Twitter is probably rolling out Shops in 2022

When a social media giant is publicly testing a big new feature, you should certainly pay attention. I spotted this while reading their recently released Q3 Shareholder letter where Twitter often drips in notes of new upcoming features for the platform.

If you’re actively marketing on social media, you’ll know getting in early on new features of a platform before saturation, as always, is highly valuable.

Looking past the careful and controversial choice of GameStop as the shop example above, Twitter recently released this image to their Shareholders, teasing new Shop capabilities for active users. Then they launched a limited pilot of the module with a small handful of brands in the US.

This journey was teased in July 2021 with the public testing of a new Shop Module. But that was back then, they’re now further afield…

Why are Twitter adding shops?

Twitter recognises that many business profiles encourage pathways of discovering and talking about products. Twitter of course want to capitalize on this, by offering the further ability to enable customer purchases too.

Business profiles benefit from this too and can fully convert customers right within the app, instead of users being put off of leaving the safety of Twitter.

What does it look like?

Shops are available as a dedicated carousel space at the top of a profile, where businesses can best showcase their products.

These are just the static version of shopping. Twitter also released in November Live Shopping with a testing collaboration through Walmart.

What is Live Shopping? While watching a livestream on Twitter, people can make purchasing actions when product placement is made.

Finally, Twitter is building a Shopping Manager, though this has not been publicly released, so we are yet to know what this looks like.

How do I get started?

Currently Twitter is using the new Shopping feature as a bargaining chip for business partnerships, while they’re still in a testing phase.

If you’re a decision maker in a particularly influential organisation that would benefit, then you may be able to jump ahead. The rest of us will have to wait a little longer yet.

It’s highly expected that Twitter Shopping will become a real product for business profiles to utilize and you should certainly keep an eye out for further announcements on their blog when it’s available to a wider audience.

It would be unlikely for Twitter to back pedal now, given the keen demand from Business users and shareholders alike. We simply must wait a little longer, with some expecting it to land this year.

Do you think Twitter Shops will change the social media marketing game for e-commerce?

As a Digital Tech advisor and developer, I’ll certainly be curious to see if they eventually provide integration options, or choose to keep Twitter Shops a purely on-site offering….