By Introducing Group DM’s, Twitter Has Taken A Big Step Forward

This article originally appeared on 60 Second Social.

It may seem like a relatively small update, an update which other platforms already have. We can use group messages on a variety of different platforms so what is the big deal around Twitter making the feature available to its users?

Well, with group messaging rolling out over the next few weeks (I was lucky enough to get access this morning but no sign of the video feature yet) it turns out that Twitter has opened a big door to multi-person private conversations on Twitter which is kinda a big deal if you predominantly use Twitter to communicate with others, which I do.

Groups have no doubt already begun springing up with users partaking in private messages directly on Twitter and it is possible that this could be the feature which sways people to spend more time using the service if they were only a casual user before. So why could this a bigger deal than Facebook and their group messenger feature which has been well established for some time.

Quite simply, the bar to following someone on Twitter is much lower than Facebook. Facebook is for family and close friends, however Twitter is different.

You don’t follow people on Twitter because you know them as such, you follow them because you find them interesting. You share the same interests, you like the way they tweet, they catch your attention and you want to see more of them. Sometimes you talk to them and then they talk back to you and all of a sudden conversation happens. OMG, the person you thought may not be interested in you or interested in having a conversation because you don’t know each other personally is talking to you right now!

This is part of the magic of Twitter, it brings you together with people you may not have otherwise talked to. It opens a big new world of connections that you would never have had before. Well now you can have a conversation going on with a different range of people and don’t need to worry about others seeing it. Conversing on Twitter in front of all your followers is great, but sometimes you need to have a bit of privacy.

When I first started out exploring the Internet in the 1990’s I was fascinated with chatrooms, for the first time ever you were connected to people live, in real time, over your computer. I would stay up late into the night conversing with total strangers and soon you discovered that the same people were populating the chatrooms each night so you began to know each other.

With services like Facebook, it is about reconnecting with old friends which is great, but I want to build new connections too and this is what Twitter is great for. Of course I have already started a group for the Irish Tech News team, but at last we can have a private chat with friends on Twitter and I only wish that they had brought the feature to us sooner.

About The Author

Mark is the founder of 60 Second Social media where he provides social media news and digital marketing analysis, he is also a proud father of his bearded dragon, Lola. You can follow him on Twitter here. You can also follow 60 Second Social on Twitter here.