Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) is on a roll in 2015, up nearly 50% since the beginning of the new year. And the good news just keeps coming.
Amid a day in which Twitter stock was already up on takeover rumors, the company just announced a new feature — retweet with comment, which upgrades the quote tweet feature — and TWTR is already up almost 4% on the day and climbing.
Users may have been clamoring for the functionality retweet with comment offers, but clearly it’s good for Twitter stock, too.
What is Retweet With Comment?
Twitter is one of the quintessential examples of social media, allowing users to interact with anyone on the platform by tweeting, favoriting or retweeting. Twitter users can retweet, or forward a tweet posted by someone else, to their own followers. However, the key selling point of TWTR — its brevity — complicates matters when it comes to retweeting and wanting to add commentary, which is only natural in the social context.
When there are only 140 characters in total to work with on a Tweet, something has to give and so Twitter would previously include just a snippet of the original Tweet when comment was added. That meant context was often lost.
Naturally, TWTR users worked around the limitation. Multiple tweets and taking screenshots of commentary as an attached photo were some of the home-brew solutions, but with quote tweet, Twitter has now officially made commenting on a retweet much more user-friendly.
Using the new retweet with comment, the original tweet remains intact and embedded within the new tweet. The Twitter user has 116 characters to play with for commentary and the nuances of the original are not lost due to shortening. And it’s all accomplished at the touch of a button, so no cutting and pasting or other nonsense is required.
It’s a win-win upgrade that will make users happy and should provide a boost to Twitter stock.
How Could TWTR Benefit Financially From Retweet With Comment?
As a free service, Twitter doesn’t charge users for access. So any new feature doesn’t have a direct financial impact for TWTR. If anything, developing and testing new functionality (retweet with comment has been in the works for nearly a year now) costs money.
However, the payoff is in ease of use and enhanced functionality.
The push-button ease of retweet with comment is likely to spur Twitter users who had held off on commentary to try it out. More commentary equals more engagement, and that helps attract users who do more than camp on an account and do nothing beyond their first Tweet. Active users are good for Twitter stock.
The upgraded quote tweet feature also gives Twitter more ammunition for attracting power users and influencers who embrace the service as their primary social media platform. They are more likely to get credit for their original Tweets (something that is easily lost with cutting and pasting). Retweet with comment makes it more likely their tweets will be shared and gain traction, offering more “viral” opportunities.
Not all Twitter users are happy — longtime users who have adapted to the limitations don’t always appreciate change — but in general, the reception to retweet with comment has been along the lines of “it’s about time.”
Retweet with comment is available now for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) mobile devices and access using the Twitter website. Mobile devices running Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG,NASDAQ:GOOGL) Android operating system will have to wait — retweet with comment is “coming soon to Android.”
As of this writing, Brad Moon did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
