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Twitter’s Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies

Twitter Inc., just like any other organization, has an overarching goal; to create a return for shareholders through earning a profit. In order to attain this, the organization tries to do everything right to attain better performance in the market. The business-level strategy of Twitter is employed to sell its products and services at a profit and attain a good customer base. Corporate-level strategy, on the other hand, is used to determine what business units to purchase or sell and to make the decision on how to integrate operations and determine synergies between them.

Business-level strategy

Twitter’s business-level strategy is directed towards differentiation. Recently, a new business-level marketing strategy was rolled out by the organization. The strategy had a video explaining what the organization stands for. The video was designed in a way meant to distinguish that company from other social media platforms. This effort is attributed to the research of the organization.

The company is doing everything possible to change the perception of Twitter among the public. The perception to be changed is that from being a social network enabling users to connect with friends and family to become "go to" place for every news update. In fact, the effort of the organization is meant to position itself as a unique platform that will have news ranging from local updates to big events together with access to live commentary. The management of Twitter believes that being unique in the market is the best way through which the organization will be able to grow its customer base (Business Grow, 2014).

Furthermore, a new marketing campaign on Twitter shows that its platform can be used for various reasons, such as answering questions relating to what is taking place in different corners of the world. This is a clear indication that the company is trying to position itself as a news platform. It is trying to differentiate itself from other social media platform organizations.

In addition, the organization is trying to lead towards a controversial new path. There has been a strategy shift, where the organization is now planning to offer algorithm-driven curation of feeds. This is driven towards enhancing relevance for its users. As a result of this, the organization will begin determining what people see on their timelines with regards to what is trending or what the company thinks a person would like to see.

Throughout the past, the management of Twitter has signaled many big changes. This is a move informing stakeholders of the organization to be prepared for new things that are on the way. Some of the changes that are to be introduced are meant to counter increased pressure the company is facing from Wall Street related to increasing the number of users. Compared to Facebook and other platforms, users love the idea that Twitter is unfiltered. People can filter streams by themselves and also control the flow of information their own way through different apps, such as Twitter Lists and other third party platforms like Hoossuite.

Also, the strategy will make a Twitter’s platform to be more appealing and accessible to users. This move will attract new users and retain the current ones. In fact, the core point of differentiation in the market will be increased by this move.

The increased level of differentiation is important for strong user growth. The valuation of the organization will increase due to user growth. "As per our estimates, Twitter's U.S. average monthly active users will increase moderately from around 66 million in 2016 to nearly 78 million by the end of our forecast period" (Business Grow, 2014, par. 5). In the international market, the number is expected to go up from 250 million to 315 million by the end of the period forecasted.

Therefore, the business-level strategies adopted by the organization are excellent since they will increase the level of differentiation in the market. Increased level of differentiation will ensure the needs and wants of customers are satisfied. Unique products and services will also attract new users. The outcome of all these will be an increase in profit for the organization and better returns for shareholders.

Corporate-level strategy

The organization has a program termed as the international expansion of the Twitter certified program. This program was introduced to partner the company with other leading services and products, which assist businesses to thrive on Twitter. Through partnering with other leading organizations, the company is able to expand its reach, products, and accessibility.

Already, there are a number of organizations added to the program. All the organizations are first international class. Twitter is a global platform already. About 77 percent of company users are in different parts of the world, that is, outside the United States (Shah, 2016). Also, the usage of Twitte is increasing in other regions. Indeed, the demand for the company’s products is increasing since individuals need to connect with the international audience have also increased. It is the hope of the organization that partnering with these new organization will increase brand of Twitter around the world. The brand will increase with reach and measurement, customer engagement, ad management, and content curation tools.

Spanning India, Latin America, and Europe, there are some of the Twitter certified partners. The first partner is controversocial. This is a cloud solution that makes it possible for an organization to provide customer services over social media on a large scale. The second partner is SocialBro. This is a marketing platform that provides tools to examine and act on Twitter data with the goal of engaging, growing, and monetizing the audience.

