Twitter has announced yesterday that they’re testing out a new ‘buy’ button. It will allow users to make purchases directly from their iOS or Android Twitter apps. When users click the ‘buy’ button in a tweet, they will be prompted to fill in their payment and shipping information (which is then attached to their account), and make the purchase. The functionality is not available as of yet in Canada, it has only been rolled out to some users in the United States.
Twitter’s head of commerce, Nathan Hubbard, told Mashable that this functionality was in the making ever since he was hired from Ticketmaster last year. The key differentiators between Twitter’ ‘buy’ button and other social networks’ ventures into e-commerce have to do with Twitter’s underlying functionality. Hubbard differentiates Twitter from other social networks by saying that it’s real-time capabilities and presence of mass influencers will keep it ahead of the curve when it comes to e-commerce.
Twitter’s penetration of the mobile market could make this new feature a very enticing offer for marketers. In fact, it’s projected that by 2017, 87% of US Twitter users will access it through mobile devices. The mobile arena is a very important one for Twitter, it accounted for 81% of their revenue last year. That being said, Facebook is still the top mobile app by reach with 77.6% penetration among iOS and Android smartphone users. And they announced they were testing a ‘buy’ button back in July, so Twitter may have some catching up to do.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on how brands are using Twitter’s new ‘buy’ button in their marketing campaigns. You can do so too by following some of the initial accounts that Twitter is partnering with:
- Beartooth (@beartoothband)
- Brad Paisley (@bradpaisley)
- Burberry (@burberry)
- Dan+Shay (@DanAndShay)
- Death From Above 1979 (@dfa1979)
- Demi Lovato (@ddlovato)
- DonorsChoose (@DonorsChoose)
- Eminem (@eminem)
- GLAAD (@glaad)
- GLIDE (@GlideSF)
- Global Citizen (@GlblCtzn)
- The Home Depot (@HomeDepot)
- Hunter Hayes (@HunterHayes)
- Kiesza (@kiesza)
- Keith Urban (@keithurban)
- The Nature Conservancy (@nature_org)
- Megadeth (@Megadeth)
- Mike Stud (@mike_stud)
- Panic! At The Disco (@panicatthedisco)
- Pharrell (@pharrell)
- Paramore (@paramore)
- (RED) (@RED)
- Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams)
- Soundgarden (@soundgarden)
- The New Pornographers (@TheNewPornos)
- twenty one pilots (@twentyonepilots)
- Wiz Khalifa (@wizkhalifa)
- 9/11 Day (@911Day)
