A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of appearing on Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Marketing Talk Show as a guest. I was asked to the show to discuss the newest Twitter enhancements. And that’s a lot of fun!
To be clear, most of these capabilities currently do not exist. They have not yet completed testing. But, they will start appearing on accounts in the near future, so we thought we’d talk about these new Twitter features now so you’d be prepared.
I thought it may be amusing to give a brief rundown of the topics we covered during my appearance on the podcast. And then you can listen in and get the whole story!
Four Upcoming Changes to Twitter
In other words, what has Twitter been up to secretly? To what extent do you think these updates to Twitter will affect your regular habits? Here is what I talked about with Social Media Examiner:
1. The Practice of Tracking Subjects in the Same Way That One Tracks Individual Accounts
You may recall that Instagram now permits users to follow hashtags in addition to accounts. Evidently, Twitter took some cues from that concept while designing this new function. Inside users’ timelines, they will be able to see tweets relating to the topics they select.
This function, which was first mentioned around the middle of August, is now undergoing testing on a limited number of Android smartphones. If you’re using Android and want to see if you can now follow topics, check out the official Twitter app.
In the interview, I discuss the implications of this change for Twitter users and whether or not I believe the addition of the option to follow topics would increase activity on the service.
2. Two: Alerts and subject-matter-specific snoozes
The snooze function was the second new Twitter feature we spoke about. And there are moments when the constant stream of alerts becomes too much to bear. According to Engadget, Twitter is testing the option to pause alerts for certain accounts or subjects.
A user might temporarily unfollow a topic to avoid seeing tweets about it during that period. They have also been trying out a snooze feature that allows you to delay alerts for anywhere between one and twelve hours. Both of these experiments are currently only open to a small subset of Android users.
Do I believe, however, that the option to mute some topics will ultimately lead to a more satisfying time on Twitter? We talked about a lot of other topics, including that one.
3. Message Filtering and Searching Capabilities
This new feature of the platform will make it more simpler to control your private communications. Of the four new Twitter capabilities, this is the only one I have access to right now for testing. And trust me when I say this one is awesome.
Two brand new resources, one for iOS and one for the web, are now under beta testing. If the results of this trial are positive, the rollout might be extended to a wider audience in the near future.
If you’re familiar with the first tool, “Message Requests,” you can filter out undesired notifications. Offense, spam, and communications from people you don’t follow may all be hidden in this way. The second tool will allow you to search your private messages, making it much simpler to locate the threads that require your attention.
Listen to the interview to hear my suggestions on improving customer service through the usage of these technologies. The frequency with which I utilise DMs and whether or not I am acquainted with somebody who makes extensive use of them are also discussed.
4. Individual Tweet Reply Notifications
The capability of tracking replies to individual tweets was the last topic of discussion. For anyone who have followed a Facebook post in order to stay abreast of the comments there, this will seem quite familiar.
Keep an eye out for this feature, which is now only under beta testing on iOS and Android but will soon receive a wider release.
Would this, however, make it simpler to track tweets? Do we expect increased communication amongst users as a result? Throughout the interview, I discuss this topic and my opinions about it.
