Twitter Tools and Features You May Not Have Seen

Twitter is becoming more than the micro-blogging social media platform that it was meant to be. Most people do not use it to share what they are doing every second of everyday. Instead, people use it to share and learn about their interests, significant events around the world, people, sports, and live events that are unfolding. Below are some of the tools and features that you might not be aware of.

Twitter Instant Timeline

Twitter has come up with an instant timeline concept to help new users feel more comfortable joining the site and understand what Twitter has to offer them. When you join Twitter you will be asked to select interests, what you see as popular bands/celebrities, what your favorite news and information sites are, what sports teams interest you, and to connect with people based on your profile. Based on all of these selections, Twitter will create a timeline full of information right off the bat so that you do not start off with an empty wall. You have content and connections to begin interacting with.

Ability to Share Videos

Videos have not been a native feature of Twitter. In the past you have not be able to record, edit and share videos directly from Twitter like you can from other social media platforms. Now, you can do this from Twitter. You can use Twitter’s tweet box to directly record a video, edit it and share it as a tweet as opposed to sharing a YouTube video or something similar. This is a huge opportunity for Twitter and a big move. This is a big marketing move, social connecting opportunity, and will enhance Twitter’s usability.

While You Were Away

There are times when you simply cannot check your Twitter feed for several hours at a time. Fear not!! Twitter has created a ‘While You Were Away’ feature that provides you with a recap of everything that you missed during that time. The most popular tweets are posted at the top of your timeline so that you can take a look at what you missed before you catch up on the live tweets. This is an interesting feature for you Twitter fanatics.

Business Marketing

Brand awareness and business marketing have become an important piece of social media. Twitter has latched onto this by offering banner ads, advertising, Twitter Polls, Promoted Tweets and Twitter Analytics. Businesses can encourage their audience to take an action by imposing call-to-action buttons such as encouraging people to visit a website, purchase something, download an app, promote a tweet, or just promote content.

Improved Direct Messaging

Twitter has a great direct messaging (DM) platform now. You can private message other Twitter accounts and share Tweets between each other. The application works on various device types and is fairly robust. Although they do not make a lot of changes to their messaging application, they have finally made some necessary changes.

Third-Party

There are thousands of third-party applications that integrate with Twitter. They allow you to create more dynamic images and videos. You can create more customized tweets. You can manage your account more effectively with analytical tools to see how your page is performing. You can also tweet something from other apps with a direct link to Twitter. There are applications that allow you to create your own background for twitter or you can download free good backgrounds for Twitter. Your options are endless.

Alerts and Push Notifications

Twitter now offers alerts and notifications from news stations and weather channels with breaking news and weather alerts. If a big event has taken place in your local area or in the world that is breaking news, a push notification will be sent to your account. Also, if a weather event has been triggered you will be alerted as well.