While images once dominated (and still do) the social media landscape, audio has grown in prominence in recent years. The social audio app Clubhouse caused quite a stir when it was launched in 2020 on an invitation basis. Now Twitter has developed Twitter Spaces to enable live audio conversations on the platform.
In this post, we’re going to take a closer look at Twitter Spaces – what it is, why you should be using it, and how to use it for your brand. Let’s begin.
What are Twitter Spaces?
Twitter Spaces is a new feature that allows users to have live audio conversations on the platform. Users can host these conversations in an audio chat room called “Space” and invite other users to join. If someone you’re following hosts a space or speaker in one, it will appear as a purple bubble at the top of your timeline for the duration of the conversation.
Anyone with 600 or more followers can now host a space on Twitter. So if you want to expand your offering, it’s time to grow your Twitter followers to take advantage of this feature. Twitter Spaces is available to both individuals and businesses and enables them to build more personal connections with their audiences.
In addition, Twitter Spaces are public, which means anyone can join as a listener. Up to 13 people can speak in a space, including a host and two co-hosts.
Why use Twitter Spaces?
Conversations are currently taking place live. Best of all, users no longer have to limit their thoughts to 280 characters. You can speak for as long as you want and receive real-time responses from other speakers in the space.
This brings conversations to life and encourages people to have more open discussions. With a feature like Spaces, users can also build stronger connections with their audience. So it’s a great way for businesses to retain their customers, especially now that Twitter usage is increasing among consumers.
How to start Twitter Spaces
Currently, you can only start a Twitter Space from the Android or iOS app. There’s no way to start one from the web version (yet), but you can still join as a listener.
There are two ways for hosts to start a space on Twitter:
- Press and hold the Compose button, then select the New Spaces icon. This looks like several circles in the shape of a diamond.
- In your Timeline, tap your profile picture at the top. Then scroll right and tap the option to start a new space.
In the next few steps you can start setting up your space before going live:
Name your room
Give your space a name that’s relevant to the conversation ahead. Or create a hashtag as the name for the space to keep the conversation going after the event is over. Or you can collect the questions of the followers with the hashtag before the event and answer these questions live during a space.
Here is an example of a Twitter Space with a hashtag as a name:
Set up permissions and subtitles
The first time you use Spaces, Twitter will ask for permission to agree to the captioning of your speech in real time. Transcriptions make your space more accessible to deaf or hard of hearing users. Twitter also plans to make Spaces accessible to screen readers in the future.
Invite speakers
After you’ve created a Space as a host, there are several ways you can get people to join the conversation, be it as a speaker or a listener. In the lower right corner you will find a few different options, one of which is “get more people to join”. This looks like a little arrow pointing up.
Tap this button and choose whether to:
- Speakers by DM. invite
- Share your space via tweet so your followers can join
- Copy the link to your space to share elsewhere
In addition to the host, you can use Twitter to add up to 12 additional speakers in your space: two co-hosts and 10 speakers. Anyone in your Space can request to speak, but you can also add restrictions on who can speak.
As a host, you can:
- Give everyone the opportunity to speak. This means that anyone can ask to speak, but not necessarily all of them speak at the same time.
- Only let people you follow speak.
- Only allow the people you invite to speak.
Source: Twitter
Additional functions
As a host or speaker, you can also:
- Manage your speakers. You can mute them, remove them from space, or block them entirely. This is an excellent feature in case someone is being disruptive or offensive.
- Pin tweets to the space. This is a useful feature to highlight the topic of your discussion.
- Turn on subtitles when speaking. This will make your Space more accessible to listeners who may be hard of hearing or who prefer subtitles.
As a listener you can:
- Respond to what you hear with emojis
- View all pinned tweets
- Follow the subtitles (or turn off the subtitles)
- Tweet or send a private message to other attendees
- Request to speak (if the host has made the room accessible for everyone to speak)
- Block other users or spaces
How companies can benefit from using Twitter Spaces
For companies already using Twitter to cultivate a branding community, Spaces will help increase that effort. Here are a few ways you can use Twitter Spaces to benefit your organization:
Share company updates or announcements
Create a space to share information about product updates, policy changes, new or upcoming products, feature updates, and more. This is a great way to keep your followers up to date and to get in touch with your business.
The Twitter Spaces team themselves hosted Spaces to share community updates.
Hold discussions on trending topics in the industry
Build your authority in the industry by hosting discussions on trending topics. These can be comments, future forecasts and tips on the topic.
In order to get even more visibility for your space, invite influencers from the industry as speakers to your event. Twitter even introduced an option to invite up to two co-hosts to your space so you can add influencers as co-hosts. Again, note that co-hosts can manage requests, invite speakers, remove attendees, and pin tweets.
Remember, co-hosts count towards your speaker capacity. Here, too, there are up to two co-hosts and 10 speakers for a total of 13 – including you!
Maintain your brand community
Twitter Spaces is the perfect forum for you to interact with and connect with your followers in real time. Hosting a space gives your audience a chance to engage with your company. This can include customer service-related conversations, live Q&A, feedback sessions, and more.
Twitter’s research director Reggie Murphy also hosted a Twitter Space to get feedback on direct messages.
What to expect from Twitter Spaces in the future
Twitter is constantly improving the Spaces feature to make it even more beneficial for both businesses and individual users. Here are some features and updates that you can expect in the near future:
Paid places
Twitter is testing the option for hosts to create ticketed spaces where listeners have exclusive access to the conversations. Once this feature goes live, you will have the option to create Spaces with a limited number of seats and charge a fee to join the conversation.
Twitter Spaces recognized the desire to monetize Spaces, which is why they are experimenting with the concept of Ticketed Spaces.
Source: Twitter
Planning spaces and setting reminders
Hosts also have the option to schedule a space for a future date. And you don’t have to set your own alarm as you can log in to be notified when it starts. The same goes for our followers. You can set up a reminder when they see your tweet promoting the space.
Source: Twitter
Improved subtitles
Twitter is also working to improve accessibility by improving the live captioning feature. Not only is the goal to make subtitles more accurate, but it gives users the ability to pause or adjust them as needed.
Bring your conversations to life on Twitter
With the ability to enable live audio conversations, there is no doubt that Twitter Spaces will give way for authentic engagement. Since this is a fairly new feature, it is the perfect time to take advantage of it to gain a competitive advantage. So make sure to add it to your Twitter marketing toolbox.
Comments are closed.