index tweets and make them available to the entire Internet. This service will give free real-time content to the search engines as opposed to archival content.

It is unclear who’s doing who a service here, and the financial arrangements are not public. Other large players are experimenting. Dell created a Twitter outlet account, @DellOutlet, and is using it to sell open-box and discontinued computers. Dell also maintains several customer service accounts. Twitter could charge such accounts a commission on sales because Twitter is acting like an e-commerce sales platform similar to Amazon. Other firms have used their Twitter followers’ fan base to market discount air tickets (Jet Blue) and greeting cards (Somecards).

Freemium is another possibility: ask users to pay a subscription fee for premium services such as videos and music downloads. However, it may be too late for this idea because users have come to expect the service to be free. Twitter could charge service providers such as doctors, dentists, lawyers, and hair salons for providing their customers with unexpected appointment availabilities. But Twitter’s most likely steady revenue source might be its database of hundreds of millions of real-time tweets.

Major firms such as Starbucks, Amazon, Intuit (QuickBooks and Mint. om), and Dell have used Twitter to understand how their customers are reacting to products, services, and Web sites, and then making corrections or changes in those services and products. Twitter is a fabulous listening post on the Internet frontier. The possibilities are endless, and just about any of the above scenarios offers some solution to the company’s problem, which is a lack of revenue (forget about profits). The company is coy about announcing its business model, what one pundit described as hiding behind a “Silicon Valley Mona Lisa smile. ” These Wall Street pundits are thought to be party poopers in the Valley.

In a nod to Apple’s iTunes and Amazon’s merchant services, Twitter has turned over its messaging capabilities and software platform to others, one of which is CoTweet. com, a company that organizes multiple Twitter exchanges for customers so they can be tracked more easily. Google is selling ad units based around a company’s last five tweets (ads are displayed to users who have created or viewed tweets about a company). witter is not charging for this service. In the meantime, observers wonder if Twitter is twittering away its assets and may not ever show a profit for its $160 million investment.

Sources:

Matthew Shaer, “Twitter Hits 145 Million User Mark, Sees Rise in Mobile Use,” Christian Science Monitor, September 3, 2010; Jason Lipshutz, “Lady Gaga to Steal Britney Spears’ Twitter Crown,” Reuters, August 19, 2010; Emir Afrati, “Twitter’s Early Bird Ad Ploy Takes Flight,” Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2010; Jessica Guynn, “Twitter Tests New Promoted Trends Feature with ‘Toy Story 3’ from Disney’s Pixar,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2010; Erica Naone, “Will Twitter’s Ad Strategy Work,” Technology Review, April 15, 2010; Jessica Vascellaro and Emily Steel, “Twitter Rolls Out Ads,” Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2010; Brad Stone, “Twitter’s Latest Valuation: $1 Billion,” New York Times, September 24, 2009; Jon Fine, “Twitter Makes a Racket. But Revenues? ” Business Week, April 9, 2009.

CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

  • 1. Based on your reading in this chapter, how would you characterize Twitter’s business model?
  • 2. If Twitter is to have a revenue model, which of the revenue models described in this chapter would work?
  • 3. What is the most important asset that Twitter has, and how could it monetize this asset?

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Twitter Swot Analysis

Twitter, a website provides online social network and microblog services, is gradually seeping through into every area of life. It was listed as the most important invention in 2009. The same with Facebook who also provide online social network service, more and more people are feeling rely on Twitter, and could not get rid of it. On twitter, we send a real-time mail which is also known as tweets to millions of people around the world within 140 characters.

As users, we could share our latest news and ideas to the followers through website interface, SMS from cell phones and mobile device apps; meanwhile, we also can get the instant information about what is happening among the followings, the country and the world. On the technology aspect, Twitter has always based on open source software from the back-end to the front-end. Nowadays, Twitter has became the top ten most visited websites. Before it was known as “Twitter”, its founders named it “Twttr”.

Twttr’s idea came from Dorsey, one of the cofounders, who expressed to “enable users carrying standard cellular phones to update small groups of people on their current situation by pressing a few buttons and tapping out message. ” At the spring of 2006, Dorsey sent the first tweet, and then, launched “Twttr” through the turmoil of headcount trimming in the same year together with the cofounders, Williams and Stone. Twttr became Twitter in 2007. We could feel the name as the buzzing of the SMS message alters and chips from birds.

In this year, Twitter began to hit the market and its users kept growing in the next several years contributed from its word-of-mouth promotion. During its growth, the company continued to get venture capital invents. A lot of large companies were interested in Twitter as they thought Twitter has audiences in hands which would be lucrative. However, by 2011, the company still had problems which may bring risks in the future. According to the paper, the company had four issues: 1. The company was still on the way to seek prots.

