Twitter just launched new tests for its reformatted explore tab, which displays Tweets in full-screen, vertical scrolling format, pretty much like how TikTok presents its content feeds. Twitter’s supposedly ‘new’ format has an eerie semblance to that of TikTok’s, down to the ‘For You’ and ‘Trending’ tabs.
On Display
The new display pretty much says ‘TikTok on Twitter’, with a navigation bar at the bottom, once again underlining just how much influenceTikTok now has on social media and its various areas of development. With TikTok essentially being the trend-leader, every other social platform is now vying to create their own version of its highly effective format.
You could even argue that Instagram’s Stories had a similar effect, again with almost every platform trying their best to emulate TikTok’s full-screen display, with some even going as far as to incorporate their own variation of tap-to-advance posts. Despite multiple ‘copies’ now popping up left and right, and even with most of its major competitors now having, in a way, their own versions of TikTok-inspired features, the ‘TikTok Effect’ just seems to grow more pronounced. It makes sense why it would be wise for other platforms to align themselves with the same habitual trends in an attempt to provide a more compelling user experience; something that Twitter is finally also jumping in on.
Yet, the ‘copy game’ doesn’t really give much in terms of credibility and outlook. In fact, merely producing a xerox of already existing features on other platforms has the opposite effect – it makes you look cheap, and even lazy, choosing to instead follow-suit with what everybody else is doing, instead of divulging resources and time in order to come up with totally new ideas.
Regardless, business is business and, emotions aside, if this gets Twitter more users, then it works. Based on recent observations, it can be hypothesized that full-screen content feeds are intuitively-designed to encourage discovery and exploration. In using the same format, Twitter hopes to improve user discovery, which, in turn, helps improve its overall discovery experience, potentially boosting its platform’s ‘exposure’ factor.
Twitter is using a double-edged sword right now, because while it does have the potential to significantly boost its relevance, lack of mastery when it comes to personalized, algorithm-based content feeding can also cause its efforts to totally backfire. Case and point, TikTok is very good at giving you more of stuff that you like or would like, effectively keeping you glued to your screen for hours on end. Instagram Reels tried, but isn’t as successful. Twitter, at least right now, is way lower than Instagram when it comes to relevant content-feeding.
The Wrap
At least on a specified range, TikTok’s algorithm is unmatched. Every platform is trying to crack it, with Instagram probably being the closest in terms of success. If you want a template for crafting a feed solely for ‘Aimless Entertainment’, then TikTok’s ‘For You’ feed is the best example.
While Twitter may be able to replicate the same UI, that’s pretty much as far as it currently goes in terms of creating a TikTok-like experience on its network. It’ll be interesting to see if Twitter would actually see higher explore engagement with this new display, which, if it does, not only spells good for Twitter, but also further attests to TikTok’s masterful use of key trend elements.
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