Twitter SWOT Analysis
Founded in 2006, Twitter was one of the first social media platforms, starting out as a social networking and micro-blogging website.
The very first tweet that went online was from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, saying, “Just setting up my Twitter”
Over time, the website developed into a platform that connects people all around the globe. It not only serves as a news source about global events but also lets businesses/companies connect with their prospects.
Today, anyone with a decent following can create an impact through the platform by creating powerful content.
To understand the social media platform better, let’s do a SWOT analysis.
Twitter Strengths
Hashtags
No internet user will deny the effectiveness of Twitter hashtags. Hashtags are probably the most prominent feature of Twitter.
Twitter has a massive userbase of about 300 million. Get enough people to use a hashtag and you can make any topic ridiculously viral on the platform.
A couple of examples areALS Association’s #IceBucketChallenge and Coca-Cola’s #ShareACoke.
Market Share
Market share reflects the popularity and size of a company with respect to its competitors. In the social media market, Twitter boasts an impressive market share of 23.79 percent as of May 2021.
And, probably the more important thing is that it increased from a mere 4.53 percent in 2017. That should be enough data to prove that Twitter is still growing.
As more and more people invest in the platform, the market share of Twitter is only projected to go up.
Marketing Power
Twitter has been a great source of marketing for its users. It provides an effective platform where brands and organizations can connect with prospects and customers.
Celebrities and political figures have huge fanbases on Twitter that they can connect to. Moreover, it’s also great for Business-to-business marketing.
Brand
Twitter is easily one of the most popular brands out there. People can easily recognize its name, logo (bird), and color, which is evidence of its popularity and success.
Twitter has established itself as a trustworthy and reputable brand. And, thanks to the ever-increasing popularity of social media, it’s only going to solidify more.
Influence
As more and more people are jumping on the bandwagon of using social media to connect, Twitter keeps on increasing its influence.
A go-to Channel for Celebrities and Businesses
Twitter is a perfect place for businesses to get in touch with their prospects. For instance, giants like Google announce their news on Twitter. It provides an effective platform where everyone related to an industry can gather.
Companies also use Twitter to cater to customer queries and offer customer service more effectively.
Moreover, celebrities with massive followings also tend to have credible Twitter profiles. As it’s a micro-blogging site, celebrities can share their thoughts precisely and easily.
First-mover Advantage
Twitter has been on the scene since 2006, a time when social media was a new phenomenon. So, it enjoys the first-mover advantage.
The longer a company is in business, the more it is able to build rapport and trust with the prospects.
Real-time Nature
When you think of Twitter, the one word that comes to your mind is “Trending”. It’s the real-time nature of the platform that makes it powerful.
What’s trending today might not be the talk of the town the next day. The real-time nature of Twitter lets the content trend across the globe.
You can even see the trending topics on Twitter. This lets a common user know what’s popular, attracting more engagement.
Data
Data is something Twitter can use to develop a more profitable revenue model for itself. You see, Twitter has around 300 million users.
And, many of them won’t be using paid ads because of several possible reasons. What the company can do is, make the ad platform more user-friendly and effective.
Provide incentives to the businesses and organizations on the platform so that more and more advertisers can join in.
Free
You already know how attractive free stuff can be. Anyone wanting to socialize can join the platform and build a community there for free.
This makes it quite an attraction for social media enthusiasts around the world. Plus, it’s fairly easy to sign up on the platform and anyone can use it.
Directly Connects Organizations/celebrities to Common People
Another strength of Twitter is that it has a great reputation for maintaining authentic celebrity accounts. This lets the fans or followers connect directly with their favorite celebrities, maintaining an engaging environment.
Plus, companies can also have their authentic accounts where they can connect with the prospects and existing customers.
They can establish a trust-based relationship on Twitter. This lets them boost their reach and conversions more effectively.
Availability of Influencer in a Variety of Topics
This one would probably be one of the most attractive things of the platform for businesses trying to reach more prospects.
