Twitter的价值诉求与策略

 

当老大与老二在两年内双双IPO 之后，Twitter 走向上市之路似乎无可避免 ── 上市公司有筹码的优势，可以用来吸引人才、并购成长引擎，加上 Facebook、LinkedIn 与 Twitter 都在湾区，会让这个压力更为显著。果不其然，一个月前传出 Twitter 将要 IPO，而 S-1 (公开说明书) 也终于在数天前正式出炉。

 

关于这份 S-1 里的财务数字，已经有不少高手写了解读 ── 我在 Stern 的企业财务老师，在价值评估界有相当高地位的 Professor Damodaran 发表的分析尤其精辟，有兴趣的人不妨花 20 分钟时间拜读。

 

今天的篇幅，我想要花在该文件里 CEO 可以学习的另一个区块，关于 Twitter 价值要求与策略的描述，尤其是与 Facebook 之间的比较。虽然两者都是 Social Networks，但事实上他们在“中心思想”上有着相当显著的不同。今天的案例会有点长，因为 S-1 里面的文字我决定用原文，让大家感受一下原汁原味，但如果你能耐心把它读完，相信可以对设定公司的核心价值及策略，有更进一步的体会。

 

 

任何赚广告钱的企业都有两组人要服务 ── 使用者与广告主，但除了这两组人，去年上市的 Facebook 在 S-1 中加上了对开发商的价值要求，而到了今年的 Twitter，还多出了第四组 ── 对数据服务伙伴的要求。

 

顺序上，我们可以看到 Facebook 与 Twitter 都把使用者放在第一位，开发商放在第二位，广告主则是在第三位。在 Twitter 的案例里面，数据伙伴是最后一位。

 

 

面对用户，Twitter 的价值要求是：

 

Sharing Content with the World – Users leverage our platform to express themselves publicly to the world, share with their friends and family and participate in conversations. The public, real-time nature and tremendous global reach of our platform make it the content distribution platform of choice for many of the world’s most influential individuals and organizations, as well as millions of people and small businesses.

 

Discovering Unique and Relevant Content – Twitter’s over 215 million MAUs, spanning nearly every country, provide great breadth and depth of content across a broad range of topics, including literature, politics, finance, music, movies, comedy, sports and news.

 

Breaking News and Engaging in Live Events – Users come to Twitter to discover what is happening in the world right now directly from other Twitter users. On Twitter, users tweet about live events instantly, whether it is celebrities tweeting to their fans, journalists breaking news or people providing eyewitness accounts of events as they unfold. Many individuals and organizations choose to break news first on Twitter because of the unique reach and speed of distribution on our platform. As a result, Twitter is a primary source of information and complements traditional media as a second screen, enhancing the overall experience of an event by allowing users to share the experience with other users in real time. We believe this makes Twitter the social soundtrack to life in the moment.

 

Participating in Conversations – Through Twitter, users not only communicate with friends and family, but they also participate in conversations with other people from around the world, in ways that would not otherwise be possible. In addition to participating in conversations, users can simply follow conversations on Twitter or express interest in the conversation by retweeting or favoriting.

 

相对来说，Facebook 的价值要求是：

 

Connect with Your Friends – With 845 million MAUs worldwide, our users are increasingly able to find and stay connected with their friends, family, and colleagues on Facebook.

 

Discover and Learn –  We believe that users come to Facebook to discover and learn more about what is going on in the world around them, particularly in the lives of their friends and family and with public figures and organizations that interest them.

 

Express Yourself –  We enable our users to share and publish their opinions, ideas, photos, and activities to audiences ranging from their closest friends to our 845 million users, giving every user a voice within the Facebook community.

 

Control What You Share –  Through Facebook’s privacy and sharing settings, our users can control what they share and with whom they share it.

 

Experience Facebook Across the Web –  Through apps and websites built by developers using the Facebook Platform, our users can interact with their Facebook friends while playing games, listening to music, watching movies, reading news, and engaging in other activities.

 

Stay Connected with Your Friends on Mobile Devices –  Through the combination of our mobile sites, smartphone apps, and feature phone products, users can bring Facebook with them on mobile devices wherever they go.

