Jack Dorsey’s Vision is Working as Twitter Gains Momentum

When Twitter first arrived in 2009 the number of industries impacted bordered on countless. Its impact ranged from being a key tool in political movements to breaking sports news to being the Internet’s largest soap box for celebrities and those chasing fame. When it ran into its post-IPO identity crisis, Twitter had his hands full and as faced the challenge of reshuffling what made it successful to begin with:

Its users.

When investors pine for growth, it is imperative that a shift in philosophy occurs, and that’s when companies can seriously go off the rails- the crossroads.  It’s what separates great CEOs from the rest of the pack. Leading the wolves, who have a vested stake and are always quick to second guess,  to a new path of new growth (again) is definition of leadership in business. It’s the point in time that led Yahoo further down the path to obscurity under the leadership of Marissa Mayer (Hartung, Forbes, Dec. 2015).

"In other words, Yahoo desperately needed a change of direction and an entirely new strategy the day Ms. Mayer showed up. Only, unfortunately, she didn’t provide either. Instead Ms. Meyer offered, at best, a series of fairly meaningless tactical actions. Changing Yahoo’s home page layout, cancelling the company’s work-from-home policy and hiring Katie Couric, amidst a string of meaningless and questionable acquisitions, were the business equivalent of CEO fiddling while Rome burned. Tinkering with the tactics of an outdated success formula simply ignored the fact that Yahoo was already well on the road to irrelevancy and needed to change, dramatically, quickly."

Jack Dorsey’s decision to have Twitter become the epicenter of the Live Event is turning into a very powerful and savvy transition that has fueled some modest, albeit significant, momentum to the sputtering social network right off the bat. Beginning with the Anthony Noto-led deal with the NFL to stream games in April, essentially picking up the ball that Yahoo dropped, Twitter announced a similar league deal the National Basketball Association (first reported by FanSided) to bring more impact to the broadcast. This made a lot of sense considering that a whopping 50% of Twitter TV activity was sports-related per the 2015 Nielson ratings. The behavior of sports consumers has changed coverage as viewers have pulled away from cable subscriptions because of rampant mobile use.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – APRIL 11: (AUSTRALIA OUT) Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Square and Twitter, poses for a portrait at Black Velvet Espresso on April 11, 2016 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Paul Jeffers/Fairfax Media via Getty Images)

Another huge key for Dorsey’s strategy has been the acquisition of Periscope’s streaming capabilities, but that is an ever-changing and still wide open landscape. YouTube is set to announce the launch of YouTube Connect, its answer to Periscope and Facebook Live. There’s room in streaming for several players, but just how many remains to be seen. Both Twitter and Facebook’s mobile capabilities and impact on the market over the past year have them out in front in a big way. For now, both social networks have hit Google, who owns YouTube, in their sweet spot with revamped, organic search capabilities allowing for users to find and consume live-streamed events.

In addition to the shift in philosophy, Twitter has also seen positive returns in retargeting advertisements via their dynamic ads, according to Dorsey. This is great news for investors following the news Twitter had moved away from Buy Buttons and focused its internal focus on this form of advertising.

It’s hard to argue with the idea that what Dorsey is doing right now is working. Twitter’s stock has spiked in recent weeks and as they head towards the key end of year revenue months it’s hard to imagine them losing this newfound momentum from 2016. Unlike Yahoo, Twitter has a new, clear path and that has many who have been in their corner excited about the prospects of its future for now. While new players will emerge and potentially hinder some momentum with their streaming strategies, solving revenues and adding growth through savvy strategic sports partnerships has Twitter on course for a solid end of year with more untapped verticals still to come.