It was clearly that the company would be eventually pressured by the inventors as they largely relay on venture invention to support the company. Meanwhile, their application was totally free for use, in this case, advertising was almost the only tool to gain revenues. 2. The business model and strategy remain opaque. As mentioned by Ray Valde, Twitter was in a dilemma that they need a “robust revenue model”, while had to diminish perceived value which has a lot of potential value. 3. Did not commercially exploit its large and rapidly growing user base.

As a kind of social media company, who has the audience, who will make money. User was the key factor that will determine Twitter’s fate. 4. The ongoing change in the top management team. The turmoil began at the start-up phase and even had not terminated by 2011. This may become mines for the company. This case write-up will state Twitter’s business problems in detail, and use SWOT analysis to make the company’s situation more clarified. Then, raise solutions and suggestions for the company.

2. Strategic analysis of problem
SWOT analysis

Weaknesses

Very popular and acceptable by a large number of users
Creatively changed the way of messaging
Greater access to capital

Internal organizational turbulence
Did not exploit the user base
Unclear business strategy and no solid
revenue model

Opportunities

Threats

Dominant position in social media industry
Competitors started to emerge A ton of public
Suffer from abandonment of users
A more technologically savvy plantform

Strengths

Very popular and acceptable by a large number of users
Why people would like to use twitter? I will give some factors according to this case:
• easy use
• free use
• allow users to send and receive messages to a mailing list of recipients in real-time
• better than online chat
• strong brand loyalty
• could run on different devices, especially mobile devices Thanks to these advantages, Twitter got 200 million users by March 2011.

Although it was far from Facebook’s users, the number was still amazing and at the leading position among social network websites. The more visitors, the more the site is worth. Just account for the amount of users, we could estimate that the website of Twitter will be extremely valuable.

Creatively changed the policy of messaging

It is hard to say Twitter has a big invention on technology aspect, and to a large extent, it brought about by recon?guring existing technology. However, we cannot deny it is a big revolution and has changed the policy of messaging. Twitter was built on existing technologies like SMS (short message service), IM (instant messaging), and RSS (really simple syndication), then, combined them in a unique way. It is one-to-one association when we are using SMS and IM.

Now, it is one-to-many association which facing to the public, when we are using Twitter. On Twitter, we send 140 characters instant micro-blog, use “@” to mention or replay other users, use “#” to post together the same topics. All these creations changed the way people communicate. Greater access to capital Twitter had attracted plenty of capital since its establishment. For a young company, suf?cient fund and patient inventors could allow them a more space to develop and complete their big idea.

Weaknesses
Internal organizational turbulence

Twitter’s internal contradiction emerged at the initial phase. When Odeo’s team launched Twttr Beta, six employees terminated contracts. Moreover, among the four cofounders (Dorsey, Glass, Williams, Stone), Dorsey and Williams had even acted as CEO; but both of them quitted. And the name of Glass was seldom raised in Twitter’s history. The establishment of Twitter extremely require collaboration, however, people in the founding team have different expectations. Inventors may lose con?dence in them.

Did not exploit the user base In spite of the fact that Twitter’s success rides on the user base. However, according to the paper, Twitter did not commercially exploit it. Or we can say Twitter had no extra energy to do it. The top managers concentrated on how to make their product more advanced and how to attract inventions. They did not notice the user base was the valuable source for them. Actually, they owned the large amount of users and easier than other companies to conduct a survey on them.

Unclear business strategy and no solid revenue model

Twitter has been trying to be different from other closest companies and exploiting which path was likely to take from the beginning. However, the path depended on how the ?rm perceived and de?ned itself. They just claim their blueprint for making the company “as large an impact as possible” instead of setting speci?c business strategy.

What’s more, Twitter still had not built a solid revenue model even through their revenue kept increasing from 2009. As it stands, the company’s revenue was largely relay on advertising and the last was from data licensing. By comparison, Twitter had the similar ad model as Facebook, but facebook was trying to get rid of reliant on ad while Twitter was not able to do it at present.

Opportunities
Dominant position in social media industry

Although the amount of users was lower than Facebook, Twitter still own the large amount of audiences. It was not the ?rst mover in this industry, but the ?rm acted quickly and was already far beyond other similar social media companies. Contributed by its dominant position, more and more people would like to choose Twitter based on the number of other users of this platform, and inventors would focus on the ?rm, then invent on it as they believe the one who owned the audiences would be valuable. A tongue of public

Because of Twitter has the advantage of timeliness, it became a tool to publish news. In 2008, it played as a key tool in the U. S presidential campaign and the attacks in Mumbai, India. From then on, Twitter became an important role in politics. People became more and more believe the platform as they can use it to publish their opinion to the public. It was helpful to strong its social position and brand impact. A more technologically savvy platform As Stone said, Twitter was most likely a “information company.

