Important New Features For Businesses on Twitter

Mashable recently reported that businesses that use Twitter are going to have new features coming their way soon! (No word on cost yet). Here are two features that you will impact those of you who use Twitter for your companies:

1) Receive Direct Messages from Twitter users you are not following. Currently, Twitter only allows you to send a DM to someone who is following you. But that limits the ability for customers/prospects/etc to contact a company without the company following them back. This will change that and allow DMs from those you are not following. (I hope they have a great spam solution for this!)

2) Multiple users. This feature already exists in different forms on several Twitter tool platforms, such as HootSuite and CoTweet, but this potentially provides a more elegant solution. But two questions remain: Will this functionality extend to 3rd party apps AND does this mean Twitter will begin to encroach on Twitter apps themselves?

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Brent Williams wrote:

But two questions remain: Will this functionality extend to 3rd party apps AND does this mean Twitter will begin to encroach on Twitter apps themselves?

Twitter has already started to encroach onto the third party apps in the shear fact that they have released their own official Twitter clients to the three major mobile platforms: iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry (it appears that they work closely with RIM in development on their client). I only say this because their clients are the only ones that are actually called "Twitter" or "Official Twitter" client, so when the average user searches in their apps store, it will be the first one to come up. This and the fact that it will be attached to the Twitter.com name, will surely make it so that most users just starting on the service or adding it to their mobile device will pick this client first.

The only saving grace for the third party app might be the introduction of ads in the twitter stream. The third party apps might be able to filter these "fake" tweets out of your view of the stream. But only time will tell on this fact.

Brent I also hope they have some serious spam protection otherwise that's a quick way to close down the appeal of twitter.

I'm kinda grumpy at all these changes going on right now with Twitter and Facebook. I feel like with such a wide user base there should be more user controls as to whether or not we want businesses to be able to DM us if we aren't following. no like!

Elysa, maybe I read it wrong, but I thought that the DM's only went one direction - to the business. So they won't be able to spam you, but you will be able to DM them if they are not following you. (I'm sure that will be an option in the settings) But from a business perspective, I would still be worried about spam from other accounts though.

Alan, I'm really torn on the idea of filtering out ads. I use a popup blocker on my browser, so I'm guilty in that respect, but from a website owner point of view, I realize that those ads are what help keep websites going. I think it's the website's responsibility to keep the ads minimally invasive, but I think it's the user's responsibility to realize that is why the service is free... In fact, I think more users should take a moment to click on banners and find out about the advertisers, because without them free websites like MFI would die. Just my perspective, though!

Brent,

You bring up a very good point about advertising on web site and the need to be minimally invasive or risk losing the eyeballs that fund you. Here's a great article regarding this "ethical" advertising dilemma and a very popular FireFox app:

www.slate.com/id/2218386?nav=wp

Leigh

Interesting article, especially coming from a publisher. I don't think the "elegant" solution is all that great however, because how many people would actually opt-in for ads, even on a website they really enjoy? The biggest issue I think is that many readers just don't realize the relationship between ads and the sustainability of a given website... I love this quote from that article:

The Web is governed by an unwritten contract: You get nearly everything for free in exchange for the hassle of a few ads hovering on the periphery—and occasionally across the whole screen for a few seconds. Advertising probably supports a huge swath of the sites you regularly visit. It's obvious how rampant ad blocking hurts the Web: If every passenger siphons off a bit of fuel from the tank before the plane takes off, it's going to crash.

I certainly understand the relationship -- and though I loved the idea of the "no advertising" app available for FireFox -- I decided not to install it.

I'm looking forward to digging into the new features. I think companies will find the multiple user feature to be very useful, and the fact that anyone can DM a business account could be huge for customer service and anyone who uses "one free consultation" offers for lead gen.

As far as third-party apps go, I think it's in Twitter's best interests to keep developers happy, but they also need to improve their own features to make the site easier for those of us who aren't power users. Buying up some of the best apps out there is an easy way to do that. And the more people feel comfortable using the site, the better it will be for Twitter (and for marketers using the site successfully for their businesses).

Going back to a question someone once posed on Facebook...What does Twitter do to get you leads or leases? I am not familiar with this Twitter as much as you all but was wondering what one could do with 32 characters to effectively market your community. Is this Twitter just to update community functions or to market your apartment community? Just asking so that we can effectively use this source which everyone says we need to be on...I have had 7 leases come from Facebook but never in my time in Oklahoma had someone come from Twitter. How many lease have you all got from this site?