 

比较两者之间，可以清楚看出双方中心思想的差异。Facebook 主打的是与朋友间的联系，而 Twitter 则是向全世界广播。Facebook 要帮助你控制隐私权，Twitter 则要让每个人都能播送实时新闻 (Breaking News)。有趣的是从 Web 原生的 Facebook 把“用手机与朋友联系”设定为主要价值要求，但在 IPO 前其实一半用户会使用 Facebook Mobile。当初从简讯对传衍生出的 Twitter 一直都有很高的行动比率，目前为止已到达 75%，但 Twitter 却不把 Mobile 认为是核心要求。所以从这个角度看，价值要求描述也涵盖了企业企图努力的方向。

 

 

再来，面对开发商，Twitter 的价值要求是：

 

Distribution Channel – Platform partners use Twitter as a complementary distribution channel to expand their reach and engage with their audiences. Publishers and media outlets contribute content created for other media channels to Twitter and tweet content specifically created for Twitter. We provide platform partners with a set of widgets that they can embed on their websites and an API for their mobile applications to enable Twitter users to tweet content directly from those properties. As our users engage with this content on Twitter, they can be directed back to our partners’ websites and applications.

 

Complementary Real-Time and Relevant Content – Twitter enables platform partners to embed or display relevant Tweets on their online and offline properties to enhance the experience for their users. Additionally, by enhancing the activity related to their programming or event on Twitter, media outlets can drive tune-in and awareness of their original content, leveraging Twitter’s strength as a second screen for television programming. For example, during Super Bowl XLVII, over 24 million Tweets regarding the Super Bowl were sent during the game alone and 45% of television ads shown during the Super Bowl used a hashtag to invite viewers to engage in conversation about those television ads on Twitter.

 

Canvas for Enhanced Content with Twitter Cards — Platform partners use Twitter Cards to embed images, video and interactive content directly into a Tweet. Twitter Cards allow platform partners to create richer content that all users can interact with and distribute.

 

Building with Twitter Content — Platform partners leverage Tweets to enhance the experience for their users. Developers incorporate Twitter content and use Twitter tools to build a broad range of applications. Media partners incorporate Twitter content to enrich their programming and increase viewer engagement by providing real-time Tweets that express public opinion and incorporate results from viewer polls on Twitter.

 

相对的，Facebook 的价值要求是：

 

Personalized and Social Experiences — We enable Platform developers to create better products that are personalized and social and that offer new ways for our users to engage with friends and share experiences across the web and on mobile devices. For example, a Facebook user can visit the Pandora website and immediately begin listening to a personalized radio station that is customized based on the bands the user Likes on Facebook.

 

Social Distribution — We enable Platform developers to reach our global user base and use our social distribution channels to increase traffic to their apps and websites.

 

Payments — We provide an online payments infrastructure that enables Platform developers to receive payments from our users in an easy-to-use, secure, and trusted environment.

 

在这里我们再次看到明显的对比。双方唯一的共同点是“Distribution”，也就是协助开发商推广的“通路”角色。除此之外，Twitter 强调的是实时、多媒体、丰富的内容来源 (Tweets)，而 Facebook 强调的则是个人化与金流服务。

 

Facebook 的策略是紧紧抓牢“大众上网入口”的战略位置，因此它希望透过 Open Graph 与金流服务平行整合各种垂直网站，吸取更多关于用户的信息，并且在现金流动站上最后一哩的位置。

 

Twitter 的策略是成为“实时新闻的 No.1 来源”，因此它把自己化为无形，鼓励垂直服务拿它的内容去加值，成为很多人不能或缺的关键资源。

 

 

面对广告主，Twitter 的要求是：

 

Unique Ad Formats Native to the User Experience –Our Promoted Products, which are Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts and Promoted Trends, provide advertisers with an opportunity to reach our users without disrupting or detracting from the user experience on our platform.

 

Targeting — Our pay-for-performance Promoted Products enable advertisers to reach users based on many factors. Importantly, because our asymmetric follow model does not require mutual follower relationships, people can follow the users that they find most interesting. These follow relationships are then combined with other factors, such as the actions that users take on our platform, including the Tweets they engage with and what they tweet about, to form a user’s Interest Graph. We believe a user’s Interest Graph produces a clear and real-time signal of a user’s interests, greatly enhancing our targeting capability.

 

Earned Media and Viral Global Reach — The public and widely distributed nature of our platform enables Tweets to spread virally, potentially reaching all of our users and people around the world. Our users retweet, reply to or start conversations about interesting Tweets, whether those Tweets are Promoted Tweets or organic Tweets by advertisers. An advertiser only gets charged when a user engages with a Promoted Tweet that was placed in a user’s timeline because of its promotion. By creating highly compelling and engaging ads, our advertisers can benefit from users retweeting their content across our platform at no incremental cost.

 

Advertising in the Moment — Twitter’s real-time nature allows our advertisers to capitalize on live events, existing conversations and trending topics. By using our Promoted Products, advertisers can create a relevant ad in real time that is shaped by these events, conversations and topics.

