Twitter launches Fleet – Old Wine in New Bottle or A Fancy Feature for Twitteratis ?
After first launching in Brazil and then expanding to Italy, Twitter has rolled out Fleets. Fleets? What is that? For the uninitiated ones – Fleets are Twitter’s very own Instagram/WhatsApp/Snapchat/Facebook – style stories/status.
Just like the other platforms, content once posted in fleets automatically disappears in 24 hours.
“India is important for Twitter since it is one of our largest and fastest-growing audience markets globally,” Twitter’s India managing director Manish Maheshwari said in a statement. “We are excited to bring the Fleets experiment to India and make it one of the first three countries in the world to experience this new product.”
“From the test in India, we’ll learn how adding a new mode of conversation changes the way Indians engage on Twitter. It’ll also be interesting to see if it further amplifies the diversity of usage by allowing people to share what they’re thinking in a way that is light-touch and light-hearted.
So, what does Fleet contain? Well, Fleets are just like Stories, with a new round profile icon at the top of your Twitter home page. When tapped, it will show you a stream of posts in a full-frame, vertical screen. These posts would disappear in 24 hours, just like Instagram and Facebook Stories.
As we write this, this feature does not have AI functionality or extra visual presentation tools, like other platforms. But then, let us not underestimate Twitter. The social media biggie that Twitter is, it might evolve in that front as well. We say this as we remind you that Twitter recently acquired Chroma Labs, a company that develops tools for short-form video and photo creation.
India is the third country to be introduced to this new feature from Twitter, after Brazil and Italy. The feedback shared suggests that Fleets do add some zing to the tweeting experience. According to Twitter –
- Fleets make it easier for people to share their thoughts
- People are finding it simpler to start convos with Fleets and are starting to Tweet/DM more too
- When people send a Fleet, they often share a number of thoughts rapidly
- It’s still *very early*, but we’re seeing less abuse with Fleets as only a small percentage are reported each day
Why are Fleets so special?
So while Twitter and netizens in India are gung ho experimenting with this new tool, many of you would wonder what’s new in this. Well, nothing, really! This new feature rolled out for Android and iOS users in India does nothing much to their tweeting practice except eliminating the retweet and like competition. Hashtags like #Fleets #Fleeting #FleetFeedback were top hashtags trending in India with brands to memes, all contributing in the excitement and euphoria around fleets.
We have compiled a bunch of memes and fleets to take you through Twitter’s latest addiction. Have a look!
Memers will meme!
Brands will brand!
Talking of usage, India is Twitter’s eight biggest market, with close to 13 million users. Compare that with 64 million Twitter users in the USA. But having said that, in combination Fleets will be available to more than 30 million users. It’s only a matter of time for Twitter to roll out this as a global feature.
So, dear marketers and brand managers, revamp your communication strategy and make the way of Fleets. Fleet content might disappear in 24 hours but Fleets are here to stay!
Read More – 2020 Marketing Calendar from Twitter
