How Twitter Can Grow Its User Base

Nathan Baker
Jul 27, 2017 · 3 min read

I saw yet another article today pointing fingers at Twitter on how it isn’t growing users and that stocks are suffering as a result. Been seeing these articles for years actually.

I’ve had Twitter for years but rarely used it on an active basis outside of client work until rather recently. It was something very palpable that got me hooked to the platform on a personal level: I kept seeing screenshots from Twitter being shared in communities outside of Twitter.

Very large and active communities on Reddit frequently share screenshots from Twitter. You’ll see this often on r/The_Donald and of course, r/BlackPeopleTwitter.

A Popular Post On r/BlackPeopleTwitter

Both communities are somewhat controversial, and for a time, you’d see both of them at the top of r/all very often, which shows all the top posts from all Reddit communities. Reddit actually changed its algorithm to hinder r/The_Donald from appearing so much.

The reason I use these two communities as examples is because they show very valuable things Twitter has to offer: breaking news, unique bite-sized political commentary, and comedy-gold.

Journalist Being Trolled On r/The_Donald

Twitter is often where things break first. It’s where all the journalists are breaking stories. It’s where all the comedians and aspiring-comedians go to test material and build audiences. Politicians and pundits are abundant on the platform. Then there’s all the celebrities, musicians, artists, and various insiders. Twitter is the platform for the thought-leaders of the world.

Twitter’s users may not be growing, but the thought-leaders aren’t going anywhere (unless of course Twitter outright bans them).

Do you notice just how often people share those gradient-colored text images on Facebook? This was a really smart move Facebook made to get users to share text statuses in easily digestible ways.

Facebook’s Text Status With Colored Background

It’d be more interesting if the thought-leaders were sharing like this in a major way because the ideas would be shared much more easily on Dark Social, aka all the private chats and group-chats that are taking over the truly active social media user base, be them on WhatsApp, Messenger, WeChat, etc.

The thought-leaders are already putting out great content on Twitter. The sharing process for the user to take these thoughts outside of the Twitter-sphere is just so cumbersome though.

You gotta take the screenshot, crop the image, then share. Some people might go through the effort, like those communities on Reddit, but most won’t.

So here’s the idea: Twitter should make a simple button to ‘Frame Tweet’ — creating that easily shareable image that can be passed along through various communities online. This would give so much exposure to Twitter and showcase its true value. It’d give the thought-leaders even more encouragement to call on fans to Frame Tweets and share everywhere.

They could make it this easy.

It worked on me. I’m guessing a whole lot of other people will take more interest in Twitter if they keep seeing Framed Tweets everywhere and might even get active on the platform.

Hope you take my free ‘Social Thinking’ advice, Twitter. Just be sure to credit me.

Nathan Baker

Written by

New Media in Shanghai — Social / Digital / Creative Marketer. Taking Chinese brands over the Great Firewall and APAC brands all over.

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