In its ongoing play to diversify revenue and evolve its business, the under-monetized Twitter continues to make moves that address SMB marketing needs. Shortly after launching “Product Drop” for online merchants, its latest SMB-centric announcement comes with this week’s Location Spotlight.
Specifically, this lets SMBs add listings-esque content to their Twitter profiles, including location, contact info, and hours of operation. Users will see this content when they go to a given business’ profile, which is linked directly from its handle, wherever it shows up on Twitter (web) or clients like TweetDeck.
Material & Metadata
Going a bit deeper on Location Spotlight’s selling points, it’s meant to drive action by offering utility beyond business reference material and metadata. For example, if users tap on a business’s location in their profile, it will launch the device’s default mapping app, such as Google Maps, for directions.
The same goes for contact info. Linked text will launch a given function – be it email, phone or text. These will default to the user’s default apps for those functions. As a side note, this involves a tradeoff for Twitter: It’s a utility for users and businesses but it bounces people away from the app.
Overall, the best way to think about Location Spotlight is like a knowledge panel or one-box listing in Twitter. In a similar sense, it’s like the business cards seen in Google Maps, containing several calls to action for business interaction. This essentially formalizes business info into a more structured UX.
As for availability, Location Spotlight is free (along with several other features) in Twitter’s Professional Accounts. This broader program is also free and is positioned as a way to ease businesses into using Twitter as a marketing tool. Once there, the hope is that some convert to paid advertisers.
Lower-Funnel Action
One thing that jumps out from Location Spotlight is that it positions Twitter further down the funnel. This is congruent with its recent moves towards shoppability. Twitter has been more of a reach medium for upper-funnel brand awareness. But like many other players, it’s moving towards lower-funnel action.
As we’ve examined, there are several factors driving the shoppability movement. One is revenue diversification and growth. Another is to be a more attractive acquisition channel for advertisers, given more comprehensive end-to-end attribution. And yet another reason is the privacy-first era.
To expand on that last point, privacy reform has cracked down on third-party data. This puts additional value on first-party data, and players like Amazon that house most of the funnel – from discovery to direct response – under one roof. This is driving everyone to be an all-in-one eCommerce play.
That’s a bit of a tangent from the new Location Spotlight feature, but it relates here in the broader down-funnel shift. Listings data is decidedly boring and misaligned with Twitter’s overall product persona. But the company clearly sees a revenue opportunity in becoming more of an SMB marketing channel.
Near-Term Footing
That brings us full circle to revenue diversification and growth. Twitter is known to be under-monetized considering its global usage, engagement levels, and cultural influence. Now, amid varying shades of a management shakeup, new products and features are being devised left and right.
Expect this trend to continue as Twitter finds its footing in the near term. Meanwhile, the new Location Spotlight feature is available for Twitter Professional account users in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia. More locales and details will likely surface as Twitter rolls out the feature and iterates.
