????投資者對(duì)于Twitter的前景依舊缺乏信心。Twitter第三季度財(cái)報(bào)顯示用戶增長(zhǎng)速度放緩，這家科技公司的股價(jià)應(yīng)聲下跌10%，盡管公司收入比2014年增長(zhǎng)了58%。自6月份以來(lái)，Twitter僅增加了300萬(wàn)新用戶，與競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手Instagram相比遜色不少——Instagram僅過(guò)去9個(gè)月便新增1億用戶，用戶總數(shù)達(dá)到4億。要實(shí)現(xiàn)收入與用戶數(shù)量的均衡增長(zhǎng)并非易事。Twitter新任CEO杰克·多爾西的任務(wù)異常艱巨。但他至少知道如何提高公司的普及度。

????王者歸來(lái)？

????在體育和音樂(lè)界，復(fù)出是常有的事，但CEO復(fù)出的情況卻并不常見。多爾西希望像史蒂夫·喬布斯一樣，重新回到他一手創(chuàng)立的公司，試圖力挽狂瀾。多爾西在2006年參與創(chuàng)建了Twitter，是該公司首任CEO。但在2008年，他被另外一位聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人埃文·威廉姆斯取而代之。2009年，多爾西組建了銀行卡移動(dòng)支付平臺(tái)Square公司，現(xiàn)在依舊擔(dān)任該公司CEO——這一點(diǎn)也讓他飽受指責(zé)。

????2015年7月，多爾西重回Twitter，任臨時(shí)CEO，2015年10月獲得正式任命。他的前任迪克·科斯特洛曾經(jīng)談及掌管一家上市公司的壓力，尤其是如何處理在股市預(yù)期刺激下產(chǎn)生的一些短期想法。如何在滿足投資者對(duì)公司短期預(yù)期的同時(shí)，確立一個(gè)長(zhǎng)期的發(fā)展愿景，現(xiàn)在成為多爾西必須解決的難題。最初重返公司時(shí)，多爾西提出了一項(xiàng)旨在簡(jiǎn)化Twitter產(chǎn)品的計(jì)劃，以幫助人們更容易理解，更愿意使用這個(gè)社交平臺(tái)。他表示，公司將重點(diǎn)“加大對(duì)Twitter、Periscope和Vine的投入。”

????問(wèn)題在于，這項(xiàng)簡(jiǎn)化工作是否以及何時(shí)能夠見到成效。實(shí)際上，Twitter的每月活躍用戶數(shù)量同比增長(zhǎng)11%，達(dá)到3.2億，較上一季度的3.16億有所增長(zhǎng)。但多爾西還有更多工作要做，并且必須加快速度。讓Twitter易于使用，是這家公司在擴(kuò)大用戶基數(shù)方面面臨的主要挑戰(zhàn)。

????第三季度的收入為5.69億美元，同比增長(zhǎng)58%，比預(yù)測(cè)區(qū)間高出900萬(wàn)美元。其中90%來(lái)自廣告收入（5.13億美元，同比增長(zhǎng)60%）。令人印象深刻的是，有86%的廣告收入來(lái)自移動(dòng)廣告。第四季度的收入預(yù)測(cè)區(qū)間為6.95億至7.1億美元。然而，從每月活躍用戶人數(shù)這一標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來(lái)看，Twitter正陷入困境。投資者通常會(huì)用每月活躍用戶人數(shù)來(lái)判斷一家社交媒體公司的長(zhǎng)期前景（因?yàn)檫@一指標(biāo)可以吸引更多廣告收入）。

????Twitter的現(xiàn)狀

????推特的現(xiàn)狀濃縮在以下3個(gè)領(lǐng)域：新功能Moments，視頻，以及吸引中小企業(yè)的方式。Moments是Twitter推出的一款新產(chǎn)品，可圍繞用戶關(guān)注的實(shí)時(shí)事件，聚合有關(guān)的推文、圖片和視頻。這項(xiàng)功能會(huì)組織Twitter上最熱門的話題，內(nèi)容由Twitter及其合作伙伴編制。多爾西表示，Moments代表了Twitter思維方式的根本性轉(zhuǎn)變——根據(jù)話題而不是事件組織內(nèi)容，用戶可關(guān)注話題而不是賬戶。這款新產(chǎn)品充分體現(xiàn)了Twitter為了變得更易于用戶和廣告商理解所作出的諸多努力。

