It seems with Twitter you either love it, and use it regularly; tried it, and gave up on it; or just don’t get it. Even Twitter readily admits users find it confusing. Enter Twitter Moments–the most significant new feature in the company’s history.

Moments is a news feed of “the best of what’s happening on Twitter in an instant.” The new product was designed to provide an easy way to track big events as they happen and the company is hoping it will help attract new users and give them an easier way to get started and engage on Twitter. Moments highlights top stories and leading tweets selected by a group of Twitter staff who review content from what is currently a small group of partners including Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, Fox News, Getty Images, Mashable, New York Times, and the Washington Post.

How it Works

From the home page, when you click on the Moments lightning bolt icon, regardless of who you follow, you will be shown what Twitter deems the most “tweet worthy” stories at the time. Throughout the day, as new stories emerge, Moments indicates this with a small blue dot next to the icon that you click to refresh and see the latest stories. To find out more about a specific Moment, click on it and you will be taken to an overview with a title and short description of the topic. To see other tweets about this Moment, just swipe to the right and to see other Moments just swipe down.

The new feature gives tweets a more coherent life placing content where you can see it and access it again later. It also allows users to follow and engage with content in a more manageable way. If you’re interested in a Moment, you can follow it and tweets about the Moment will then be added to your timeline.  You can learn more about Moments at the Twitter Help Center.

General Impressions

It seems like a sound strategy—Twitter can certainly be overwhelming with hundreds of millions of Tweets generated every day (over 9,000 per second). Having played around with Moments in these last few weeks, I think Moments will certainly help new users more easily find big stories as well as people to follow. Even though I’ve been using Twitter for years now, I still regularly feel like I’m missing lots of tweets I’m sure I’d like to see. Now when I sign into Twitter, I first check Moments to see what’s happening.

Due to the very select group of contributors at initial launch, most business users will find it challenging to identify content to connect their business or brand with. This will likely change over time as the contributor list is expanded; a broader set of content will provide more relevant Moments for businesses outside of the sports, politics, and entertainment industries. Twitter eventually plans to allow its 300-million-plus users to create Moments so you can expect big changes in the near future.

Just this weekend, the first Promoted Moment went live. Brands are now able to sponsor Moments and over the next few months we can expect to see many more examples from brands in many different business industries. Twitter expects eventually to have one promoted Moment each day.

Even as it stands however, Moments is an easy way for Twitter users to find out what’s going on and see some great content they might not have otherwise seen. The Twitter timeline is not dead, but I believe Moments will become the primary way a majority of users will engage with Twitter.

Mary Zinn is the Founder and Owner of Circle M Marketing, a marketing consulting firm based in Madison, WI and a regular contributor to the CLIMB Blog.

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