Twitter making protected tweets searchable to followers, rolling out Lead Generation cards

Big changes are coming to Twitter in anticipation of the upcoming IPO. While the micro-blogging website has rolled out the much-panned threaded tweet feature this week, it is also making available Lead Generation cards for general use. Twitter has also unveiled a feature where protected tweets will be searchable to users who follow an account.

Twitter is now starting to add protected tweets to search results. You need not worry if your account is protected, though. These results will be available to only followers you have approved of. Earlier, even if followers you had approved of wanted to search for your tweets, it was not offered to them on the results page. The feature makes using protected accounts a lot simpler now and a viable option for those who wanted to keep their tweets private but were afraid of alienating their followers.

Flying towards the IPO with newer features

The service is smartening up with advertising as well. Twitter unveiled the Lead Generation card back in May as a way to let users show interest in a particular product or service without having to leave the micro-blogging website. The card is being made available for wider usage to all advertisers, including small and medium businesses on Twitter.

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The card lets advertisers plug in an offer within a tweet that users can expand. They can then click on the call-to-action button to show interest. Once clicked Twitter will have basics like your name and email address pre-filled in the form, ready to ship it to the business. This will avoid the need for Twitter to send users off-site and will also benefit users who don’t have to go through multiple web pages to show interest in an offer or a brand.

Twitter has announced that with the wider rollout of the Lead Generation card, it is implementing certain improvements suggested by advertisers who had been using this feature. The micro-blogging website has made setting-up the card as easy for advertisers as it is for users to fill out. Downloading data is also now easier for advertisers. They will also have access to card analytics that can help them view details about their campaign.

The micro-blogging website is also experimenting with making these cards available in more attractive layouts so that it can fit a variety of advertising categories like newsletter, offers or general campaigns. Cards are now available in all languages as well. However, what’s to be noted here is that Twitter Ads for Small Business is available only to US-based advertisers who tweet in English currently.