Being one of the most anticipated initial public offerings since Facebook, social-networking phenomenon Twitter has recently revealed its plans to focus on expanding internationally rather than just catering to its users in the United States. An outstanding 77% of its active users in the past three months were from outside the US, and many potential investors and analysts see great potential in its international growth. However, Twitter’s advertisement system is still largely undeveloped compared to its social-networking rival Facebook. This revenue stream holds the tremendous potential at the moment and if Twitter is not careful in developing it then the company could end up like Facebook on the stock exchange. Twitter will need to evolve and adapt its development strategies in order to accommodate the different countries around the world it’s targeting.
Countries with authoritarian governments like China have become a large obstacle for Twitter. Its massive potential market for social networking services has already turned over to other its own solutions such as Weibo, Wechat, and Whatsapp as websites such as Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter have been banned. China, emerging as an economic super-giant holds great influence in social media as there are already a significant number of users using these websites in the neighbouring countries of China and even North America. Twitter will need to work extremely carefully with marketers in order to successfully expand overseas.