Since becoming a wildly popular and mainstream social platform, Snapchat has found itself mimicked by other social media titans, including Instagram and Facebook. But in the case of competitors trying to edge each other out, is imitation the most sincere form of flattery?
Twitter has recently undergone a series of changes in order to boost user engagement, such as expanding its staple 140 character count to 280. Now it is allegedly setting its sights on optimizing a new media sharing feature that is modeled off of Snapchat’s Discover.
The new feature is said to become part of Twitter Moments and is rumored to have location-based photo and video much like Snapchat’s self-branded geotag features – a first for Twitter. This would also mean that Twitter is gearing itself up for arranging content around nearby/local events.
If Twitter does move forward with this feature, it will allow the platform to mix sponsored content in with user-generated photos/videos – making Twitter a more marketer-friendly social channel! This could be a good opportunity for both advertising executives and digital marketers alike.
Currently, CNBC reports that the newest shift from text to “camera-first” focus with Moments may be debuting in the near future, but is still early in the development phase.
With the possibility of a location-based photo and video feature in Twitter’s future, the online news and social media hybrid appears to be poised for a comeback. With the budding potential for a wider reach to a video-hungry and younger audience, Twitter seems to be setting itself up to take some of Snapchat’s advertisers.
In 2016, it was reported that Twitter’s daily users had dropped to 140 million people, whereas Snapchat’s daily count surpassed it with 150 million users. And while Twitter is looking to take a bite out of Snap’s piece of the pie, is its new camera-first initiative enough to put a dent in the competition?
Having your own Twitter or Snapchat issues? We’ve got answers! KWSM has a blog for that – or you can always tune in and ask us LIVE during our weekly Social Media Help Desk livestream, hosted every Tuesday at 12:30 pm. Be sure to follow us on Facebook to keep up-to-date on the show!