Twitter is making itself more appealing to businesses such as retailers and restaurants that operate physical locations. That’s because Twitter recently made it possible for businesses to update their profiles location, hours, and additional contact methods that make businesses more findable. This change may mean Twitter is trying to become a better destination for consumers looking for things to buy, whether they do so online or visit a physical location.
What Twitter Announced, and What Businesses Should Do
Twitter announced that professional accounts (which are designated for businesses, brands, creators, and publishers) may capitalize on a new Location Spotlight feature. Location Spotlight allows a professional account to display their location, hours of operation, and additional contact methods. Features of Location Spotlight include:
- Business location: this is listed and shown on a small map in the profile spotlight. People can tap on the location map/listing to open Google Maps, or their default map app, for easier navigation to the business’s space.
- Hours of operation: this field is optional but can be customized to showcase the days and times businesses want people to visit their location.
- Methods of contact information: when the contact button in the spotlight is enabled, it can kick off one or more of the following directly to the business: phone call, text message, direct message, or email.
This news demonstrates Twitter’s intent to capitalize on the rise of location-based marketing which uses both paid and organic content to generate business at the local level. (This post and this post contain more detail defining the concept.) Twitter’s ad products include geo-targeting by location, and the company has launched shopping options that make it easier for people to buy from businesses through Twitter, which is a boon especially for retailers (including those that operate local storefronts).
Twitter also offers to qualifying professional accounts a feature known as Shop Spotlight. This is a dedicated space to showcase products at the top of a Professional Account where businesses can showcase their products. When this spotlight is enabled, potential customers can scroll through the carousel of products and tap through on a single product to learn more and purchase – in an in-app browser, without having to leave Twitter.
The launch of new content features can mean that a platform is priming the pump for more advertising products, and this is probably the case with Twitter especially as Amazon Ads expands into local advertising. Online commerce is a trillion dollar industry, and digital platforms such as Twitter, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok want to capture more revenue from this booming market. Location-based marketing is one way of doing so – while integrating with offline commerce, too.
We recommend businesses activate this feature if it applies to you. Twitter explains how to do so here. We also recommend that businesses with physical locations watch for an uptick in ad services from Twitter, as the company seeks to find more sources of ad revenue from businesses with multiple locations. We will do all the monitoring for our clients at True Interactive!
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Lead image source: https://unsplash.com/@alexbemore
