When media reports first surfaced about Twitter going up for sale, the news was met with as many ‘what the *$!#’ as ‘it’s about time’. Twitter has really given it all. From its proposition of TV’s best friend for the new generation, to the real-time media to moment marketing to leveraging the opportunities of mobile and video combination, the micro-blogging platform has really put itself out there to find a business model that would keep it relevant to its user base.
The thing about Twitter is that everyone loves it, but as the wise say, sometimes love is not enough.
Over the years, Twitter users, which include everyone from celebrities, politicians, corporates and brands to the girl/boy next door, have loved to share their thoughts in 140 characters. The PR fraternity, particularly, adores Twitter. The platform transformed into a great tool for public relation practitioners and image managers to form deeper bonds and invite dialogues directly between brands and consumers. Advertisers too have supported Twitter. The ability to innovate, challenge creative boundaries and come up with cool new solutions has given marketers their share of marketing highs.
The problem begins when advertisers have to spend on Twitter. Unlike its once peer Facebook, Twitter doesn’t command a big enough share of advertising monies to translate into a sound business model. I call Facebook a “once peer”, because Facebook evolved into a pioneer not only in the social media space but in an overall digital environment. It has made it impossible for marketers to ignore it. It went after the big and small businesses and perfected a structure that kept all advertising dollars within the Facebook ecosystem.
Twitter on the other hand has listed more loss than profits, and has remained an unprofitable asset despite its insane popularity quotient.
What went wrong? By now it is anyone’s guess, but essentially Twitter did not identify sustainable business models and push the envelope that would rake in the moolah. Some say it did not embrace mobile and video fast enough, but in the last few years, the platform made much progress in that area. Change in leadership, new set of tools and analytics for businesses, opening up its direct messaging platform into a messenger service, Periscope — Twitter has really worked hard.
Which is one of the key reasons why its decision to seek out a partner may just be the final link that would grow Twitter to its deserved potential. Twitter has the technology and the creative genius. What it can do with is some good old-fashioned experience. Marrying the old with the new is never easy, but when that balance is struck, magic can happen.
Twitter’s decision to seek a partner is interesting news for the industry. The year 2016 has already seen two big acquisitions. First, Yahoo was sold to Verizon to create Yahoo-Verizon-AOL which marketers are seeing as a third alternative in the Facebook-Google duopoly. Second, the LinkedIn takeover by Microsoft that spelt mutual benefits.
For long, it has been the Wild West in the digital world. Regulations have had to play catch up with technology powerhouses and even now, in many platforms, it is still a case of “anything goes”. As companies acquire or join hands, there’s consolidation in the space which is bound to bring some method to the madness. Not to mention, as younger players begin finding bigger families, the competition increases leading only for the industry’s best to survive.
