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This week on #bufferchat, our community had a lively discussion on the future of Twitter, with wishes for new features to predictions for what’s ahead. Read on to discover all of the awesome insights shared during the chat!
Catch our weekly Twitter chat, #bufferchat, at TWO times every Wednesday for valuable industry insights and to meet hundreds of other smart marketers and social media enthusiasts. Same topic, same place, just at different times – feel free to join in to whichever chat time works best for you!
4 pm AEDT (Sydney time)
9 am PT (San Francisco time)
This week’s stats:
Bufferchat #1 (4 pm AEDT): 42 participants; reach of 1,003,530
Bufferchat #2 (9 am PT): 117 participants; reach of 2,830,175
Q1: What’s the biggest change you’ve observed since you joined Twitter?
From the community:
A1: What started out as just a social site for friends, has evolved into my own personal trusted news source, and a place to build a brand and grow a business. #bufferchat pic.twitter.com/dCzjE14YbC
— KBush Collective (@kbushcollective) November 29, 2017
A1: I joined Twitter in 2009 when you could tweet via text message. Back then, it was used for small conversations/updates. Now it’s a media outlet, marketing platform, and debate frenzy. Yet, is still a great place to connect with others. #bufferchat
— Anne Mercer (@Anne_E_Mercer) November 29, 2017
A1: I think the biggest change I’ve observed since joining Twitter back in 2009 is how much video is dominating my timeline now. Also you can get your news, and headlines almost instantly (which is good and bad). #bufferchat
— Aleq Miller (@aleq_miller) November 29, 2017
A1: I joined Twitter in 2008. The biggest change is how we connect. It started off like text in the early days. Today we share images, GIFs, video and emojis. This allows emotions to come to life. It’s a much better way to connect us all together. #bufferchat https://t.co/fAJhnryVLR
— Madalyn Sklar ? Speaker. Podcaster. Chat Host. (@MadalynSklar) November 29, 2017
See all the great answers to question 1 here!
Q2: How have recent updates (e.g. 280 characters) changed the way you use Twitter?
From the community:
A2 I love 280 characters. 140 was not enough. I like that I can now type out a reasonably nuanced thought without needing to resort to huge threads. #bufferchat
— Lauchlin MacDonald (@Lauchlin) November 29, 2017
A2
I love 280 characters especially for chats, I hate that it’s used for an insane amount of hashtags.
Becoming visual centric makes sense especially with gifs, memes etc.
I’ve used gifs so much since it became available on the platform. #bufferchat pic.twitter.com/v1GGvVjMte
— Tony wants Pumpkin 3.141592653589793238 (@SirKingofGifs) November 29, 2017
A2: Can express ideas more fully w/o using threads. Still, I appreciated the challenge of editing to a hard 140-character limit. Confident this change means less thought, and more ramble. #bufferchat
— Andrew Roberts (@ARoberts021) November 29, 2017
A2: Honestly, it’s made me be even more conscious of not going over 140 characters! It’s nice to have the flexibility, though. #bufferchat https://t.co/cax2EPYeHz
— Laura Shanks (@larsmaur) November 29, 2017
See all the great answers to question 2 here!
Q3: What are some of the best uses for Twitter currently?
From the community:
A3 #bufferchat: I love using it for news and communication with industry experts. It’s also great for research!
— Laura Bauman (@laura_bauman) November 29, 2017
A3 On a personal level, listening to and being part of convos I might not otherwise. On a B2B level, social trends are easier to identify more quickly. #BufferChat
— Katie Bromley (@KatieRBromley) November 29, 2017
A3:
In no specific order:
– Making friends!
– self-care bots and @jonnysun
– Twitter chats
– learning new things#bufferchat
— Dera Luce (@DeraLuce) November 29, 2017
A3: the twitterchat without a doubt ? I’m in the UK ?? this is all over the world makes the world a much smaller place! #bufferchat
— SaveYourTime | Virtual PA (@SaveYourTimePA) November 29, 2017
See all the great answers to question 3 here!
Q4: What’s one thing you would change about Twitter?
From the community:
A4: WE NEED AN EDIT BUTTON. #bufferchat
— Express Writers (@ExpWriters) November 29, 2017
A4: They really need to get serious about hate speech and intimidation. There is way too much and consequences aren’t distributed fairly. That’s my biggest beef with the platform right now, to be honest. #bufferchat
— Regina Walton (@ReginaWalton) November 29, 2017
A4 If there’s one thing I’d change about @Twitter is their targeting parameters. From personal/professional experience, @Facebook‘s targeting options are more robust, granular and cost efficient than Twitter’s. #bufferchat
— Nancy Casanova (@nancycasanova) November 29, 2017
A4: How much it costs to run ads. It isn’t feasible for the majority of businesses to run an ad and spend 10-100 times as much as a Facebook ad. #BufferChat pic.twitter.com/BoHQ86R2PS
— Forrester Hinds (@ForresterHinds) November 29, 2017
See all the great answers to question 4 here!
Q5: What would you do in a world without Twitter?
From the community:
A5: Besides cry because it’s our favorite platform, we would probably move over to Reddit more. We don’t want to live in a world without Twitter. #bufferchat pic.twitter.com/PI7bGgrWsM
— Social Coasting (@SocialCoasting) November 29, 2017
A5 #bufferchat hangout more in slack teams<g> Getting my work done. meet people for lunch. call my mom more often. text with friends.
— Birgit Pauli-Haack (@bph) November 29, 2017
A5: I’d miss it heavily, I can take breaks from Insta (don’t use FB) but Twitter is like a sturdy, well adjusted friend that you need in your life ? #bufferchat
— Hello I’m Nik Design ? (@HelloNikDesign) November 29, 2017
A5 – Not sure where I’d go for breaking news. Maybe Reddit? But live tweets during shows, award shows, political debates, sporting events…there’s nothing comparable out there. #bufferchat
— Jason Ginsburg (@Ginsburg) November 29, 2017
See all the great answers to question 5 here!
Q6: Do you have any predictions for the future of Twitter?
From the community:
A6: I think it’ll probably do more promotion of live events. Whether it’s incorporating a story feature per-account, or having pop-out live-streams to stream and scroll at the same time. Twitter will continue to stay relevant but on it’s slower evolution curve. #bufferchat pic.twitter.com/TftasZJw5A
— Geneva Hayward (@gen10hay) November 29, 2017
A6: I think twitter suffers from a curation problem. My HOPE for them is that they find a way to better personalize and curate your feed. Maybe mood based? Time-based? Outcome driven? #BufferChat pic.twitter.com/Yg4MUMWWhj
— JT White (@Receptiv_JT) November 29, 2017
A6: a heavy focus on live video and reliance on news, brands, celebrities & influencers to drive users. Twitter may be the future news channel (rip paper newspapers) #bufferchat
— Loewe Chan (@sincerelyloewe) November 29, 2017
#A6 #bufferchat: Definitely see #AR and #VR somehow entering the scene. Maybe you could use AR to see a tweet and be taken to the relevant visual or use VR to hop on to a virtual twitter chat. Who knows! #futureishere
— Mogul Tech (@MogulTechINT) November 29, 2017
See all the great answers to question 6 here!
Thank you so much to our awesome community for sharing such great insights in this chat!
Do you have any comments or answers to these questions? Leave your thoughts in the comments! We’d love to hear from you!
Image sources: UnSplash
