In the past century, we have seen Twitter evolving immensely. What began as a bloggers platform has become an incredible multi-billion dollar platform. Today, Twitter is filled with great potential, especially for the marketers. Based on the past rapid changes, we can expect more when it comes to the future Twitter. Just like the rest of social media, one thing you can expect in the future of Twitter is that there will change. Before we place our bets on the future twitter, let’s first review what has changed in the past decade. This will create momentum for us on Twitter predictions.
Twitter was introduced in the year 2006. Then, Twitter was a bloggers platform. It allowed the bloggers to share their sentiments through 140 characters only. At the time, it wasn’t easy to tell that the company would grow rapidly. This was a time when blogging wasn’t much of a deal in the marketing world. However, the users of Twitter realized the great potential and couldn’t relent anymore. In the year 2013, the future of Twitter took a different turn. This was when the company launched an IPO. Soon after, we saw interest in Twitter increase. According to the Telegraph, Twitter floated on the NYSE with a value of $14.2 Billion. This was one of the most anticipated IPOs since Facebook.
Future tweets after the IPO begun seeing some differences. We started seeing embedded images within the tweets. Users were allowed to redesign their profiles. Later we would also see the character limit doubled to 280. This shows that there is still a lot to expect from Twitter. So what are some of the twitter predictions to expect a decade or two to come? Here are some of the predictions on the future of Twitter.
#1 Twitter Will Become a Protected Public Utility
Chris Abraham argues that Twitter will soon become an international dial tone. We saw the internet itself become protected just like the AM, FM, and other radio spectra. The future tweets could be placed under the protected public utility. This could be backed up through various legislative acts. As we have already seen, Governments and state departments are taking on Twitter. The same applies to the open source intelligence service and the corporate intelligence. Basically, there are several ways through which government agencies are using Twitter.
In some instances, we have seen false news being spread through Twitter. This could call for the formation of the legislative act that will regulate how Twitter is used. Therefore, your future Twitter will be regulated. This will help to see an end to the organized protests that in some parts of the world lead to overthrowing the governments from power. If you look at it critically, the governments will not accept to lose power as a result of the power of Twitter in spreading fake news. Executive orders have led to arrest of perpetrators after they sent out tweets.
The question of having Twitter converted into a protected public utility could see the light of the day sooner than expected. Recently, an American politician and a member of the US House of Representatives brought about the issue. Steve King suggested a review of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This is the act that protects interactive computer services. Changes to this law might lead to twitter being converted into a protected public utility just like the internet.
#2 Newsrooms Will Dominate on your Twitter Feeds
Twitter is becoming the number one social media platforms for newsrooms. A study by Pew Research Center shows that 67% of Americans get some of their news on social media. This is a modest increase, and it is expected that by 2020, the number will have grown by more than half. This increase will be driven by a substantial increase in the number of Americans with less education, and also the non-whites. As the number of American citizens who get news from twitter increases, we will see Twitter become a newsroom favorite channel.
An article published on Poynter.org pointed out that Twitter is a platform that reflects the good, the bad and the reality. The publisher calls upon the academicians, the journalist and the voters to talk about the impact of Twitter on factual journalism. According to the publisher, the social media is a watchdog of the powerful members of the society. The journalism trainers are also training the news reporters against spreading bogus information through the social media platforms. This is because the twitter users pick up the social media information just in the same manner they pick news reported at the newsrooms.
The newsrooms are no longer supposed to be passive. They need to distribute news wherever the audience is. This also needs to be done such that it meets the expectations of the audience. As the statistics above shows, people are turning to Twitter for news. This shows that the future Twitter will be more of a news broadcast platform.
#3 Video Will Be an Integral Part of Future Twitter
According to Jeffbullas.com on twitter predictions, he explains that streaming live with friends will be a top status update feature. Also, he explains the importance of live reviews on Twitter so as to earn customers coupons. This shows that future Twitter will predominantly rely on live video feature. Therefore, the video feature is a must think of when discussing twitter predictions. Fortune.com suggests that Twitter is certainly heading in the direction of broadcasting. Unfortunately, most people wouldn’t typically consider that Twitter is heading there. In May 2015, Twitter announced partnerships relating to live streaming. As Twitter aims at retaining the current user base and possibly increasing these numbers, live streaming is definitely important.
