In defence of Twitter: its true value goes beyond share price
Since its inception, Twitter has been the media darling – journalists love it, it’s in the news all the time and Katie Hopkins fly-tips her nonsense all over it. It even has a few revolutions to its name.
At the moment though, something different is happening. Twitter’s being surrounded by storm clouds. Ominous, portentous ones at that. Its share price is slipping, it doesn’t have a permanent CEO, it just can't get people to use the blasted thing, and investors are getting itchy pants and divesting – notably Harvard and co. just recently. Whisper it... perhaps Twitter isn’t the cash cow we all expected it to be.
Twitter’s revenue is up, but monthly user numbers have stagnated at around 316 million – while Facebook moves on like a leviathan, with 1.5 billion monthly active users. That's something like one in every six people on this planet using it every month. Numbers that Twitter’s board can only dream of. But when was the last time Facebook spurred a revolution or hosted a celebrity spat?
Why is Twitter struggling? The clue could be in the fact that there are around 600 million accounts lying dormant. This graveyard of unused accounts seems to point to an understanding gap – and let’s be honest, the user interface when you sign up is a bit of a pig; I don't want to follow 20 random celebs who don't say much of anything. And not to mention the learning curve required – there are fundamental principles of Twitter usage that are hard to grasp. In fact, I spent most of 2008 despising Twitter, thinking it would never catch on. But what do I know?
Maybe we could use the sign-up process to introduce the fundamentals of Twitter usage. The point is that currently, the barrier to entry remains too high. Making some simple changes to Twitter’s user experience in order to demonstrate its simplicity and immediacy (without it becoming a Facebook clone) could play to the platform’s strengths and power its growth.
All of this talk of Twitter’s crisis got me thinking: what is Twitter's true value? Is value just how much money a social network (or anything for that matter) can generate and deliver back to investors? ROI is important. The lights have to be kept on, and clever people kept on the payroll. The business needs to grow and develop and that takes some serious green. But maybe we need to widen the definition of value to encompass a few other areas. Society. Politics. Culture. Education. Love. Hate. Ordering Domino's with emoji. I could go on.
Twitter’s immediacy and its ability to allow instant and seamless messaging has enabled it to revolutionise communication far more than any other social network. From customer service to following a football match, Twitter has changed the way we consume media, interact with people and (of course) troll celebrities.
Twitter gave us the hashtag, a completely overused but genius way of organising information. Look at any advert, TV show, music video... there it is, urging you to join a conversation curated by millions of people, brands and organisations. More than the @ mention, this # device has had a profound cultural impact. Facebook copied it, after all.
Social media in its purest form is conversation, and that’s what Twitter’s all about. It also drives real creativity with its 140 character limit. But its true value is in the way it has changed society and the way we view our role in it. We are no longer passive recipients of information – we share and talk back. Twitter is our collective voice, and our right to reply, heard whether people like it or not – a buzz of millions of minds vibrating on the same frequency, holding to account those in power and changing businesses for the better.
Twitter needs to grow as a business, and provide value to shareholders who will enable it to continue the change it has begun. But how can this medium, which is so important to our global narrative, not just survive financially but grow its value beyond it? Revenue is only one part of the answer.
Daniel Price is head of social operations at Lost Boys