Twitter is a great place to get the latest news and follow the actions of people you are already interested in, but its relatively lack of search capabilities and a lack of organised space in the community makes it difficult to reach those people you are not actively searching for.
The company is, therefore, considering a change as its newest feature, Community, aims to make it easier for users to interact with people of like minds and share the same interests. They will be able to join communities and tweet directly to other people with interests similar to their regular group of followers. Only community members can Like or Reply to tweets sent by other members.
The communities will be user-generated, although Twitter says it will be “limited” for now, so most people will have to wait a few months before starting their own group. The first communities will revolve around popular and generally benign topics on Twitter, including “dogs, weather, sneakers, skincare, and astrology.”
The feature will appear in a dedicated location at the bottom of the iOS app or in the side menu of the website. Twitter said that Android users will also be able to read community tweets, but more features are coming soon, probably a dedicated application tag and the ability to join and participate in new groups.
And just like Facebook groups and Reddit’s subreddits, Twitter communities will be created and maintained by designated moderators, and they will be able to invite other users to join the group through DM and delete the content published in the group. Initially, invitations will be the only way to enter the community, but it seems that Twitter has a big discovery feature plan to make it easy for people to find places they might want to hang out.
Twitter has long tried to retain new users, but can’t because they don’t find tweets or accounts that are relevant to their needs. To help solve this problem, the company has made recommending professional sports teams and other topics a priority in recent years.
If Twitter allows anyone to easily create and promote their own community, then this feature can make the app more appealing to casual users who haven’t put a lot of effort into managing their main timeline.