 

Pay-for-Performance and Attractive Return on Investment — Our advertisers pay for Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts on a pay-for-performance basis. Our advertisers only pay us when a user engages with their ad, such as when a user clicks on a link in a Promoted Tweet, expands a Promoted Tweet, replies to or favorites a Promoted Tweet, retweets a Promoted Tweet for the first time, follows a Promoted Account or follows the account that tweets a Promoted Tweet. The pay-for-performance structure aligns our interests in delivering relevant and engaging ads to our users with those of our advertisers.

 

Extension of Offline Advertising Campaigns — Twitter advertising complements offline advertising campaigns, such as television ads. Integrating hashtags allows advertisers to extend the reach of an offline ad by driving significant earned media and continued conversation on Twitter.

 

Facebook 的要求则是：

 

Reach — Facebook offers the ability to reach a vast consumer audience of over 800 million MAUs with a single advertising purchase.

 

Relevance — Advertisers can specify that we show their ads to a subset of our users based on demographic factors and specific interests that they have chosen to share with us on Facebook or by using the Like button around the web. We allow advertisers to select relevant and appropriate audiences for their ads, ranging from millions of users in the case of global brands to hundreds of users in the case of smaller, local businesses.

 

Social Context — We believe that the recommendations of friends have a powerful influence on consumer interest and purchase decisions. We offer advertisers the ability to include “social context” with their marketing messages. Social context is information that highlights a user’s friends’ connections with a particular brand or business, for example, that a friend Liked a product or checked in at a restaurant. We believe that users find marketing messages more engaging when they include social context.

 

Engagement — We believe that the shift to a more social web creates new opportunities for businesses to engage with interested customers. Any brand or business can create a Facebook Page to stimulate an ongoing dialog with our users.

 

在这里，我们可以看到双方同时强调“Reach”，也就是品牌广告主在意的到达率。不过 Facebook 是直白的说“拿钱来就给你 8 亿人”，Twitter 则比较委婉的说“好广告 (内容) 在我们这里会散播到全世界”。双方也都强调精准，不过 Twitter 强调的是“兴趣”，也就是他们追踪的人物与品牌，而 Facebook 由于拥有较多关于用户的数据，像是他们的学历、工作、平常对什么东西按了赞，因此可以提供更多元的精准设定。

 

除此之外，双方的广告产品特色就非常不一样了。Twitter 强调的是原生的型态、实时、效能与投报率，以及往电视等线下媒体延伸的可能，而 Facebook 强调的则是朋友推荐 (Social Context) 以及与品牌间的互动。进一步分析，你会发现 Twitter 提及的原生、实时、效能，都是 Facebook 已经做到的价值要求，而 Facebook 提及的品牌追踪更是 Twitter 率先带起的风潮。所以双方其实有重迭的产品特色，但 Facebook 的广告主或许多半已认为原生、实时、效能是先决条件，而 Twitter 广告主也对追踪品牌习以为常，因此并不值得特别提到。

 

倒是 Facebook 提及的 Social Context，也就是你的朋友 XXX 也喜欢这个故事，也对这个东西按赞，这种能够吸引消费者注意，大幅效益的广告型态，是 Twitter 较无法提出的要求，也是长期而言 Twitter 必须要迎头赶上的最重要差距。

 

 

如果价值要求描述是点出现在已经提供给种种用户的重点功能，则成长策略则是未来将要主力投资补强的项目，从这里可以一窥一家企业规划中的短、中期发展方向。

 

Twitter 在 S-1 中载明的的成长策略如下：

 

Users— We believe that there is a significant opportunity to expand our user base. Industry sources estimate that as of 2012 there were 2.4 billion Internet users and 1.2 billion smartphone users, of which only 215 million are MAUs of Twitter.

 

Geographic Expansion. We plan to develop a broad set of partnerships globally to increase relevant local content on our platform and make Twitter more accessible in new and emerging markets.

 

Mobile Applications. We plan to continue to develop and improve our mobile applications to drive user adoption of these applications.

 

Product Development. We plan to continue to build and acquire new technologies to develop and improve our products and services and make our platform more valuable and accessible to people around the world. We also plan to continue to focus on making Twitter simple and easy to use, particularly for new users.

 

Platform Partners— We believe growth in our platform partners is complementary to our user growth strategy and the overall expansion of our platform.

 

Expand the Twitter Platform to Integrate More Content. We plan to continue to build and acquire new technologies to enable our platform partners to distribute content of all forms.

 

Partner with Traditional Media. We plan to continue to leverage our media relationships to drive more content distribution on our platform and create more value for our users and advertisers.

