In August, Instagram’s popularity surpassed Twitter’s, with 7.3 million active users scrolling through photos each day, while 6.9 million daily active users kept their thoughts to 140 characters or less, according to data from comScore. Twitter is fighting back.
On March 26 it announced it is getting “more social,” with the new abilities to add more photos—up to four photos per Tweet—and tag up to 10 people in a photo.
“Tagging people in a picture makes conversations around photos fun and easy,” Twitter software engineer Cesar Puerta said in a March 26 blog post. “And tagging doesn’t affect character count in the Tweet.”
If you’re tagged in a Twitter photo, you’ll be notified; you can also adjust, in the settings, your notification preferences, including who can tag you.
Tagging is simple. When you upload a photo, Twitter will ask, in a box below the photo, “Who’s in this photo?” Tap the box and Twitter will pull up name options. Tap the Twitter user’s name to add them. When you Tweet, their name will appear beside the photo.
To add multiple photos, tap on the preview of your Tweet, and photos will load below, enabling you to add them.
This capability is on the latest version of Twitter, now available to download for iOS and coming soon to Twitter’s Android app.
Additionally, Twitter has entered into a multiyear partnership with Billboard to create Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts. Coming in a few weeks, the charts will be a ranking system based on the music conversations taking place on Twitter.
“The charts will reflect the top tracks being discussed at the moment and over an extended period of time on Twitter, as well as surface the most talked about and shared songs by new and upcoming acts,” Billboard said in a March 27 statement. “The charts will live on Billboard.com and will also be shared through Twitter’s account, @billboard, multiple times a week.”
Twitter and Billboard have also partnered with Amplify, which will “help distribute the charts to a wide audience on Twitter and include custom in-Tweet charts and a weekly in-Tweet video round up of the week in music,” Twitter said in a statement.
The new offering seems to be a fix for the #Music app Twitter launched last April. In a statement at the time, Twitter said it would use Twitter activity, engagement and Tweets to “detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists,” but the offering didn’t gain much of a following.
In Billboard’s statement, Bob Moczydlowsky tried again.
“Twitter is where the music of the moment is discovered and discussed—every day new songs and new artists are breaking out on the platform,” he said. “The buzz … will now be visible to fans, other musicians and industry decision makers in real time.”
Currently, @TwitterMusic shares the songs currently trending on Twitter.