Additionally, there is Socialmetrix, which assists brands to get to know consumer opinions and sentiment. It also gives actionable insights regarding day-to-day activities. The fourth partner is Talkwalker. Talkwalker provides powerful and easy to use monitoring engine, analytics, and social search. Other agencies and brands in the world are also using Talkwalker. The fifth partner is Unmetric that works with leading agencies and brands by assisting them to create benchmarks for their social activities.

Consequently, Twitter has formed a deal with Telecom that will improve its global growth strategy. This deal has led to the launching of Twitte Access. This is a program formed in partnership with telecom companies aimed at zero-rating the micro-blogging services and subsidizing the data the company demands. Most people using the platform, especially through their phones, have been complaining of high data costs. However, partnering with these telecom companies will enable Twitter’s users to enjoy lower data costs.

Finally, the organization continues live-streaming expansion. This is a new deal with Bloomberg. Bloomberg and Twitter have partnered to live-stream many television programs of the media company on the social network. Included in the partnership is the right to three financial news shows. These are the daily stock market coverage of the network, With All Due Respect, and Bloomberg West, What’d You Miss?. This deal shows how the organization is continuing with aggressive expansion (Trefis Team, 2016). It now provides live video on its flagship platform. Recently, the company got the social media rights related to some of NFL Thursday Night Football games. Moreover, the company also broadcasts many ESPN-produced segments.

The expansion, aggression has made Twitter become one of the fastest methods to know what is happening in different parts of the world as well as on the financial markets. For instance, partnering with Bloomberg will make it easy for people to view live financial market performance together with live commentary regarding underlying implications and drivers.

Competitive environment

Facebook and Twitter are dominant on the social media platforms. Nevertheless, there is a pool of competitors that are growing in number and size. This is an indication that the market is very competitive. Other competitors growing are Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat. These competitors are growing very fast thanks to video and photo sharing (Allison, 2016).

Facebook tops the social media landscape. With many different products and it has also acquired many competitors in the market. Currently, Facebook owns four of the biggest messaging and social media services. These are Messanger, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Even with the big size of Facebook, Twitter has still managed to remain unique in the market through providing differentiated products. Trying to differentiate itself and making users aware of what exactly it is offering has been the biggest effort of the company.

Slow-cycle and fast-cycle market

A competitive advantage of a company in a slow-cycle market is normally shielded from imitation. This is also seen when it comes to a resource (Miranda-Agrippino & Rey, 2015). Competitive pressure will not easily penetrate resources and competitive advantage of a firm. In such a market, the cost of imitation is high and the trend is seen for a long period. Twitter comes second after Facebook in its market. However, its competitive advantage comes from its increased level of differentiation. The slow-cycle market makes this this competitive advantage of the organization to be sustainable both in short-term and long-term operations. It will be difficult for competitors to imitate the unique products and services produced by Twitter. This is because the company is shielded from imitation. It will cost competitors high amounts to imitate the strategy of the organization. This advantageous to Twitter because it will continue with this competitive advantage and continue being different from other competitors. Therefore, product differentiation of Twitter will not differ in the slow-cycle market. The company should continue making its product different from those of competitors. This is important since, at one time, it will be able to outdo its biggest competitor.

On the other hand, in a fast-cycle market, Twitter will not be shielded from imitation. This means that its competitors will easily copy what it is doing, that is, product differentiation. In addition, imitation takes place very fast in the fast-cycle market. The speed of imitation is enhanced by the fact that the cost of imitation is not expensive. Therefore, in the fast-cycle market, competitors will be able to perform what the company is doing .

References

Allison, C. (2016). Twitter continues to struggle as Social media competitors rise. Retrieved

from http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/news/a802893/latest-figures-show-how-facebook-continues-to-kill-its-social-media-competitors/

Business Grow. (2014). The Twitter strategy shift and what it means to you and your business.

Retrieved from https://www.businessesgrow.com/2014/09/08/twitter-strategy/

Miranda-Agrippino, S., & Rey, H. (2015). World asset markets and the global financial cycle

(No. w21722). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Shah, S. (2016). Twitter continues live-streaming expansion with Bloomberg news deal.

Retrieved from https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/twitter-bloomberg-live-stream/

Trefis Team. (2016). Can Twitter's New Marketing Strategy Drive User Growth?. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2016/07/26/can-twitters-new-marketing-strategy-drive-user-growth/#73a3abe762f3