My Plan to Save Twitter
In two steps
Much ink has been spilt trying to ascertain the future of Twitter. Ever since the company’s IPO, it’s been a seemingly downward trajectory. The 5-year stock performance paints a dreary picture.
Then you get to the melodrama. The turnstile that has to be completely worn out from all the talent coming and going from Twitter HQ. The constant shifts in product development that ultimately left the product pretty stagnant. Above all, there’s the inability to grow its user-base in the way that Wall Street would deem necessary to vault the stock back to higher share prices.
On that last point, there’s a nice data set from Global Web Index that highlights how Twitter might be measuring the wrong thing. While only a fifth of the people surveyed admitted to actively using Twitter in Q2 2015, a full third admitted to having visited the network.
Twitter also has a harassment problem. This article does a really nice job of articulating the challenge the company faces when it comes to abuse. It’s no secret that Twitter has become a land rife with trolls, and that’s scaring off potential new users and new advertising revenue.
So how does Twitter show growth in active users with a platform that’s not designed for active usage by the vast majority and a problem with visitors seeing abuse occur in real-time? Well, in my opinion it shouldn’t be thinking about user growth as a priority at all.
Twitter doesn’t necessarily have a user growth problem. It absolutely has a business model problem. The company is chasing after the same benchmarks that Facebook touts — user growth as a way to grow revenue potential — because that’s what Wall Street is asking it (nay, demanding it) to do. I don’t believe that’s the right model.
Twitter should do two things:
1. Verify every single Twitter user as an actual person or entity
A lot of Twitter’s “active users” are not actual people, and the company has said so itself. This compounds both the advertising revenue problem and the harassment problem. How can you demonstrate to advertisers that your platform is a valuable medium to reach people when many of the users in said audience are bots? You can’t. I’ve worked with clients that have bots accounting for as high as 30% of their Twitter audience. Yikes. It’s hard to advocate for strategies and dollars towards a platform where 3 out of every 10 “people” you’d reach aren’t real. A stronger user verification system would narrow an advertiser’s reach, yes, but it would also create more value. Twitter could tout more effectively that advertisers will see a return on investments in their ad features. It’s also hard to tout Twitter as a fun, engaging space to for visitors to spend time when the engagement you’ll likely see most prevalent is anonymous “Eggheads” (profiles with no picture or background info) posting annoying to downright vitriolic hate speech.
Which brings me to my second point. If you’re going to verify every user and you’re willing to narrow the reach to make Twitter useful and safe…
2. Make Twitter a subscription-based network
Think about why people go to Twitter. It’s to stay on top of what’s happening in the world whether it’s current news, pop culture or live events. Twitter knows what it is — Jack Dorsey recently illuminated to CNBC that the company is all about live coverage, and recent deals with the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL put an exclamation on that proclamation. Twitter is a media hub. It should act like one. Charge a reasonable monthly rate (say, $3.99) for people to keep a profile and actively broadcast. The company could charge a bundled price for businesses with multiple accounts. For example, Nike would pay a larger subscription for the bazillion accounts it runs. This would re-frame the conversation with Wall Street about Twitters value and help to weed out the idiots who create multiple egghead accounts just troll or maliciously attack other users. Admittedly, a mechanism would need to be put in place to verify any visitors who leave comments, but that seems like something an engineering team could easily solve.
Doing this would give Twitter a potential new revenue stream apart from advertising — monthly subscription dues. It could also open new opportunities for content broadcast with other partners (“Hello, Netflix?”). And at the end of the day, the visitors coming to Twitter would find it to be a more interesting and safe place to spend time, thus giving them incentive to do just that. Isn’t that the point?
