Marketing on Twitter may soon involve a whole new tool, if beta testing of “fleets” proves successful. The feature is currently having a trial run in Brazil, but early reports suggest that it’s on its way to being adopted by the platform on a global scale.
Fleets are just the latest in a series of additions that Twitter has made with the goal of competing more directly against other social media giants. You may or may not have noticed the availability of photo filters, for instance. And you may or may not have experimented with them as an aspect of marketing on Twitter.
If you have, there’s a good chance you had prior experience with Snapchat. Or maybe you’re just aware of the fact that you’re marketing to a demographic that enjoys the Snapchat experience. In that case, you’re probably going to love Fleets, which take Snapchat’s central idea of transient communication and adapt it to Twitter, where users typically create a permanent record.
With Fleets, you have the option to create stories that appear at the top of the Twitter app but only stick around for 24 hours, after which the disappear completely.
Your Twitter activity doesn’t need to be permanent anymore. And your marketing on Twitter could be all the better for it. Even if you already have a Twitter advertising strategy that is working for you, there are solid reasons why you might want to take a long look at fleets.
Lower-Risk Messaging
It’s impossible to say what the entire thought-process was behind Twitter’s decision to introduce Fleets. But the company’s public statements make it clear that they recognize the fact that marketing on Twitter can sometimes be like walking into a minefield.
The platform has been a particularly deadly weapon in campaigns of character assassination. Old tweets can be presented to the public, years later and out of context, in order to spark a public relations nightmare. This has certainly left many users wishing that there had been a way for them to offer momentary thoughts to their followers without staying married to the resulting message.
Now there is. And now it’s possible to do marketing on Twitter without facing as much anxiety about what might have slip through your own filter.
Chance to Experiment
This is not to say that we’re encouraging you to use Fleets – or any other temporary social media communication – carelessly. Far from it. One of the advantages of employing a good social media marketing company is that it gives you access to professional feedback that can prevent you from opening yourself up to PR disasters in the first place.
On the other hand, there are times when you can’t be sure about how a bit of marketing on Twitter is going to land. But this shouldn’t stop your or your social media team from trying out new things. With Fleets, you can try new forms of communication – new ideas as well as new combinations of text, images, gifs, and videos – with relatively little risk. Whatever doesn’t work will go away on its own, and there’s no need for you to ever revisit it.
So Will You Benefit?
Different users are sure to respond to Fleets differently – if they ever do end up in all versions of the microblogging platform. Some may find that it greatly enhances their strategy for marketing on Twitter. And some may try it once and then never again.
For still other people, it might take some time before Fleets make sense as a marketing tool. If you end up being one of them, you can rest assured that we’ll have more to say about strategies for marketing on Twitter once Fleets make their global premiere.
In the meantime, do you have anything to say? Are you excited to try this new feature, or does it seem like just another low-value add-on that nobody asked for? Let us know in the comments.
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