Well, here’s a surprise – it seems Twitter is wanting to better facilitate Tweet sharing beyond just its platform. That’s right, Twitter’s introducing new share buttons for Indian users for both LinkedIn and WhatsApp, complete with dedicated Tweet presentations.

Linked What-Tweets

Starting things off is the new WhatsApp button – given how WhatsApp is currently the most used messaging app in India (487+ million users), Twitter’s looking to lean into this embedded usage by testing out a new WhatsApp share button in the lower Tweet function display. Based on this example, some Indian users are now seeing a WhatsApp icon among their Tweet engagement options. This new button will supposedly allow users to quickly share a Tweet with their WhatsApp contacts.

Kind of. It seems that Twitter hasn’t fully ironed out the button’s functionality just yet. Theoretically, however, what it will eventually bring about is a more streamlined Tweet-sharing experience in your WhatsApp chats. Twitter provided TechCrunch with this statement:

“Starting today, we are rolling out a new experiment exclusively in India – an important market for us. We are replacing the share icon on Tweets with the WhatsApp icon for the majority of people who use Twitter on Android in the country, so sharing their favorite or noteworthy Tweets is easy even beyond Twitter, making the experience more open, accessible, and holistic for them.”

Again, WhatsApp is a key messaging platform in India, as well as the key connective tool linking Indian users to the digital economy. As such. It makes sense for Twitter to lean into this where it can and should be aiming to maximize Tweet reach and engagement. Meanwhile, Twitter has also enabled Tweet sharing to Snapchat and Instagram Stories on Android, along with a new option to also share to LinkedIn.

That should provide more ways for users to share relevant Tweets across their favorite platforms, while also helping ensure that Twitter can keep tabs on such activity, as opposed to people simply sharing screen-capped Tweets instead. Twitter also wants to really be able to track this data since it remains convinced that millions of people actively engage with Tweets every month, but never really log into the app. Back in 2015, Twitter claimed that it had over 500 million ‘logged out’ users who checked out Tweets every month. It’s funny because this was more than twice its current mDAU count.

The Wrap

While the estimates here sound a bit too optimistic, the idea is that Tweets drive more engagement and influence than what is presented in basic analytics stats and that Twitter itself is a far bigger cultural influence than what raw figures suggest. It could be true, but maybe not to the extent that Twitter emphasizes.

If it could add another way to showcase the larger relevance of Tweets and the additional elements mentioned above, then additional sharing options such as these would likely better contribute to real growth for Twitter’s reach and scale.

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Sources

https://bit.ly/3RTFOhv