<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Thomas Clayton is the CEO of\u00A0Bubbly, a social media startup backed by Sequoia Capital, SingTel Innov8, and\u00A0JAFCO.\u00A0\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nTwitter has experienced a few highs and lows as a public company since announcing its IPO in November. Now on the verge of the company\u2019s first quarterly earnings report, there\u2019s already a major issue Twitter needs to address to keep its future looking bright: users in Asia are increasingly losing interest in the service.\r\n\r\nAccording to a report by social media research company Semiocast, Asia was once the fastest growing market for Twitter in the summer of 2010. This growth has since been slowly waning and has now reached a noticeable tipping point.\r\n\r\nThis is particularly alarming for Twitter in areas like South Korea and Japan, where mobile device usage and wealth are prevalent, and lack of access isn\u2019t an issue.\r\n\r\nA report by the analytics company CYRAM indicates that as of August 2013, 64 percent of South Korea\u2019s approximately 7 million users hadn\u2019t tweeted in over six months. This number has gotten significantly worse from the prior December, when it was at 56 percent.\r\n\r\nIn order for Twitter to fully capitalize on the benefits the vast Asian market has to offer, the company needs to focus on keeping users engaged and generating enough advertising cash to be profitable. Here are my thoughts on how Twitter can reverse its outlook in Asia.\r\nMake its community smaller and more exclusive\r\nThe most influential markets around the world have spoken: when it comes to social media, less is more. Furthermore, Twitter users in South Korea and Japan have said they\u2019re quitting the service because it\u2019s too open, too crowded, and too difficult.\r\n\r\nPeople are tired of scrolling through seemingly endless photo streams and bogged down newsfeeds. Instead, the tide has turned toward sharing that is more closed and simple. Just look at the rampant success of services that employ this strategy such as Snapchat, WeChat, and LINE \u2013 to name a few.\r\n\r\nWith this trend in mind, Instagram recently added a new private messaging feature that allows users to share photos and videos with a small group of followers, rather than to one\u2019s entire follower base. This is exactly the kind of step that Twitter needs to take to get back in touch with its Asian user base.\r\n\r\nRight now, people in Asia view Twitter more as a news delivery tool rather than a place to share and interact with friends. By expanding the Direct Message feature to allow users to share with a small group of followers, it would make Twitter more relevant for social sharing and give them a chance to pull Asian users back in.\r\nAdjust monetization strategy\r\nSince smartphone penetration is relatively low across South and Southeast Asia, Twitter also has a lower penetration rate and a far lower monetization rate, as an ad-model doesn\u2019t really work with feature phone users. Therefore, this leaves Twitter in need of an alternate earnings route.\r\n\r\nIn my opinion, the best way for Twitter to generate revenue in emerging markets is to partner with local carriers. This is definitely not the norm these days in the West, where partnering with mobile operators is a thing of the past. However, working with operators in Asia is the best way to reach the most number of people.\r\n\r\nIn emerging markets, operators have the existing infrastructure needed to reach the masses, and Twitter could reach far more users over simple SMS \u2013 just as it did originally in the U.S. before smartphone apps existed.\r\n\r\nThis would also give Twitter an alternative charging and monetization option: users\u2019 prepaid cards, the only ubiquitous billing mechanism across these markets.\r\n\r\nCurrently, the largest 40 operators across Asia represent more than 90 percent of all subscribers, which comes out to more than 2 billion potential users. These numbers alone speak for themselves.\r\n\r\nWhat may be surprising to some is that many feature phone users are very willing to spend for simple service features, because paying for content on the mobile web is engrained in their culture. They don\u2019t expect all Internet services to be free, whereas Westerners will spend more time searching for workarounds to avoid additional charges.\r\n\r\nThis is why selling virtual goods, which are intangible objects in online communities such as ways to upgrade or personalize the service, could also be a viable revenue-generating strategy for the company. It has been a successful route for companies like Tencent, which have brought in billions through these kinds of sales.\r\nAdd culturally relevant features\r\nStickers are essentially a must on social networks these days in Asia. One reason stickers have been so successful in Asia, is that they help people to express their emotions accurately and concisely \u2013 often much faster than it would take to type them in local language characters.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIn Asian languages, long-winded responses are frequently needed to accomplish this. The use of a sticker not only solves this problem, but it adds humor and fun to social interactions that many users enjoy. Just look at emojis for example.\r\n\r\nThese could fall right in line with the before mentioned suggestion of Twitter adding a line of virtual goods. If the company released a package of purchasable stickers, it could capitalize on Asian trends and spending behaviors in one swoop.\r\n\r\nHowever, before the results unfold on February 5, Twitter needs to take a hard look at the Asian market and make some very specific changes. Asia doesn\u2019t fit into the same business model mold as other continents, and it has the potential to pay serious dividends."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/asia/2014/01/29/twitter-can-prevent-massive-user-exodus-asia/>