Twitter has recently rolled out its new user image galleries to enhance photo-sharing usage and activity within user timelines. Whenever a user posts photos using its new photo-uploading tool or via a third-party photo-sharing service such as TwitPic, yFrog, and Instagram, photos will be instantly be featured in a Twitter user's profile in chronological order that will show up to 100 snapshots from January 2010. Twitter's new function will likely to be an enhancement to its recently launched paid tweets campaign.
The latest feature is set to provide equal billing to images shared using third-party apps as well as give credit to their makers. Twitter is about sharing so it's not surprising if it doesn't only promote itself as a place for text but also for photos. Each tweet with a photo makes it more personal and direct especially for corporate Twitter accounts.
Aside from that, image-sharing through a Twitter account gives small and medium businesses a cheap yet practical means to promote their products and services. And by cheap and practical, it means businesses can leverage from this image gallery as free space for advertising. Twitter has given businesses a new means to maximize their accounts for advertising purposes.
However, every business should just always bear in mind that 10,000 fans is nothing if engagement levels are down. But imagine how 10,000 followers can turn into instant customers when you capitalize on user engagement through photo-sharing. A noteworthy example is whenever a business launch discounted offers through coupons; and printable coupons will really come in handy through Twitter's image gallery.
We live in the digital age where "content" isn't limited to text. Today, content is deemed anything like a video, a photo, or a news copy, all of which has a common denominator - it merits a feedback. Content is valuable when you know how and when to share it. So is Twitter's new image gallery a billboard? I bet it's better.