What do expanded tweets mean for content marketing?
June 14th, 2012
A tweet is simply 140 characters to put your opinion or content across, right?
Not any more, as Twitter has unveiled a new expanded tweets function for partner sites that enables their followers to see a whole lot more before they click through to any website links posted.
Twitter plays an important role in content marketing plans. As the ContentPlus Anatomy of Content Marketing infographic explains, a sixth of both Facebook and Twitter users are more likely or recommend a brand they follow. More than two-thirds of those on Twitter would more likely purchase a product or service from a company they follow, while over half of firms find customers on the social networking site.
SMEs could certainly benefit from this new feature should it be launched for all businesses in the future. Expanded tweets on both the desktop and mobile sites that include website links will enable people to view images, play videos and see content previews, including headlines, bylines and sometimes even the Twitter account of the author.
Our head of social media Amanda Kouwenhoven commented: "Expanded tweets will allow those with access to it to complement their post with rich content. This could encourage more followers to visit the business's website to read more, and also help to further increase levels of engagement directly on Twitter."
Until these expanded tweets are available for you, there are a lot of things you can do to put your best foot forward.
Orange recently revealed that more people are looking for small businesses on Twitter, which means should you spot someone asking for a particular product or service, you need to get in there quickly before your rivals beat you to it.
We also compiled our own list of how to behave on Twitter, including asking your followers lots of questions so they think as though you care, getting as many retweets as possible and integrating the social networking site into your content marketing plans.
And if you want to know what not to do on Twitter, this recent ContentPlus story should give you a helping hand.
What do you think?