Twitter is making good on its promises.
Today, the social networking site announced two new features from its November “coming soon” roster: native video and group messaging. A more intuitive video experience won’t just open up a whole new world for active users, but also add another tool to the savvy brand’s social marketing bag of tricks.
But will the service’s latest round of updates help achieve its goal of building “the largest daily audience in the world“?
Native video tools
With native video capabilities, users will be able to capture, edit and share 30-second videos all within the platform. Twitter’s iPhone users can upload videos from their camera roll as well (the feature is coming soon to Android, too). Twitter product director Jinen Kamdar announced on the blog:
In just a few taps you can add a video to unfolding conversations, share your perspective of a live event, and show your everyday moments instantly, without ever having to leave the app.
We’re more than a little excited that none other than Neil Patrick Harris beat everyone to the punch with the first video published using the new video feature:
Check out my Twitter video #Oscar exclusive! I gots me a scoop! pic.twitter.com/SGQ3oJHDqZ
— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) January 27, 2015
From a brand and social marketing perspective, this release gives two sides of the video coin to choose from: organic and Promoted Video. While Twitter has supported Vine and GIFs for some time, now your boots-on-the-ground social marketing team can share real-time video directly within the app, in addition to paid video advertising. (If you’re not sure where to start with Promoted Video, Twitter released this guide earlier this month.)
Private group messaging
While group chat is nothing new on social media platforms, group Direct Messaging (or DM) adds an interesting dynamic to the widely public experience of Twitter. This new function allows you to start a conversation with any of your followers, and they don’t need to follow each other to take part in the chat. Group DM lets you share Tweets, links, photos and emoji.
Kamdar told Wired, “The people you interact with on Twitter—publicly and privately—tend to be people you don’t know in real life,” he says. “We think that the conversations you have with group DM could only happen on our app.”
These features aren’t available to all users yet, but confirmed they’ll be rolling out across the network over the next few weeks. And it’s best to check for these updates within the official Twitter app, as the platform has no control over when third-party apps roll out its new features.
Do you already have access to these features? Leave us a comment with your take.