Influencer marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing out there. It leverages the trust an influencer builds with an audience in a particular industry.
This way, businesses don’t have to build their audiences from scratch. They get a sizeable audience off the rack.
Not only does this save time for marketers, but it also is quite cost-effective.
Twitter has a lot of influencers in a variety of industries, making it an attraction for businesses in those industries.
Twitter Weaknesses
Limits
As impactful as they might be, Twitter tweets can’t be longer than a certain word count. Also, a user can’t post more than a set number of tweets in a day.
You can only type a tweet that’s less than or equal to 280 characters. This can make covering a topic or expressing a detailed thought difficult sometimes.
Publishers have to write a full thought in short parts, which can lead to a frustrating userexperience.
As for the number of tweets per day, the platform limits you to post as many as 2400 tweets. So, while it can be a noticeable limit for some, most users don’t need to post extravagantly.
Option to Turn Off Ads
As an advertising company, Twitter doesn’t make the most out of its huge user base. Users can turn off interest-based ads if they want on Twitter.
This means advertisers are able to target lesser people, which leads to a lower profit for the social media platform as well.
Cyber Crime
This one might not be particular to Twitter. As the digital space becomes popular, more and more fake accounts are emerging.
Despite regulations and monitoring, cybercrime is prevalent on Twitter. So, you’ll see people of all kinds on the platform.
Fake accounts and bots also tend to flood the website as they are pretty difficult to identify and eradicate.
Catering to malice and cybercrime has become tricky because of fake accounts. When you can’t know who is behind the screen, you can’t take impactful action.
So, while it’s still a relatively safe platform for the public and celebrities, there have been incidents of cybercrime.
Misuse
The fact that anyone around the world can sign up on Twitter easily makes it vulnerable to exploitation.
See, Twitter is an incredible platform to start a movement and mobilize the masses, but this also means that anyone can use it for their own good.
For instance, some controversial organizations using the platform to mobilize the masses against certain governments/people.
Revenue Model
The revenue model of Twitter majorly depends on advertisements. So, ads are the primary source of the platform’s earnings.
This can be concerning for the long-term growth of the business as it’s a relatively weak revenue model. Especially when you consider the operational and expansion costs.
However, it’s not something that’s difficult to fix. Efficient resource allocation and improving the revenue system could be the way to go.
Lack of Innovation
Although Twitter has been one of the most popular and loved social media platforms, it hasn’t been great at creativity.
As far as the homepage and userexperience is concerned, it does lack a little bit there. Especially when you compare it to its competitor Facebook
A new user might take a bit of time to get used to the design of the Twitter homepage.
Lack of Security
Plus, Twitter also hasn’t been successful at keeping the user data secure on numerous occasions. This resulted in data leaks to third parties.
Low Retention Rate
Attracting the users should only be part of the strategy. A social media platform should retain its users through engagement.
However, the 40% retention rate of Twitter doesn’t show much strength in this department. So, in addition to attracting social media users, the company needs to retain them as well.
Unequal Tweet Distribution
Twitter boasts an over-300 million user base. But, not all of them participate. In fact, 90% of the tweets come from 10% of its users.
This is a heavy reliance on a minority of the platform’s users. So, the growth of the platform is majorly dependent on those top 10% of users.
Twitter Opportunities
Thanks to the unparalleled power of Twitter in influencing the masses, it provides many great opportunities to content producers.
Inspiration
Rising competition shouldn’t be hurtful for a business, be it a small startup or a social media giant like Twitter.
Competition can be a good thing. It lets a business identify problems and opportunities in its strategy and grow further.
For Twitter, social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook should be an inspiration. Even if Twitter is superior in any aspect, it doesn’t hurt to learn from others’ success and grow in the right direction.
For instance, as we’ve discussed before, there have been incidents in the past where user data got leaked. The inspiration could be to invest more in security technology.
