Twitter recently announced some additions to their channel which will have a positive effect on social media marketing services and brands that uses Twitter with their social media strategy. Twitter is keeping the reverse chronological stream of activity, but two tabs have been added, the “activity tab” and the “@username” tab.

The @username tab replaces the @mention tab that will include all the activity including or directed at the user and extending it beyond replies. This means that the @username tab will show who is following you, who has favourited your tweets, who has added you to a list and who has re tweeted any of your tweets.  This is a more convenient way of ensuring that you do not miss out on any opportunities for engagement on Twitter.

The new “activity stream” is a combined feed of the activities of the users that you follow on Twitter, showing you information on who they follow, what they favourite, their re tweets, etc.  The same with the main feed, the messages comes through in real-time, allowing for interaction from users as they see fit.  This also allows you to follow new Twitter users that your connections have followed.  As these new services are still being rolled out, it is still unknown how it will be received.  These changes are very much only extensions of the core service and I believe that little should change if users are not behind the new and improved feed options.

New activity feed

The improved activity feed has the potential of opening up the “favourite” option which will allow users to give approval to certain tweets.  This will work in similar fashion to the Facebook “like” button.  This feature has been around for quite some time now but through exposing favourites, the feature may acquire some social media purpose within the site. These Twitter changes are very similar to the changes on Facebook to lesser their feed filter and opening up user activity to other people. These changes could have very similar implications for online marketers despite a lack of Facebook app integration.

What does this mean for online marketers?

Online marketers will be able to reach other people connected to the people that are following them. I believe this is great as online marketers might find themselves getting attention in a manner which is just as public, but more activity driven and focused on engagement.

Online marketers may find themselves being followed because other people are trusting their connection’s judgement.  They might even find their message “favourited” in a public space and with all the changes to the @mention tab, they will find all the activity regarding their brands in one place.

While it’s never easy to stay on top of all the noise on Twitter, adding usability features without taking anything away from the core features of Twitter, these changes could make things a bit easier for everyone.