Twitter has been rolling out several changes recently. Some of those changes have included group direct messages, shooting and sharing short videos directly from Twitter’s mobile applications and recently, the ability to quote tweets by attaching them. Now it is making it easier for all users to communicate privately with each other regardless of whether they are following each other or not.
The feature is only activated if you opt in through the settings page on web or via Twitter’s mobile applications on Android and iOS. This means those of us who are not interested in letting just about everyone who follows us on Twitter to send us direct messages are safe. Before this, users needed to be following each other in order to send and receive DMs. The feature could however be particularly useful to businesses and brands that take feedback from customers as they do not necessarily need to be following back every one of their clients in order to receive feedback.
A good example is Kenyan telecommunications company Safaricom Ltd’s Twitter accounts @SafaricomLtd and @Safaricom_Care. Instead of the handlers of those two accounts having to follow back every customer so that they can submit their private details like mobile phone numbers in order to be assisted, those customers only need to be following either of the accounts and they are able to send their confidential information via direct message.
Twitter started testing this feature back in October 2013 with a few select users before it backtracked. Now the new features are rolling out to all users worldwide.
