Is Twitter dying or flying?

Is Twitter's recent fall in stock value anything to be seriously worried about for one of the largest social media companies in the world? It certainly isn't a small issue for a company or its investors when one fifth of stock value is lost following the publishing of results so what has led to such a stark fall in confidence over the latest period?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26059710

Some believe Twitter is over valued, some believe the user growth is not in line with what it should be and some believe the lack of active users leads to little chance of long-term stability.  On top of all of this comparisons will no doubt continue to be made to Facebook. The fact that Twitter's main competitor has five times the amount of users builds into the perception that Facebook is the dominant player in social media. This creates an interesting dilemma for investors when deciding who to plug their hard earned cash into for a lucrative and growing portfolio.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2014/01/06/analyst-bet-on-facebook-and-google-over-twitter/

Incredibly 90% of Twitter growth can be attributed to advertising revenue so it will be more than a small shock to some that Twitter has yet to define a sensible algorithm to determine relevant customer tweets and relate this data back to a targeted audience. This is of course a significant part of Twitters issues as it means potential business is lost to competitors. If the average owner of a stock portfolio continues to place Twitter in the same bracket as Facebook there will only be one winner in that battle.

http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1230188/twitters-value-drops-fifth-user-growth-stutters

We all shouldn't start to get too worried about Twitter in the long-term. The fact of the matter is the company continues to see an strong growth in users (30% compared to 2013) and there are a number of other unique competitive advantages over other social media competitors. The Brand Avenger believes the two most important factors to look is the ability for real-time and instantaneous content to be created and shared and the companies dominance of utilising second screen capability. One of the best videos I can find on the web today to bring this to life can be found at the below link and highlights how many people were tweeting on their second screen (laptop or smartphone) whilst enjoying the Superbowl on their main screen.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/video-news/video-super-bowl-lights-up-twitter-29988548.html

We have set it before and we will say it again! The way companies choose to spend their advertising and marketing revenues will change as we move into the next decade. Twitter have a clear competitive advantage in the sense that the public are already using hash tags and Tweets to communicate their feelings about brands. Twitter has an opportunity to potentially use this power to offer a integrated media package to the market that creates an aligned marketing message across TV and social. Alternatively they could just choose to highlight and embrace the value of their own platform for advertising investment, a value of which cannot be denied when you consider examples like the ones mentioned below.

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20140208/business/702089958/

Twitter is different to Facebook and it already has pole position in a number of critical areas that could help bolster future growth. It's now time for the little blue bird to spread its wings and fly into the next decade as the main destination for lucrative advertising expenditure.