 

Advertisers— We believe we can increase the value of our platform for our advertisers by enhancing our advertising services and making our platform more accessible.

 

Targeting. We plan to continue to improve the targeting capabilities of our advertising services.

 

Opening our Platform to Additional Advertisers. We believe that advertisers outside of the United States represent a substantial opportunity and we plan to invest to increase our advertising revenue from international advertisers, including by launching our self-serve advertising platform in selected international markets.

 

New Advertising Formats. We intend to develop new and unique ad formats for our advertisers. For example, we recently introduced our lead generation and application download Twitter Cards and Twitter Amplify, which allows advertisers to embed ads into real-time video content.

 

相对的，Facebook 的成长策略是：

 

Expand Our Global User Community — We continue to focus on growing our user base across all geographies, including relatively less-penetrated, large markets such as Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. We intend to grow our user base by continuing our marketing and user acquisition efforts and enhancing our products, including mobile apps, in order to make Facebook more accessible and useful.

 

Build Great Social Products to Increase Engagement — We prioritize product development investments that we believe will create engaging interactions between our users, developers, and advertisers on Facebook, across the web, and on mobile devices. We continue to invest significantly in improving our core products such as News Feed, Photos, and Groups, developing new products such as Timeline and Ticker, and enabling new Platform apps and website integrations.

 

Provide Users with the Most Compelling Experience — Facebook users are sharing and receiving more information across a broader range of devices. To provide the most compelling user experience, we continue to develop products and technologies focused on optimizing our social distribution channels to deliver the most useful content to each user by analyzing and organizing vast amounts of information in real time.

 

Build Engaging Mobile Experiences — We are devoting substantial resources to developing engaging mobile products and experiences for a wide range of platforms, including smartphones and feature phones. In addition, we are working across the mobile industry with operators, hardware manufacturers, operating system providers, and developers to improve the Facebook experience on mobile devices and make Facebook available to more people around the world. We believe that mobile usage is critical to maintaining user growth and engagement over the long term.

 

Enable Developers to Build Great Social Products Using the Facebook Platform — The success of our Platform developers and the vibrancy of our Platform ecosystem are key to increasing user engagement. We continue to invest in tools and APIs that enhance the ability of Platform developers to deliver products that are more social and personalized and better engage users on Facebook, across the web, and on mobile devices. Additionally, we plan to invest in enhancing our Payments offerings and in making the Payments experience on Facebook as convenient as possible for users and Platform developers.

 

Improve Ad Products for Advertisers and Users — We plan to continue to improve our ad products in order to create more value for advertisers and enhance their ability to make their advertising more social and relevant for users. Our advertising strategy centers on the belief that ad products that are social, relevant, and well-integrated with other content on Facebook can enhance the user experience while providing an attractive return for advertisers. We intend to invest in additional products for our advertisers and marketers while continuing to balance our monetization objectives with our commitment to optimizing the user experience.

 

首先比较使用者成长策略，可以发现双方的重点都放在地理扩张、行动，以及产品的不断改善方面。不过在产品改善的细节上，我们又可以看出双方中心思想的明显差异。Facebook 希望的是增加黏着度，企图用“动人”的使用体验不断占据你生命中越来越多的成分。Twitter 则希望维持简单易用，并且将引入新科技来达到这个目标。

 

针对开发商的成长策略，Twitter 希望提供更多内容，尤其是跟传统媒体结盟，来增加内容的质与量，这呼应着它针对开发商的价值要求，也符合它成为内容通路的长期策略。Facebook 则强调要提升 API，让第三方网站可以透过其平台建造更个人化的服务，并且要加强金流的使用，这也符合他们殖民全网域的长期策略。

 

针对广告主，Twitter 强调的是更精准的营销、开放北美以外的客户，以及新的广告型态，而 Facebook 则是一整段空虚的废话。就像前面价值要求所比较的一样，Twitter 相较于 Facebook 无论是可用于设定目标的数据，或是 Social Context，都居于劣势，所以必须加强投资追赶，而地理区域的扩张以及更多内容型态，更是非常合理的努力方向。相较之下，Facebook 显然很满意自己目前的广告产品，认为只要能让使用者、开发商更黏在它的平台上，则广告营收就会成长，因此不需要多说些什么。

 

 

细细阅读这两个社群网站的公开说明书，可以看出双方对于己方优势的认知，从那边进一步推测出他们的市场定位，以及未来的战略布局。希望今天的分析有帮助你见贤思齐，好好思考自己公司的价值要求与成长策略，有什么可以向两强学习的地方。