After receiving several criticisms from it’s users, Twitter decided to take a step back and hear its audience. According to their own statement, they “switched the timeline back and removed the tabbed experience”, where the user could previously find the algorithmic feed.

Since 2016, Twitter has kept trying to create an algorithmic feed, and in October 2021, they made the biggest change to accomplish this goal: they created a feed with only Tweet suggestions, based on the algorithm, instead of our old (but gold) chronological feed, that used to show us the latest Tweets from the people we follow.

Top Tweets first or latest Tweets first? We’re making it easier to switch between the two timelines and know which one you’re scrolling.

Now testing with some of you on iOS: swipe between "Home" and "Latest" on the Home tab to choose which Tweets you see first. pic.twitter.com/LoyAN4cONu

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) October 12, 2021

As you can imagine, this change was not very warmly welcomed by the users. The algorithmic feed ended up filling our timeline with tweets of the same topic, from people we don’t necessarily follow. During the Super Bowl, for example, you would only read about the Super Bowl. Ok, that can be a cool thing if you’re a Super Bowl fan, but don’t you like to use Twitter to know what else is going on? Because I do.

Lessons that you, as a marketer, can learn from Twitter’s decision

The greatest lesson Twitter has left for marketers is the importance of hearing your audience. Maybe a great and innovative idea is not what your customer wants, and it’s ok to be humble and take a step back when needed. After all, your customer will be the ones using your product or service, so it has to make sense for their actual needs.

Sometimes it’s easy to romanticize disruption for its own sake, isn’t it? Businesses love to tout bold ideas—until actual users push back. It almost feels like there’s this unspoken contest to see who can change the most, regardless of whether anyone asked for it. But in the real world, all those “innovative” features mean nothing if folks end up annoyed or confused. When was the last time you heard someone say “please, make this app harder to use?” Right, never.

Behind the scenes, there’s almost always a struggle between what the tech team thinks is clever and what users actually enjoy. Every now and then, a company bets big on some shiny new tweak, only to discover that most people just don’t care—or worse, actively dislike it. Remember when Instagram tried to hide likes and folks immediately started debating if anything was fun anymore? There’s only so much “innovation” you can throw at someone before they start wishing things stayed as they were.

Seems pretty obvious, right? But that’s not what always happens. While Twitter is taking an important decision due to listening to its audience, this is not always true on other social platforms. Recently, TikTok just introduced 10-Minute Videos to compete with YouTube, but creators are having doubts about the update. 

Genuine engagement doesn’t have much patience for gimmicks. Users might try out whatever new feature pops up, but they’ll quickly drop off if it doesn’t actually make their lives easier or more enjoyable. Sure, there are some die-hards who’ll give detailed feedback no matter what you spring on them (bless their persistence!), but most folks quietly drift away when a platform stops feeling familiar. It’s a risk, tinkering with the core experience, and Twitter learned that the hard way—at least for now.

Even the language companies use to announce changes can set the whole mood. Twitter’s “we heard you” statement landed a lot softer than the usual “exciting new update” PR-speak—weirdly rare for tech. Maybe the bigger point here is that when you acknowledge people’s frustration, you don’t just fix a product. You build a little trust, and that’s really hard to get back once it’s lost. One simple message like that can take the edge off the most irate crowd (well, sometimes—let’s not be naïve, this is still the internet).

Ok, it’s not all that bad. But it might look like that TikTok promotes some updates just to be more competitive with other platforms, and not because they are truly willing to listen to their users and make decisions to improve their experience.

And what content tips can marketers get from it? 

After Twitter provided us with this look at customer-centricity and being customer-focused, we as marketers can be inspired and try to apply some of this knowledge in our day-to-day routine. 

As a hardcore Twitter user since 2009, I can guarantee three main things: 

• We like being heard. Well, who doesn’t like it, right?! So try to put your customer in the center of your decisions, and do not hesitate to take a step back if you consider that your decision was not the best one at the moment. 
• We call for interaction and conversation with brands. Not only on Twitter but in social media in general. We want the sense of human touch, not just ads popping everywhere.
• Last, but not least, on Twitter we like to do things together. It may sound a little weird, I know, but in 2015, Game of Thrones was the most-talked-about TV show on Twitter, because everyone wanted not just to watch it, but to talk about it with other people. We truly love the sense of community that Twitter allows, and this can be a great way to try to successfully position your brand on this platform: starting or joining a conversation that your audience would love to be part of. 

Well, I’m excited to hear and learn about more cases like this, where the company truly puts the customer at the center of any decision. Twitter is a huge case study regarding customer-centricity, but I’m pretty confident that this will be happening more often, and that this is the right way for us from now on: building brands alongside the customer, in a two-way street.