by samTwitter announced some additions to its service today. While it’s keeping its reverse chronological stream of activity, two tabs have been added, the ‘@username’ tab and the ‘activity’ tab, which may have a positive effect on Internet marketing services and brands alike who use Twitter as part of their SMO strategies.
The @username tab replaces the @mention tab, extending beyond replies and including all activity including or directed at the user. This means this tab will show who’s followed you, who’s added you to a list, who’s favourited something that you’ve tweeted, or if any of your content has been retweeted. It’s generally a more convenient way of ensuring that you don’t miss any opportunities for interaction on Twitter.
The ‘activity stream’ is a feed of the activities of those that you follow, conveying information like who they follow, what they favourite, who they retweet, etc. As with the unchanged main feed, these messages come through in real-time, allowing people to interact as they see fit with the doings of others, including the ability to follow those that your connections have followed. As the services are only being rolled out to a select few users today, it’s unknown how they will be received, but as these sections are very much extensions of the core service, little should change if users are not behind the new feed options.
The activity feed has the potential to open up the ‘favourite’ option, which allows users to approve certain tweets similarly to the Facebook ‘like’ button. The feature has been around for a long time, but through exposing ‘favourite’, the feature may acquire some social purpose within the site (websites such as ‘Favstar’ have provided this feature externally). The changes themselves are similar in form to Facebook’s recent attempts to lessen their feed filter and open up user activity to others, and the changes could have similar implications for Internet marketers despite a lack of Facebook’s app integration.
Marketers will reach people outside of those who are already following them. If you’re inclined to believe the cliche that actions speak louder than words, these changes bode well for Internet marketers, who might find themselves getting attention in a manner that is just as public but more activity-driven.
Marketers may find themselves being followed because people trust connections’ judgement; they might find their words ‘favourited’ in a public space, and with the changes to the @mention tab, they may find all Twitter activity regarding their brands in one place. While it’s not always easy to stay on top of Twitter activity through words alone, through adding usability without taking anything away, these Twitter tweaks could make things a bit easier for everyone.