Twitter, Snapchat Adopt New Looks To Attract More Users
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- New looks are coming to Twitter and Snapchat! The struggling social networks are changing up iconic features to gain more users.
Twitter is rolling out a 280-character limit for nearly all its users, abandoning its iconic 140-character limit for tweets. And Snapchat will revamp its app in hopes of becoming easier to use for everyone.
"These organizations don't need social media strategy, what they need is brand strategy," said Matthew Ray, cofounder and creative director of Chatterblast Media. "They need to look at their brand and their product and their audience and really say this is what we are to people and this is where we are going to focus."
During the third quarter, Twitter averaged 330 million monthly users, up just one percent and Snapchat added 4.5 million daily users in the quarter to 178 million, up three percent.
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But those numbers pale next to social media giant Facebook, which reported its monthly users rose 16 percent to 2.07 billion.
"What Twitter should be focusing on is giving us the things that we loved about Twitter," Ray said. "It was a microblogging platform, now they're giving up macro blog options, not a good idea. Focus on the micro, the instantaneous, on the immediate."
"Snap could dominate the junior high, high school crowd for every generation moving forward in the same way Nickelodeon kinda does, Ray said. "You could eventually just say, just like I'm no longer going to buy Garanimals, I'm no longer going to use Snapchat, I'm going to roll into Instagram, then Facebook and I'm going to die on LinkedIn."
While Snapchat has not elaborated on exactly what changes are coming to the platform, Twitter's changes have been met with mixed emotions.