Social Marketing Buzz: What Does the Future Hold For Twitter ?

Twitter has become one of the best sources of news for all of us.   But, what does the future hold for Twitter ?  Though Twitter is not the one-size-fits-all social network, it certainly offers features and competitive edges over other networking sites.   With all the criticisms of character-post-limits and negative predictions of Twitter, it still continues to thrive (refer to image below).   In fact, it has now reached over 271 million active users each month !   This only supports the contention that the 140 character post limit – that many considered as a lame feature – has become one of the main strengths of Twitter.

Image source: Mediabistro

Let’s reveal what the future holds for twitter.

Kim Garst, social media thought leader with 272K followers on Twitter, shares her thoughts on this matter.

Why Twitter is primed to make some serious headway, especially from a business standpoint……and here are 3 reasons why. 

Traffic:   Twitter crushes Facebook on the ability to generate free traffic.   Twitter is my #1 source of traffic and strictly from a business standpoint, generating traffic is critical to the success of any business.   I give the platform traffic I receive  from Twitter full credit for making my blog one of Social Media Examiner’s Top 10 Social Media Blogs.

Conversion:   I just held a 3-day Facebook Traffic and Conversion Boot Camp.   I spent a bunch of money (over $ 2,000) advertising the Boot Camp on Facebook.   I also spent some money advertising on Twitter.   Finally, I ran a grass-roots, organic traffic-only campaign on Twitter.   Guess which of the three marketing avenues performed best………the free Twitter campaign !!  True story.   I understand that Twitter advertising is relatively new and they still have a few kinks to work out.   It is much  better than it used to be and the ability to track traffic and the analytics dashboard are both now much improved !

This is only one data point, but it’s not just me.   Digital marketing superstar Ryan Deiss has done his own testing and has come to the same conclusion.

Finally, Twitter continues to improve the return on investment for its advertisers by launching a number of new advertising products including TV Conversation Targeting, Tailored Audiences, Conversion Tracking and Promoted Accounts in Timeline.

Functionality:   The fact that you can only use 140 characters in any one Tweet hardly seems to matter anymore.   Twitter has correctly seen the light and knows that visual content is the future.   They have increased emphasis on shared images and video and even added a filter to separate those from other content.   You can also pin your favorite Tweet and see which ones are more popular by looking at the font size of the Tweet.

How about you ?   What does the future hold for Twitter and what does it mean to you ?    Share your thoughts on this matter.