Across the social media platforms, there is clear evidence that video will continue to be an integral part. This is for the online content currently and also in the future. A report released recently shows that 80 percent of global internet traffic will be driven by video by 2020. If you analyze the current internet traffic, we are arriving towards these numbers. As video content prepares to take up the global network, it is clear that data will see an increase. This is great news for the future twitter.
The move towards video content started in 2015 started with Twitter taking up periscope. Twitter has signed up deals with various music stations to start live streaming video content. The audience number associated with Twitter live streams is increasing. At the moment, this is for sporting channels and other television broadcasts. Twitter has a strong asset around the social discussions and the online debates. Twitter can’t afford to overlook the current challenges. They have to keep investing in enhancing the live broadcasts feature. Thus, we see the future of twitter comprising of live content streaming.
#4 The Character Limit Will Technically Cease to Exist
When Twitter announced it had doubled the character limit, this was received as breaking news. Things will soon get better as we see the adoption of live video. When this statement was made, it was clear that the decision was targeting twitter growth. Marketers took advantage of this move. This is the time we saw more people interested in learning how to schedule tweets. This is because finally, Twitter gave them more space to express them. A statement from Twitter showed the move was to reduce the need for editing before publishing the tweets. It is what is happening around the social media platform that will lead to the elimination of tweet character limit.
The future tweets will be beyond the 280 character limit. This is as more content based on video starts to be shared. Therefore, Twitter will integrate the live video with debates and discussions. These will enable the users to have space for sharing more content through the videos. This will be a great opportunity for companies to gain more airtime. The marketers will be able to target more niche audience. This is something that the defunct media broadcasting houses couldn’t do.
Twitter has been bending the past rules and becoming a user-friendly platform. Therefore, whether Twitter settles on 280, doubles the limit or eliminates the limitation is anyone’s guess. At the end of the day, the character limit might not matter. It is matching to the needs and the expectations of users that will matter most. The twitter users want to get used to the brevity and the verbosity they are used to on social media. That is why Twitter might soon scrap the limitations on characters. For Twitter, that is the mental juggling act that comes with a consumer-driven product.
#5 Future Tweets Will Be Searched on Search Engines
If you have searched on Google, you must have seen that tweets appear among the search results. In the future twitter, we expect that searching tweets will apply on Google and Bing. This means that you will be able to search for a specific tweet. This will be achieved by entering the tweet wording on the search bar. The relating tweets will appear as tweets results on your browser. Currently, the tweets from big brands appear on Google searches. The Google featured tweets will be within everyone’s grasp soon.
Marketers already know that Twitter is a powerful platform for engineering brand identity. It is also a good platform for managing brand reputation. As Twitter continues to seek to retain the current potential, we will see this feature being opened up to the smaller brands. This will be a good move for the small brands and individuals as well. Those who love to use Twitter for attention-grabbing will have more reason to continue using Twitter.
We have seen companies like Coca-Cola having their tweets appear on Google search results. The tweets appear when you search for information relating to the company. See the example screenshot below. This is a good marketing approach since the recent tweets are shown in the search results. In the future, businesses will go for this feature. Therefore, we expect future Twitter to have this feature open for businesses and individuals.
To Sum Up
The future of Twitter will have more advanced features. This will be in line with the changing customer demands. As stated from the beginning, the future will be more about the needs of the users. It is less dependent on what Twitter wants. This will be a survival technique that Twitter must use. Changing the current status to match the customer needs will be fundamental in retaining the user base. Otherwise, Twitter will lose the users to other social media platforms.
The Twitter predictions as explained above will be in line with the changing face of social media. There will be new legislative acts that will limit the use of Twitter. As mentioned, there is a high possibility for Twitter becoming a protected entity. We have illustrated the legislators have already shown intent on this. The platform will soon become a newsroom. The fact that many Twitter users like to go to the platform to read and watch news proves this. In addition, Twitter is moving towards live streaming.
The live streaming will also support news broadcasting on Twitter. As users have the live broadcasting feature, it is expected the character limit will cease to exist. Lastly, we will see future tweets appearing on Google search results. The same will apply to Bing and other search engines.
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