Introduction

When we discuss social media, we often point towards the “big three” platforms. These are Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Each one has their own strengths and weaknesses, and every social media user has their preference or favorite platform. 

Finding the optimal channel for your company’s digital marketing campaign can be difficult to determine. Facebook offers terrific, professional business-to-business connections and paid advertising, while Instagram can showcase the visual aspects of your company efficiently and easily to your followers. 

So where does Twitter fit in? This platform allows you to create snippets of information up to 280 characters, able to be combined with media such as a picture or video, or a link to another website or URL. These short posts allow users to quickly scroll through a large amount of information very quickly. 

Strengths

While not as large as Facebook or Instagram, Twitter is no slouch when it comes to user base, boasting over 300 million international users. To add to this, it is the social media platform with the most celebrity and “big name” activity. These pages, identified with a verified icon next to their username, are reserved for influential people in a variety of industries such as fashion, politics, sports, business, and nearly any other industry you can think of.

Timing

In terms of breaking news, there is no better way to keep up with the latest news than Twitter. You can search by keyword, user name, and media types, and even see what is currently trending among users. While Facebook and Instagram use an algorithm to “boost” posts they think you may find more important, Twitter operates on a purely chronological system. This allows you to find out the latest information about virtually any topic quickly and efficiently as it happens in real time.

Similarly to Facebook and Instagram, one must follow a page in order to see that page’s tweets in their feed. However, Twitter also allows users to “retweet” other users tweets. For example, Nike tweets out that there is currently a fire sale happening at a specific Nike store. Aaron, a Twitter user who follows Nike, sees this tweet, and wanting to let his friends know about the sale, retweets it so it appears on his feed. Now, all of Aaron’s followers can see Nike’s tweet even if they do not follow Nike. 

This feature allows information to be disseminated through the platform to channels they would not normally reach, connecting users from many different circles through a simple retweet. As you can imagine, this means a viral piece of media or groundbreaking news can spread like wildfire! 

Interaction

Twitter is also unique in its interaction between businesses and consumers. With a more lax and casual atmosphere than Facebook and more back and forth conversation than Instagram, there is no better platform to get playful with your followers than Twitter.

Take this exchange between Wendy’s and a random Twitter user for example. You would be hard pressed to find a funny and charming interaction on other social media platforms, and at the same time reinforce your brand loyalty. Remember, we live in a day and age where people want to connect with your business and there is no better way to build a loyal following than making people laugh! 

Wendy’s also recently used Twitter to stir up some hype for their patented spicy chicken nuggets, promising users that if a tweet got 2 million likes, they would bring the fan favorite item back to the menu. In less than 48 hours, they surpassed the goal while simultaneously creating major hype across all social media platforms. 

In this way, Twitter dominates the brand awareness space across social media as there is simply no replication for what they offer on other platforms.

Weaknesses

Now while Twitter is an amazing platform for the reasons listed above, it does have some drawbacks compared to other social media platforms. As mentioned above, Twitter operates on a purely chronological basis; this means that if news and pop culture is slow, so is the platform. However, you can spin this to your advantage! During events such as the Super Bowl or a Presidential election, you can be guaranteed that the platform is buzzing with activity, with users constantly refreshing their feeds. This provides the perfect opportunity for paid advertising as you can know exactly when your reach will be maximized!

On the other hand, if a user misses your tweet, chances are they miss it for good. No one is scrolling all the way down their feed to see a tweet from 9 AM when they are scrolling for the latest news after work at 6 PM. Twitter has tried to work around this weakness with ‘Moments’, a feature that allows tweets from different times and even different pages to be compiled into one place so that users don’t miss out on any of the action.

Conclusion

Twitter has its strengths and weaknesses just like any social media platform. A majority of businesses utilize multiple channels to get around these weaknesses so that they are hitting all of the sweet spots when it comes to marketing. Don’t miss out on all the benefits that Twitter has to offer your brand!