If you haven’t already heard, Twitter have recently introduced ‘Twitter Spaces’, a new feature that allows live audio conversations on the platform.
They have been building and testing the new feature for over a year, and have found that hearing people’s voices bring conversations on Twitter to life in a completely new way.
What is the impact of Twitter Spaces?
Twitter Spaces is available to millions of people, providing you with the ability to host a space to any existing twitter account with 600 or more followers. Based on what the platform have learnt so far, these accounts are likely to have a good experience hosting live conversations because of their existing audience. Twitter are trialling spaces with these types of accounts before bringing the ability to create a space to every Twitter user.
Twitter Spaces encourages and unlocks real, open conversations on Twitter, creating authenticity and power only the human voice can bring. It is a huge development for the platform, making it much more appealing to many individuals and businesses.
Twitter Spaces is not only for small and intimate conversations with just a few users, it can be used for big discussions about what’s happening and what’s relevant in your specific industry with thousands of listeners. This gives you the opportunity to dig into the topics and conversations you care about with people you know and people you want to know.
Now all you have to do currently is aim for those 600 followers!
How does a ‘Twitter Space’ work?
For both Apple and Android devices on Twitter, when someone you follow starts or speaks in a space, you’ll see it appear at the top of your timeline as a purple bubble for as long as it’s live (very similar to Instagram stories / live).
If you decide to join a space as a listener, there are a range of interactions that you can use to engage with within the space. You can react to what you hear with emojis, check out any pinned tweets, follow along with captions, tweet or DM the space, or request to speak. The list goes on!
When you join a space as a speaker, in addition to talking, you can pin tweets to that specific space, turn on captions so everyone can follow along with what you’re saying, and you can even Tweet the Space so your followers can join whilst it’s live.
When you create a space, it’s important to know that you’re in control! You control who’s speaking, the topics, and the feel and atmosphere. Invite people to join by tweeting or DM-ing them. You can then even invite them to speak directly from your Space once they’ve joined. It’s a fantastic opportunity to be able to talk and discuss the most recent topics.
A key thing about Twitter Spaces is that people feel safe hosting and participating in conversations. To ensure this is the case, Twitter have built in safety controls available to hosts and speakers. As a host, you can mute speakers and take away their mic altogether, or remove them from the space completely. Hosts also have the ability to mute all speakers at the same time and have access to a new management page to make it much easier to host.
Twitter claims that spaces is only just getting started and that there is so much more to come. So keep an eye out! If you need any help or advice with your social media, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
