Twitter’s Activity Tab and What it Means for Marketers

November 11, 2011

Written By:
Ryan Vet

As you many have noticed, Twitter got a bit of an upgrade. Your @Mentions tab is now gone and has been replaced with two new tabs, “@” and “Activity.” Though it may seem like a subtle update at first, this is a major renovation that has made Twitter social in a whole new way.

The New Twitter Activity Stream

Interaction on Twitter was mainly limited to retweets and mentions. There was really no way for people to be kept up to speed on tweets getting marked as a “Favorite” or even to see who your friends started following. Now, like Facebook, Twitter has implemented the “Activity” stream which is extremely similar to the Facebook News Feed. It shows you who your friends recently followed and allows you to follow those people right from the Activity stream. Overall the Activity feed is supposed to show you the snapshot of what is going on with the people you follow on Twitter.

The @ Tab on Twitter

Another huge features is the “Mentions” tab being replaced by the “@” tab. This tab now shows everything that has happened in direct relation to your Twitter handle. It will tell you everything that is going on with your account. It tells you who has recently followed you, who has @-replied to you or mentioned you as well as who has marked your tweets as favorites and who has retweeted your tweets.

What this Means for Marketers

Whenever a social platform gets updated, it’s important to analyze how the new features can be maximized for social media marketing. One of the big things the Activity feed does is that it allows your followers to see who you started following, what tweets you retweeted, who you replied to and who you favorited. That being said, the biggest word of marketing advice I can offer is be careful, more now than ever about how you interact on Twitter because people are more likely to see what you are doing without having to look quite as far. At the same time, leverage this public display to your advantage! If you want to make people see what you’re up to, interact a lot so you appear frequently in their Activity timeline.

Overall Thoughts and First Impressions on Twitter Activity and @ Tabs

Quiet honestly, while I think Twitter made a move in the right direction as far as making Twitter even more social and interactive, I feel the features were poorly implemented and quite confusing to use. I have a hunch Twitter will reevaluate some of their changes and continue to tweak the streams until they have perfected their new features. The biggest issue is the user interface and the ease of use of the new features. It looks cluttered and is very confusing.

What are your thoughts on Twitter’s new Activity tab and @ Tab?

Ryan Vet

Thanks for stopping by my blog! A bit about me, I’m an entreprenuer, author
and speaker. This gives me the opportunity to travel the globe. Plus, I get to host a TV series called Sip’d and I’m a Sommelier and wine enthusiast.

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