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Is There a Positive Spin to Twitter's Disappointing Q2 Earnings?

By Tinuiti Team

Twitter has had a rough 2016 so far. Stalled user base and decelerating revenue growth suggest that this company’s turnaround hopes are slowly fading away. This company expressed a disappointing Q2 and provided a dim outlook in a letter to shareholders recently.

For example, Twitter gained a revenue of $602 million during Q2, up 20 percent year-over-year. On the other hand, there was a growth of 61 percent during the same time last year. There certainly is a big difference between the two percentages. But revenue is short of the $607 million expected by analysts.

During Q2, it gained only three million new users, bringing it to a total of 313 million monthly active users worldwide. Compared to the 310 million users in Q1, that isn’t much growth. As for active monthly users in the U.S., Twitter went from 65 million to 66 million between Q2 of 2015 and Q2 of 2016.

During Q3, Twitter expects to have an increase of $590 million to $610 million, which falls short of the $681.4 million expected by analysts. Apart from these shortcomings, Twitter has gained some positive takeaways. In addition, some new projects are in the process of being established, which could mean stronger conversion optimization in the near future.

The Positive Takeaways of Twitter’s Outcomes

The flipside of Twitter’s poor Q2 outcomes consisted of several desirable accomplishments. Twitter continues to lose money, but it did report earnings, excluding certain items, of $0.13 a share, topping estimates of $0.09 a share. Its adjusted EPS is a key driver of share price, indicating that Twitter is more profitable than what analysts expected.

Three million new Twitter users aren’t much of a difference between Q1 and Q2. But the new number of global users is just ahead of the estimate of 312 million, according to data obtained by FactSet. On top of all this, Twitter’s ad revenue hit $535 million during the last quarter, which is an increase of 18 percent.

In Live-streaming, Twitter Sees Its Next Big Thing

Twitter has inked multiple live-streaming deals with several big companies. The service is already meant for live events and commentary, so it’s an initiative that makes some sense. In April, Twitter announced a partnership with the NFL to stream Thursday Night Football games.

Twitter made its first foray in sports broadcasting on Wednesday, July 6th by live-streaming The Wimbledon tennis tournament. It went on to partner with CBS News to livestream convention coverage for the Democrat and Republican parties.

Bloomberg partnered with Twitter to stream Financial News. Other sports deals with the NHL and MLB have been established. Twitter could get some really good social media advertising out of these connections and drive revenue.

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Twitter’s 2016 shortcomings have not stopped it from pursuing better quarterly outcomes, such as with live-streaming deals.

Twitter is on the Move With More Big Updates

Outside of live-streaming partnerships to attract new users, Twitter is in the works of creating a new timeline based on special algorithms that make content more relevant to users. A big part of this is making the experience of using Twitter more visually enticing.

It is rolling out improved marketing that includes videos and social media advertising centered on seeing what’s happening on Twitter. Promoting diversity is another huge goal, to explore the color and vibrancy of global users.

Moving forward with Twitter as a marketer means keeping up with the emphasis on visual trends of consumer engagement. In other words, you can have a bigger impact on users by showing them over telling them.

Are you convinced that Twitter will effectively upgrade its platform enough to generate better results? Whatever your stance, we will just have to wait and see how things turn out. But it’s always better to look on the bright side. In the meantime, read this awesome blog post of ours: See How to Convert: Top 10 CRO Tips

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