Evolution of Twitter

The Evolution of Twitter Through The Lens of First Tweets

As the world continues to become relentlessly more and more connected, social media is proving to be a tangible platform for organizations to foster connections and relationships with their audiences via their messaging. The CIA is a perfect example of a powerful entity that has recently started using social media in an attempt to establish a friendly, relatable, and approachable online presence. Last Friday they published their first tweet, featured below:

In honor of the most secretive branch of the US government’s first official social engagement, we decided to look at other large organizations’ first tweets over the last seven years in order to reveal an evolution in how brands have altered their approach to Twitter, and social media in general.

2007: Testing The Waters

In 2007, the early days of Twitter, brands weren’t really sure what to post or which means would be best for creating inclusive connections with their audiences. The first adaptors posted updates with hints of embellishment and/or self-consciousness. For example, Delta boasted about its MySpace friend requests, while some future industry giants tweeted about developing their products. 

2008: The Trend Catches On

In 2008, an influx of major brands posted their first tweets, mostly just saying “hello” and introducing themselves to the social sphere. A few savvy brands such as Walmart realized that Twitter could drive sales, and started incorporating links to promotion and shopping pages accordingly. Notable for being way ahead of the Twitter-humor trend (or perhaps just underestimating the new social network’s importance) Netflix jokingly promised to dedicate a bot to tweeting. Even Facebook began to utilize their recently established competitor, yet they grudgingly refused to get on the micro-message trend and used their tweet to sent out a link to a long-form blog post.

2009: Brands bring greater personality and humor 

In 2009, Twitter made the shift towards becoming more lighthearted and fun. Barbie and Google posted humorous and whimsical first tweets, while Coca-Cola got a jump-start on contributing to the huge reserve of goofy animal videos that Twitter maintains today. 

2010: Stimulating The Senses

In 2010, Twitter titillated the senses. Skittles tweeted the rainbow and Victoria’s Secret promised to begin crafting the sexiest tweets ever. Game of Thrones announced that winter is coming, and even Disney got on board with a slightly defensive first tweet regarding their role in the era of modern technology. 

2011: Time To Get On The Bandwagon

By 2011, most brands had already joined Twitter. However IBM, who got on the bandwagon a bit late, sent an assertive first tweet claiming that they had indeed been using the social network. 

2012 - Present: The Age of Personalization

From 2012 to present day, brands have become increasingly aware of the importance of personalization and engagement. Nowadays, brands don’t just market a product, but instead they strive to advertise a lifestyle and a community that their consumers can exemplify and belong to. 

The smart brands of today capitalize on the opportunity that social media provides by being able to connect and build relationships with their consumers on a personal level. If someone is experiencing a problem, social networks such as Twitter grant the ability for that problem to be heard, recognized, and solved via personally crafted engagements, all in real-time. The customer is then left feeling heard, appreciated, and important as the brand provides them personalized service.

While social media is an unprecedentedly useful tool in terms of customer service, without a proper unified social enterprise platform, the process of personalized engagement is made much more complicated than it needs to be. With Tracx, the process of customer service is made easy via in-dashboard workflow buttons that allow users to flag and tag specific content, assign posts to a particular team member, interact and respond in-line, and maintain logs of customer support activity.