Twitter, please tell us how you really feel about Tweetdeck

Twitter, we’re confused about your feelings for Tweetdeck.

In the five years since Twitter acquired the tweet management platform, it has never been clear whether Twitter fully embraced Tweetdeck or grudgingly put up with it just to keep the power users happy.

Yes, it has its own blog and the platform has seen numerous and significant upgrades. Yet, despite being a power user’s tool, it rarely achieves Twitter.com user parity. Even now, there’s no way to launch a poll from Tweetdeck, a feature that’s been on Twitter.com for more than six months.

Today, however, Twitter did something unusual. It posted, incongruously, on Facebook a 54-second commercial for Tweetdeck. No, not a spot for Twitter that glancingly mentions Tweetdeck, but a fully thought out, semi-comedic spot that adeptly illustrates how Tweetdeck can put a world of critical Twitter-borne information at your fingertips. You can see it below.

Yup, Twitter finally wants to talk to businesses about how much they can get done with Tweetdeck.

Twitter wouldn’t comment on why they created the video, what they hope to accomplish with it and how it jives with their past Tweetdeck-related actions.

Love, hate, hate relationship

Prior to releasing this promotional spot, which should also appear on Twitter proper, the company shut down Tweetdeck for iOS (in 2013), then this year shut down Tweetdeck for Windows. It saves much of its development flourishes for Twitter.com and, increasingly, what the homepage will look like to the uninitiated — those who have yet to create an account and sign into Twitter.

As an early Tweetdeck user, I’ve spent years worrying about the utility’s health and longevity.

As an early Tweetdeck user, I’ve spent years worrying about the utility’s health and longevity. Prior to Twitter buying it in early 2011, it was one of a collection of third-party utilities I thought unlikely to survive Twitter’s third-party utility offensive. Twitter kept adding features and shutting down third party API access. Tweetdeck managed to survive long enough for Twitter to buy it, but I still thought the company would eventually shut it down.

Instead, Twitter killed the standalone Adobe Air-supported app and eventually overhauled the Web interface, bringing it more in line with Twitter utility powerhouses Social Flow and Hootsuite.

I liked the update, but also noticed that Tweetdeck on the Web had turned into a resource hog. So much so that I could only intermittently run it before it would bring my entire Chrome browser to a crashing halt.

Not alone

If you think about it, Twitter is bad a self-promotion in general. Yes, it’s great at brand and media integration, but has only sporadically run television commercials promoting Twitter as a service. Sub services like Vine, Periscope and Tweetdeck are largely on their own. Twitter rarely capitalizes on whatever hype exists around their various products. Remember when Vine was hot? Did Periscope miss its moment?

The commercial seems to prove Twitter knows how to create broad-based marketing around its products, but simply hasn’t done so because it’s focused on its monthly active user growth. If that’s so, it’s gone swimmingly, hasn’t it?

One last push

I have a theory about why Twitter is running this mini Tweetdeck marketing blitz. It’s trying to decide whether or not it’s worth spending any more resources on maintaining and upgrading Tweetdeck. Since it has never promoted it,

If this video does move the needle even a little bit, maybe Twitter decides it’s worth spending a little more time and money on Tweetdeck

Twitter has to assume there are many Twitter-obsessed business types who don’t know about it, and certainly don’t know why multiple Tweet columns, scheduled Tweets and multi-account management could help them and their businesses. That may be so, but I’m betting that if you are a power Twitter user, you’re aware of it and if your job is social media, you’re running it.

If this video does move the needle even a little bit, maybe Twitter decides it’s worth spending a little more time and money on Tweetdeck, reintroducing mobile tools and maybe even adding polls.

I first thought this might have been a video Twitter shot in 2012, when the company first bought Tweetdeck, and it was just doing a little housecleaning. Then I saw the guy in the video roll in on a hoverboard. That’s so 2015. Can it, should it really survive in 2016? It’s time for Twitter to answer.

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