Twitter’s main focus as of late has been finding ways to get users engaged a bit more than they already are. The latest way that they are doing this is allowing website owners to add a new button to their website. This new button would allow users to send you a Direct Message directly from your website, without having to go to Twitter’s own website. The reasoning behind this is for Twitter to bring businesses and customers closer together. Twitter is already a great place for customer service, with a number of businesses doing customer service through the micro-blogging platform.
Integrating this new button onto your website is actually fairly easy to do. Simply go to Twitter’s website and choose the button you want to add. All you need is your Twitter account’s name or URL along with the Profile ID (which is found in your account settings). You’ll then be able to preview the new button and be given the code to add it to your website. With a bit of HTML knowledge, you can add the button to just about anywhere on any page.
Direct Messaging has become very important for businesses to help out their customers. For example an airline can help out a customer who’s flight may have been cancelled or delayed, through Twitter. But a customer, nor the airline, would want their confirmation number or other personal information on Twitter for everyone to see. That’s where Direct Messaging comes into play. The user can send that personal information to the customer service rep more securely (often times businesses have another website they use, that’s even more secure for sending this information). Previously, Direct Messages weren’t great for doing customer service, due to the 140-character limit. However, Twitter has now lifted that limit, with the new limit being around 10,000 characters. Definitely long enough to communicate with customers.
This is a great way for businesses to reach even more users, with Twitter being the middle man. Which means customers and businesses will be using their platform a bit more, and that’s definitely what they are wanting to have happen.