????為了宣傳Moments，Twitter在世界職業(yè)棒球錦標(biāo)賽期間推出了第一款電視廣告。然而，這則廣告卻遭到部分Twitter用戶的反對(duì)，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)它過(guò)于復(fù)雜，不清楚它到底在傳達(dá)什么信息。這也顯示出Twitter所面臨的雙重挑戰(zhàn)：一方面，公司要通過(guò)簡(jiǎn)化的界面來(lái)吸引新用戶，另一方面，現(xiàn)有用戶則希望現(xiàn)有服務(wù)能夠增加新功能。Moments已經(jīng)開始提供廣告。但這項(xiàng)相對(duì)較新的服務(wù)還有許多問(wèn)題亟待解決：開發(fā)者與廣告商是否會(huì)采用Moments，將其作為吸引現(xiàn)有受眾和新目標(biāo)受眾的新穎方式？ Moments能否幫助Twitter擴(kuò)大用戶基數(shù)？

????對(duì)于該公司來(lái)說(shuō)，增加 “應(yīng)用內(nèi)體驗(yàn)”是一個(gè)重要的發(fā)展領(lǐng)域。與Facebook的即時(shí)文章(Instant Articles)類似，使用戶停留在應(yīng)用內(nèi)，而不是通過(guò)超級(jí)鏈接跳轉(zhuǎn)到瀏覽器，是增加用戶駐留時(shí)間的一種重要方式。提高“應(yīng)用內(nèi)體驗(yàn)”的結(jié)果是，服務(wù)的使用頻率提高，并且可獲得廣告商的更多關(guān)注。此外，隨著視頻內(nèi)容消費(fèi)量的增加，Twitter也在嘗試吸引廣告商的視頻內(nèi)容和廣告預(yù)算。Twiter將在下一個(gè)季度發(fā)布更多相關(guān)產(chǎn)品，如采用Promoted Moments形式的新視頻功能。

????最后，Twitter有900萬(wàn)中小企業(yè)賬戶，這是Twitter及其廣告商尚未充分利用的一條新營(yíng)銷渠道。只要這些公司認(rèn)為Twitter可以更容易、更有效地將他們連接到用戶與供應(yīng)商，它們就有可能更愿意使用Twitter提供的服務(wù)和廣告選擇（例如推出粉絲專享促銷活動(dòng)等）。扭轉(zhuǎn)一家公司的局面需要時(shí)間和精力，但留給Twitter的時(shí)間似乎越來(lái)越少，多爾西和他的團(tuán)隊(duì)必須加大努力。他們必須在改善現(xiàn)有產(chǎn)品和提供新服務(wù)之間實(shí)現(xiàn)平衡。只有到那時(shí)，Twitter及其CEO才能實(shí)現(xiàn)收入與用戶的雙重增長(zhǎng)。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????本文作者索蒂里奧斯·帕羅蒂斯是沃里克大學(xué)戰(zhàn)略管理專業(yè)副教授。本文最初發(fā)表于《The Conversation》。

????譯者：劉進(jìn)龍/汪皓

????審校：任文科

????Investors are still unsure about Twitter’s prospects. The tech company’s stock dropped by 10% after reporting low user growth in its third quarter earnings report, despite seeing revenue grow by 58% compared to 2014. The firm added just 3m new users since June – paling in comparison to rival Instagram, which saw users grow by 100 million to reach 400 millon users in the past nine months alone. Delivering on the equation of revenue and user growth is no mean feat – and the firm’s new CEO Jack Dorsey has a tough job on his hands. But he appears to know at least what it takes to boost the company’s popularity.

