In George Colony’s post “Twitter’s Bad Idea”, he considers Twitter makes a bad approach by placing ads in the online social network. He comments that twitter community is too private for its users to get used to the external ads. In addition, report reveals that twitter possesses “very limited influence” over technologists’ decision-making and Colony criticize Twitter’s idea of pushing promoted tweets.
I find his post is relevant to what we learnt in class about finding the appropriate target market. Obviously, Twitter’s target market is educated young adults who are willing to share their personal thoughts and stories. Meeting most of the needs of the target market can maximize the company’s effectiveness and placing a lot of ads is not a positive way appealing to them.
Likewise, there is always dilemma for social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, to maximize their profits and please their customers. Regarding to Twitter’s situation, I think the company can choose ads which are most appeal to the less wealthy target group. Taking advantages of technology to design more useful and valuable smartphone apps is also a feasible way to make money. Innovations can always add value to the company and thus attract customers.