Plus, social media platforms are continuously working for a better userexperience. Twitter seems to lack in that department too. It could take inspiration from Facebook, which is consistently evolving its platform, even if it’s for testing purposes.
Revenue Model
As I’ve discussed before, Twitter might need to expand its revenue by incorporating new strategies. As far as ads are concerned, the platform can expand into mobile advertisement as there is continuous growth in that market.
A Better Customer Service Platform for Organizations
While Twitter is already an effective tool for customer-business communication, it has the opportunity to become a more structured one.
Integrations
While it has integration with a few platforms, Twitter can certainly increase its traffic with more integrations.
Invite More Celebrities and Businesses
Twitter already has a reputation of having credible celebrity accounts. It can use this reputation to attract even more celebrities and influencers.
This will eventually mean more businesses and organizations connecting with their prospects and employees, respectively.
Bring Twitter Moments in the Mainstream
There is a chance that you might not even know what Twitter moments are. They are stories from around the world.
As of now, Twitter moments aren’t that popular and seem like they are on a different platform. What Twitter can do is, make it more integrated into the platform.
This way, the platform can bring more traffic.
Improvement in User-experience
A pleasant user experience is probably the most important aspect of a social media platform. Something Facebook has been pretty successful at.
Unfortunately, Twitter doesn’t seem to bring about many changes in the way users interact with the platform.
It seems like it isn’t putting enough investment into innovation and userexperience. There is still time to do that though.
Improving the user experience will eventually lead to more users.
Pivoting Into the Search Engine Market
This might not sound like something doable immediately. But, the kind of data and reputation Twitter has, it has an opportunity to pivot into the search engine market.
Twitter Threats
Revenue Model
Again, there is room for improvement in Twitter’s revenue model. Other social media platforms like Facebook are evolving with time and Twitter needs to be financially stable to be able to grow.
Security Concerns
This one is a serious threat as users are becoming more and more security-conscious because of data breaches in the past. People are concerned about the usage of their data now more than ever.
A common social media user either wants a secure social media account or no account at all. So, to make users engaged on the platform, it’s necessary to offer them the necessary peace of mind.
The platform needs to come up with strategies that can guarantee users’ data protection so that they can use the platform more confidently.
Competitors
Although Twitter is a little different from other social media platforms, its competitors like Facebook are continuously evolving for the better.
The high competition in the social media market makes it imperative for Twitter to keep on the path of improvement.
If Twitter doesn’t absorb the younger generation, other platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and Facebook will.
When there is more competition, you need to invest in marketing and innovation. While Twitter seems to be doing pretty well in retaining its existing users, attracting new users is also important.
New Entrants
Not only the existing competitors, but the new entrants in the social media market can also be a threat toTwitter.
As the barrier to entry is low and the market is huge, more and more innovative social media platforms are entering the market.
So, Twitter needs to tighten the screws on innovation and user-friendliness to compete in the industry.
Pressures
Twitter also faces pressure from not only investors but also governments. This can affect the platform’s proper functioning.
And, because Twitter can be pretty impactful when it comes to movements, governments try to curb freedom of expression.
Fake Celebrity Accounts
Another threat to the social media platform is that it’s pretty easy to create fake celebrity accounts on it. This can ultimately be harmful to the platform’s brand image.
Fake accounts have also been attributed to online harassment. So, it’s a grave threat for the company and a challenge to keep it safe and authentic for the masses.
Conclusion
Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms with a user base of over 300 million. In addition to having a huge market share, it carries a top reputation.
Although it continues to be one of the few social media platforms that dominate the market, it still needs to invest in innovation.
The recent user data security and privacy concerns are genuinely threatening to the sanctity of the platform.
A prominent weakness of Twitter is that it’s not as profitable as other platforms like Facebook. So, it needs to develop a more effective revenue model.
That said, the platform still boasts a major chunk of the market. And, by making a few tweaks here and there in its strategy, it can give a tough time to giants like Facebook.
