Twitter takes a 'video-first' approach with its new publisher tool — but it’s fairly limited

• Twitter just announced a new publisher tool for its social networking platform.
• But the application of the ‘Timing is Everything’ tool is limited to video content.
• The number of regions available to track engagement are also limited.

Twitter just introduced a new publisher’s tool to their platform but before you get too excited — it’s only for videos.

The ‘Timing is Everything’ tool is neat little mechanism that publishers can access through the Media Studio to determine when it’s the best time to tweet out a video in order to maximise engagement, conversion and viewership.

Publishers can adjust the time frame for analysis between ‘last month’, ‘last week’, and ‘this month’ or customise it according to their own requirement.

But the system of tracking normal tweets on Twitter is still the same — limited to monthly summaries. Even the overall performance metrics compared are done with a 28-day summary as its baseline.

‘Timing of Everything’ has its own limitations — the regions, for instance, that don’t include data for India.

In fact, the interface that Twitter just launched doesn’t look all that different from the prototype they showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in January this year.

The platform isn’t completely customised for the publisher either. While it does take into account when your followers are online are watching videos, but it’s not as per your videos — it’s as per video viewership across Twitter.


There’s more in it for Twitter

Twitter, though normally very stringent about the fact that most people shouldn’t schedule their tweets, has introduced a scheduling tool for videos so that publishers can plan their video content accordingly.

The push towards video isn’t just good will — Twitter, in the past, has said that most of its ad revenue comes from video ads. So, more videos means more money for Twitter.

There are other tools in the works, according to the company, so that publishers will have more actionable data available to them.

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