Twitter Crushing It With Updates During Covid-19 Pandemic
It’s fair to say that over the COVID-19 period, Twitter has done extremely well to stay competitive in the social media marketplace with a number of technical updates improving user experience.
Since the coronavirus hit the western world earlier this year, everyday life has been thrown into complete disarray with a great number of countries implementing lockdown rules which have prohibited social congregations and momentarily disposed of office work environments.
With a large number of people furloughed; and the rest now working from what is presumed to be a more relaxed home setting, it should come as no surprise that social media application installs have surged over the last week 5 months.
On June 1 and June 2, according to data from Sensor Tower, Twitter saw around a million installs each day. In fact, Monday, June 1 saw the most single-day installs since at least January 1, 2014, when the firm began recording app store data
Twitter has evolved much from its beginnings as a forum for simple musings. Now it is many people’s first port of call for consuming news and has become many politicians and celebrities go-to platform for updates and official statements.
The increase in installs doesn’t just come down to COVID-19 though, of course, the Black Lives Matter movement has been a major reason why people have flocked to Twitter; looking to get up-to-date information on protests.
With the platform’s popularity at what seems to be an all-time high, it should come as no surprise that Twitter developers have been working hard on a profusion of new updates, which include post scheduling, pre-loaded meta cards, voice recordings and an interesting new feature called ‘Fleets’.
Uni4m explains each update below:
Twitter Scheduling
Twitter users have been clamouring to schedule tweets for a long time, so when news emerged that the platform was adding a scheduling tool to its desktop service; it was certainly welcomed.
The function allows users to schedule text, photo or video posts up to 18 months in advance.
If you are a content creator or business, this feature has been available for a much longer time through the Media Studio. We still recommend using this if you have the option.
With the majority of Twitter users engaging with the platform on mobile; a reported 80%, it suggests that this feature should find its way to iOS and Android devices sooner rather than later.
One restriction which should be mentioned is that users cannot be tagged in the photo of any scheduled post, so bear this in mind when scheduling your content.
Pre-Loaded Meta Cards
This may not seem like the most significant addition – and perhaps it is the least memorable of the new functions – but the addition of meta card previews before publishing a tweet is really helpful, especially for websites which have unpredictable formatting.
For those unaware a meta card is a combination of data from a website which generally includes the title, main photo and sometimes, a short description.
The meta card preview has been added to both desktop and application versions of Twitter.
It should be noted, though, that Facebook has been doing this…forever. We are glad to finally see it on the blue-bird platform.
Voice Recording
An unexpected feature and perhaps the least requested is voice recording.
Currently this is only available on iOS apps, but should be rolled out large scale soon.
As Twitter themselves promoted, ‘your tweet, your voice’, the voice recording allows users to capture ’up to 140 seconds of audio’.
In case you’re worried about running out of time, Twitter has got you covered.
“Once you reach the time limit for a Tweet, a new voice Tweet starts automatically to create a thread. Once you’re done, tap the Done button to end your recording and go back to the composer screen to Tweet.”
Twitter Introduces Fleets
Now the biggest news to come out of the COVID-19 period from Twitter is their new story-like add-on called Fleets.
Derivative of the word fleeting, meaning just like counterparts Snapchat, Instagram Story, Facebook Story, they disappear after 24 hours.
Twitter has reportedly been beta testing Fleets in regions such as South Korea and Italy since March.
Permitting how that has gone, regions like the United States and United Kingdom should be able to access Fleets before the end of the year.
What is interesting is that Fleets comes at the same time as LinkedIn’s roll out of LinkedIn Stories. With both implementing their short-form service it would mean now that all major social platforms have the option to utilise this kind of content.
Contact us for details about our branding and social media services.