Twitter Fleets: All you need to know!
What significance does a Tweet or Facebook post or Instagram post hold in your life?
In a day, how many Instagram profiles do you check out vs how many Instagram stories do you check out in a day? I am sure if you are active on instagram, you would have checked out way too many stories than navigating to a profile and checking out it’s latest posts, unless, of course, you need it!
The algorithm for Stories on each platform is such that it becomes less effort and more of just sitting back and reading everyone’s thoughts at once, just like on an autoplay mode. We all crave for convenience, dont we?
I remember one stat which says that on Tiktok, people spend 45 minutes per day because you tend to just let the FOR YOUR PAGE algorithm play with one swipe. It’s more convenient than checking out individual profiles for interesting videos isn’t it?
Read more about how Tiktok works
Well Stories are a similar form of engagement for social media users. Or better put, Stories are the T20 version of cricket that has slowly and steadily eclipsed the longer forms of the Gentleman’s Game!
The point of making so many conversations is that Twitter has come up with “Fleets” which is Stories feature on Twitter with a few platform specific tweaks. Thus, now you can voice your opinion that shall be valid for 24 hours and be able to control conversations around your fleets.
After launching it in March 2020 in Brazil and later in Italy, Twitter has launched this feature in India to test it in one of its biggest markets. Though Twitter is lagging behind in launching this feature, the following creative shows when social media platforms launched Stories on their respective platforms:
What made Twitter wake up to Stories err Fleet?
There are mainly 3 reasons for Twitter to wake up to the Stories feature on its platform.
1. Losing ground
First of all, is a battle of bigger subscriber base. Though all social media channels have democratized knowledge and brought convenience into the daily user’s lives but Twitter is lagging behind most of the other social media channels. Twitter reported 330 million monthly active users in the first quarter of 2019. As compared to that, its other social media counterparts fare in the following ways:
Facebook reported 2.6 billion monthly active users as of the first quarter of 2020
Statista
Instagram reported 1 billion monthly active users in June 2018.
Statista
Whatsapp reported 2 billion monthly active users in March 2020.
Statista
Thus, Twitter is fast losing to its competitors and consequently, had to come up with new ways to engage more people and thus, jump onto the Stories’ bandwagon.
2. Fear of getting trolled
Secondly, there is a hesitance among people who appreciate the platform of Twitter but still dont create their account on twitter. As a Digital Marketing Consultant and running the agency, I have noticed that the hesitation stems from the fear of getting trolled!
When i come across such arguments, I try hard to convince that trolling happens to celebrities and mini celebrities and that over extreme nature of thoughts but brand custodians still seem unconvinced. Twitter Fleets gives more power to the one who tweets and the fleet actually flies away within 24 hours. Plus, the other feature that works for the contributor is that the live engagement on the Fleet is not permissible so the fear of trolling is somewhat controlled.
3. Forget interaction just voice your opinion!
Thirdly, Twitter is generally used by the intellectually elite of the society like Head of Department of universities or Doctors or retired bureaucrats or Ex Army men and political leaders. Facebook and Instagram are usually reserved for their personal life updates but Twitter is where they interact professionally with their community. Though this is not always the case but it is an observation. Thus, voicing their opinion on a specific issue is more important than getting Replies, Likes or Retweets. Though no one minds receiving positive responses but for some people, those responses may not always be the driver to speak their mind. In the case of fleeting nature of Fleets, reactions to a fleet takes a back seat and uninhibited voicing of opinion gains prominence. Thus, Twitter launched Fleets!
Features of Twitter Fleets
- Fleets vanish within 24 hours
- No option to engage in the form of reply or tweet in response to a fleet. The only way is to send a Direct Message to the contributor of the Fleet.
- Fleets are visible at the top of your home timeline, that is in case you are allowed to make Twitter Fleets.
- For accounts that have protected their tweets, fleets will be visible only to followers.
- Fleet won’t circulate on Twitter’s network, show up in Search or Moments.
- Fleets cannot be embedded on a third party website.
What if there is violation of Twitter rules
If people think one of the Twitter Fleets is a violation of the Twitter Rules, you can report it to Twitter. The social media platform maintains a copy of each Fleet on its servers for a limited time beyond 24 hours. Twitter will analyse how Fleets are used and check if the fleets violate platform rules.
Will Twitter rid itself of Trolling through Fleets?
Every coin has two sides. Trolling is an activity that Twitter or any other social media platform cannot control beyond a point. With Fleets, Twitter can change the hearts of the Trolling community but can definitely let the conversations happen more privately than in public. However, Twitter is looking ahead and launching more exciting updates in the days to come wherein the users can control whose reactions and opinions they have to pay heed to. Thus, Fleets is just one of them albeit the most prominent!
To make things easier, check out the 12 slide presentation on Twitter Fleet:
Author
Wow! This is such a cool feature. I tried it out recently. I think not adding the element of reactions to Fleets has made it really substantial as it will elicit a written response from the viewer leading to greater community engagement.
Very well noted nidhi. How about you share some screenshots know you upload a Twitter fleet?
really interesting read. I have been off life volunteering for 3 months where we had little time or signal to concentrate on the blog and so much seems to have changed since then! i feel like i need a refresher course and this was a great help! thanks!
Digital Media is changing really fast these days!
This is such a great feature! I found this to be very interesting!
Kileen
cute & little
It is indeed!!!
Great article! I’m so lost when it comes to twitter! This is helpful!
Haha dont feel lost… you can reach out to me if and when you face any problem in using Twitter
I’ve never heard of the Twitter fleet but thanks for giving such an in depth read! I did not know how much people spend on twitter vs Tik tok too!
I’m glad that you could find value in my small research activity!
amazing feature i find it so interesting
Glad to know!
oh wow sounds so interesting and amazing..glad you shared this with us..great work though…
Thank you so much…your kind words are much appreciated
I didn’t know about this latest feature on twitter. I will check it out
Wow, i had no idea that twitter has a story opinion. Very interesting.