Today marks Twitter’s 10th Birthday- naturally, a day when we’re keen to look back on what the site has given us over the past decade. 

There’s no other social media site like it- except for Sina Weibo, China’s most popular micro-blogging platform. But for us in the West, Twitter is unique. It’s our go-to channel for breaking news, articles, immediate updates, and live conversations, arguably making it the most useful site for staying informed. Twitter itself created a timeline of groundbreaking milestones to mark the occasion, featuring what it considered to be defining moments. In this, the company’s highlights include Jack Dorsey’s first tweet posted back in 2006, the proposal of hashtags in 2007, to Leonardo DiCaprio’s Oscar win this year, which set a new record with 440,000 tweets per minute. Significant world events are also noted, with The 2014 World Cup revealed as the biggest sports event on Twitter, while the Hudson River landing, Boston Marathon, and death of Nelson Mandela are shown to be some of the most talked about points. Notable hashtags also feature on the timeline, with #RoyalBaby, #BringBackOurGirls, and #PrayForParis some of the site’s most trending.

So what do we feel, have been Twitter’s defining moments over the past 10 years? For us, Twitter has been part of some incredible moments, and one of the first that springs to mind is seeing the first tweet sent from space, posted to the site by Astronaut TJ Creamer back in January 2010. From a marketing point of view, there have been some amazing campaigns that have set a standard for brand activity on the site. One of the most memorable and crafty has got to be Oreo’s “Dunk in the Dark” tweet, which catapulted the idea of real-time advertising to the forefront of every marketer’s brain. When the power went out in the New Orleans Superdrome, site of the 2013 Super Bowl, Oreo capitalised on this opportunity, tweeting: “Power out? No problem.” This was accompanied by an image featuring a single Oreo against a blackened background, and the slogan- “You can still dunk in the dark”. In that moment, the notion of live-tweeting was transformed, with brands realising that they could boost their presence by aligning with trending events as they unfolded on the platform. Twitter too has since benefitted from this upsurge in marketing activity, last year launching an event targeting feature for advertisers, enabling the site to monetise from this trend.

We feel too, that there’s no other platform like it for brands who wish to display the “human” element of their organisation. Live-chats, Q&A sessions, and general conversations can all be held instantly- something not fully achievable with Facebook or Instagram. Over the years, we’ve come to notice several brands who have demonstrated this effectively to engage with their customers. These include Taco Bell, who have perfected the art of social listening to employ trending hashtags and cultural references in their tweets, and Sainsbury’s, whose brand voice is wittily hilarious, especially when providing customer service. To us, Twitter is undoubtedly the top channel for brands looking to engage with and win over followers- and we hope it will continue to provide the same level of user experience in future.

Are you a Twitter fan? What have been your favourite moments from the past decade, and how do you see the site continuing to flourish over the coming years? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital, and comment on our Facebook page.