Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) wants users to stay with the micro-blogging site by introducing smarter and more efficient ways for signing up. The process started taking place last week, so time will tell if it achieves Twitter’s initial goals. This comes shortly after Twitter recently gave its site a makeover, which has been touted to emulate Facebook’s timeline. At the same time, critics claim that Facebook is starting to look more and more like Twitter. It appears that most social networking sites want functions that benefit and appeal to the end user. This means, they might all start looking similar after a while anyway.
The reason for the changes, is that Twitter found its novice users having difficulties figuring out how to use the site. This occurs once they sign up. As a result, many of them give up and focus more on other sites instead. That is, of course, not good news for Twitter. In addition, Twitter does not have a marketing problem. People hear about Twitter all the time. The issue lies in the sign up stage.
Even users who want to use Twitter simply as a news feed; they cannot seem to figure out how to effectively do so. As it stands, Twitter would simply guide people to follow the most popular accounts in media and tech, for example. I remember when I first signed up, I was prompted to follow multiple celebrities that I do not even follow in real life. Thankfully, I figured out how to navigate around that, but many people do not understand it.
So, now, if you sign up using your Android phone, Twitter will automatically populate your news feed with your phone’s contacts. That does make sense that you might want to follow the people you are in touch with. Also, once you enter your information, Twitter asks if you want to incorporate your Gmail contacts. It’s similar to what happens when you sign up for a new email account.
Next, you are sent to an “Interests” section, so that you can select items that intrigue you the most. Then, you are sent back to your profile page where you are given suggestions on what to tweet first, as well as a prompt to update your profile pic and so on. With these new changes, it seems that Twitter is on the right track to helping new users feel more comfortable with using the site.