” In recent years, this platform value which was derived from information-sharing has reached the peak. Twitter has owned two advantages: a large user base and information-sharing platform. These resources could be used to improve revenue. There was no better savvy platform than Twitter to help companies promote services and products with limited budgets. This project was known as “promoted tweets”, launched in 2010. When followers log in Twitter, promoted tweets will appear at the top of the timeline, then advertisers will pay when a user engages.

Threats
Competitors started to emerge

As the industry was lucrative, some companies had started to emerge and attempted to share the cake. Now, it was not just Twitter provided free services, some large and competitive companies like Friendfeed, Identi. ca, Present. ly, and Google were looking at the market. These competitors were not just copy Twitter but offering some new functions that Twitter did not have. If Twitter stop improving their applications, it may be eliminated in the competition.

Suffer from abandonment of users

Once your friends left the social network platform, more and more connected users may leave it. Then, this website will face catastrophe. Now, Twitter was facing the trouble—although they had attracted a lot of users, the abandonment rate up to 40 per cent yet. On contrast, only 7 per cent Facebook users said they may never use Facebook. And Twitter’s active users were far below than Facebook. One data analysis showed that in Jun-10, only 12 millions U. S Twitter active users while the number was 137 millions for Facebook.

3. Solutions and recommendations

Conclusion about Twitter

Twitter entered the market at a right time, and grabbed the larger resource in the industry. It was a big Internet Innovation and changed the way people communicate. However, it was true that Twitter did not do as good as other similar companies like Google, yahoo, and facebook. For example, in 2009, Google earned more than $18 from unique visitor, Facebook earned about $3, but Twitter only got lower than $1. They were still facing challenges and on the way to exploit the best path.

The challenges which were brought by competitors’ expanding The denying and ongoing innovation of Internet will never stop in this age, and its sustainable innovation has brought about a new round of reform of the marketing mode. Twitter cannot just stay stuck in its old mode. In this industry, stagnate means decline. The first challenge was from the companies who imitated Twitter while developed more functions. However, these competitors had precisely pushed forward Twitter and proved microblog had the bright prospects for development. To deal with them,

Twitter had better to enhance its brand loyalty, and form its own core competitiveness. Users would like to choose the one who dominated the industry because they were easy to be impacted by conformity. Moreover, Twitter should be sure to avoid following others, developing the functions what others have. They should keep creating new ideas and act quicker than competitors. Even through competitors’ function was more advanced than Twitter, it did not mean it was an appropriate product for Twitter. Another challenge was from large companies like Facebook and Google.

These companies also wanted to do everything and dominate the industry. They were similar as Twitter, owned a large amount of users, but did not do microblog. Twitter was not safe even though it did the best in microblog. These services were another form of social media that also may grab Twitter’s market. Twitter needs not only to improve its model to attract more users, but also continue digging potential value in other area to expand the ?rm. Exploit more sources of revenue Twitter cannot largely rely on venture capital invention and advertising any more.

It needs to ?nd out another way to obtain fund. The ?rst option was to imitate Google and Apple, provide more services and develop more products to increase revenue. Another option was to imitate Facebook, launch IPO. Or it can do both. I think launch IPO will be better because Twitter did not have the technology support as strong as Google and Apple. And Twitter’s revenue model was already unclear now, if it provides more products, the model may become more confused. What’s more, IPO is a better choice for long term development.

Increase the R&D activities It is not only the revenue model needs R&D, but also the new application innovation needs R&D. When going to Twitter. com, we will basically see the same thing that the company did years ago. They did not keep working on anything that cool. Meanwhile, they did not reveal any details about the R&D plan and result. Conducting R&D could help Twitter to improve their products and services, which was necessary for a technology company. Twitter website was built on open source software. It was helpful to develop new applications. Furthermore, in order to keep an eagle eye on the competitors and customers, R&D should not be ignored by Twitter.

Promote overseas market

It was clear that Twitter owned a large number of overseas users, but had not figure out an effect profit in other countries. “Promote the tweets” won a big market in the U.S, similarly, the foreign market had a large profit that could be exploited. But it will be a big project that need marketing research and detailed plan before they decide to move in a foreign market.

Writing Quality

Grammar mistakes

F (49%)

Synonyms

A (98%)

Redundant words

F (59%)

Originality

100%

Readability

F (58%)

Total mark

C

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