????The comeback kid

????Comebacks might be frequent in the world of sports and music, but not so in the world of CEOs. Dorsey is hoping to follow in the footsteps of Steve Jobs in returning to the company he co-founded to help turn its fortunes around. Dorsey helped launch Twitter in 2006 and was its first CEO. But he was replaced by Evan Williams in 2008, another co-founder of the company. Dorsey went on to form Square Inc, a business platform for card payments on mobiles in 2009 and remains its chief executive – something that he has been criticized for.

????He returned as interim CEO in July 2015 and the job was made permanent in October 2015. His predecessor, Dick Costolo, spoke of the pressures involved in running a public company – particularly, dealing with the short-term thinking fueled by stock market expectations. Satisfying short-term expectations in a firm that also needs to build a long-term vision is now the battle Dorsey must fight. When he first took back the reins, Dorsey laid out a vision to simplify Twitter’s product offering – to make it easier to understand and more approachable to people. He said it would focus on “big bets across Twitter, Periscope and Vine.

????The question is if and when this simplification will begin to deliver. The number of monthly active members did actually rise 11% year-over-year to 320 million and saw a slight rise from 316 million in the previous quarter. But more work needs to be done – and at a higher tempo. Making Twitter easier to use is the key challenge the company faces to increase its user base.

????The Q3 revenue of $569 million points to a rise of 58% year-on-year, $9 million above its forecast range. Of this revenue about 90% came from advertising ($513 million, an increase of 60% year-on-year). And an impressive 86% of the total advertising revenue was mobile-based. The forecast range for Q4 is $695 million to $710 million. Yet, in the metric of monthly active users, which is often used by investors to judge the long-term prospects of social media firms (as it helps attract even more advertising revenue), Twitter is struggling.

????Twitter’s moment

????Three areas encapsulate what is happening at Twitter at the moment: Twitter’s new Moments feature, videos and the way it targets small and medium-sized businesses. Moments is a new product that organizes tweets, pictures and video around live events that users can choose to follow. It features the best stories happening on Twitter, prepared by Twitter and select partners. According to Dorsey, Moments represents a fundamental shift in Twitter’s thinking – organizing content by topic instead of timing, where users follow topics live instead of accounts. This sums up the current efforts to make Twitter easier to understand for both users and advertisers.

????In an effort to boost its popularity, Twitter aired its first TV advertisement to showcase Moments during the World Series Baseball tournament. The ad created a backlash from some Twitter users, however, who found it complicated and were unsure of the message it was trying to convey. This vividly shows the dual challenge Twitter has of engaging both new users through a simplified interface and current ones who want extra functionality from the service it already provides. Advertising is already offered within Moments. But as this is a relatively new service, there are still questions to be addressed: will developers and advertisers adopt Moments as a novel way to reach out to current and new audiences? Will Moments help Twitter increase its user base?

????Increasing the “in-app experience” that Twitter offers is an important area of development for the company. Similar to Facebook’s Instant Articles, keeping users inside the app instead of having hyperlinks send them onto a web browser, is an important part of keeping users engaged in their services for longer. The result is more frequent use of its service and more attention by advertisers. And, with the volume of video consumption on the rise, Twitter is trying to attract the video ad budgets of advertisers. In the next quarter there will be more related products released, such as new video features in the form of Promoted Moments.

????Finally, Twitter hosts 9m small and medium-sized business’ accounts that are a new marketing channel that Twitter and its advertisers have yet to fully utilise. If these businesses view Twitter as a way to connect to their users and suppliers easily and more effectively, then they might be more willing to use the array of services and advertising options Twitter is offering (for example, exclusive promotions to their followers). It takes time and effort to turn a business around. And it is at this precise moment, when time seems to be running out, that Dorsey and his team need to step up their efforts. These efforts need to strike a balance by improving current products and offering new services. It is only then that Twitter, and its CEO, will start delivering on both revenue and user growth.

????Sotirios Paroutis is an associate professor of strategic management at the University of Warwick. This article originally appeared on The Conversation.