Comm 101

Only a month ago, Twitter flew out of its nest and into the New York Stock Exchange. Many financial journalists and investors predicted that Twitter would fall short in demand, similar to when Facebook first initiated its IPO. However, Twitter has surprised many investors by actually soaring up the stock market, from its original price of $26 to $46. This is not just a simple luck of the draw, Twitter’s strategy from the beginning was to not follow in the footsteps of Facebook, who overpriced their initial stock price. Instead, their strategy was to give themselves a modest valuation and enter the stock market at $26, versus Facebook’s $49. In addition to setting a reasonable market share price, Twitter had prepared for its IPO by finding new key partners in the TV advertising economy. By doing so, Twitter was able to gain more public recognition through advertisements and attracted new investors. By doing a CPEST analysis for the company, we can see that Twitter has thoroughly evaluated its competitors as well as the social culture that exists today. Twitter chooses to differentiate itself from its competitors such as Facebook and Pinterest through its unique short messaging and hashtag system.