Twitter, the social media that changed the way society communicates. Short and simple tweets that brought upon the hashtag phenomenon and led to a different way to share “What’s going on” to the world. 5 years ago it was one of the most popular forms of social media, but not it has seemed to lose a lot of popularity. Can Twitter make a comeback with their future plans and is it worth for small businesses to use it as a form of advertising, PR and customer service.

The introduction of Instagram and multiple other forms of social media that took an approach of sharing videos and pictures instead of words led to the decline of Twitter. CEO Jack Dorsey was in a dilemma and had to figure out how to regain popularity by adjusting to consumer trends. According to Dorsey “Twitter is live: live commentary, live connections, live conversations.” Twitter has been great for people like Donald Trump to communicate to the public. This has led to a lot of brand awareness for Twitter, but not a belief in consumers that they need the app because they can see all of the “good tweets” in the news. Twitter tried to gain users on competitors by pairing with Periscope and bringing live events to their platform. Although its been a success for Twitter, it has increased competition with other social medias taking the same approach. However, they do have a plan to put them ahead of their competitors.

Twitter sees a decline in a rate of the amount of people who watch live TV and how many people are “cutting the cord”. This also leads to less people hearing/seeing the news so many people lose track of whats going on in the world. Twitter hopes to be a place where people can go to watch live TV 24/7 so that they can always know whats happening. In order to stay differentiated they are pairing with media company’s like Bloomberg to bring content specifically for Twitter. They have been testing the market with casting sport games and highlights such as the NFL and many golf competitions.Currently Twitter holds the rights to WNBA games, PGA Tour content, pre and post NFL games content as well as a lot of programs on the MLB. Twitters streaming network, Stadium, will broadcast a lot of collegiate games and highlights. Twitter hopes to use curated video and live tweets to make the app worthwhile. catching the market of people who still want to watch the news or sports but don’t feel like paying for the cost of cable can be a great strategy for twitter. Dorsey hopes to be he first place that anyone hears of anything. This may be tough with plenty of other news apps that send users push notifications, but I like Dorsey’s strategy and believe he has a differentiated strategy that could work. Will Twitter be the future of media, sports, entertainment and news broadcasting?

Along with their strategy to improve the app in general to increase their active users. Twitter is also working on its advertising approach to increase revenues. Businesses are able to advertise more strategically with twitter. Businesses have the ability to choose which type of video content they want their ad to run on. Twitter also allows for keyword targeting so that you only advertise to those who use a certain hashtag or phrase. Advertising on twitter also has a very inexpensive cost per click. Businesses are paying around 3 cents per click which is much cheaper than Facebook.

With Twitter readjusting their strategy, adding users to their platform and allowing businesses to advertise to very targeted markets at a low price it might be an advertising platform that new online businesses should really focus on. Starting a new eCommerce business is tough because of getting your name out their. Advertising on Facebook and Instagram has been the main and sometimes only type of social media that businesses have been using. However, I see Twitter becoming a more reliable form of advertising and PR in the future.