5 Things to Learn from Twitter's Business Success

David Diaz, Senior Executive, Davenport Laroche 

From almost nothing, Twitter has grown to be one of the largest social networks in the world. Of course, it's had a few hiccups along the way. In fact, it wasn't too long ago that many media outlets were discussing the fall of Twitter, as many social customers started to move to Instagram instead. Fortunately, the company has dragged itself back into the limelight with a few good leadership strategies. Any good leader needs to know how to handle the ups and downs of business. With that in mind, it's worth looking at the behavior of successful companies when it comes to looking for lessons on effective leadership strategies. Here are a few lessons that new leaders can learn from the Twitter journey.

1.     Diversity and Inclusion are Key 

In 2017, Twitter appointed the well-renowned Candi Singleton to lead the equality efforts for the brand. She replaced Jeffrey Siminoff as the Vice President for inclusion and diversity, and started a renewed effort to bring more disabled, and female employees into the work environment. The latest diversity report from the company showed that around 32.5% of all leaders in the team are woman, while 10.1% of ethnic minorities make up the staff at management level.

2.     Acknowledge Mistakes 

For the past five years or so, Twitter has been part of several problems to do with bots, online harassment and misinformation. This has meant that many customers have ended up leaving the platform completely.  As journalistKen Kurson recently noted, rather than simply giving up on the platform and ignoring its faults, the CEO Jack Dorsey sought out an opportunity to take accountability. He's committed to fixing issues and has even invested in an analytics firm to help monitor the quality of conversations.

3.     Welcome New Hires 

Leaders need to ensure that the lifeblood of their company - the people - feel comfortable and at home in their positions. From the moment people accept their job at Twitter, the firm looks for ways to integrate the new hire into the company culture. The Twitter program - Yes to Desk - includes 75 steps that hires can follow to make sure that they're integrated into the business as quickly and seamlessly as possible.

4.     Encourage Employee Engagement 

Ever since the co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey came back to the brand in 2015, the leader has been doing what he can to engage with more than 4000 employees and find out more about what motivates them. Every week, employees have opportunities to ask their questions directly to the leadership team, which helps to develop stronger relationships between hires and their bosses. As any leader knows - it's important for a team to trust their manager.

5.     Embrace New Opportunities for Growth 

Finally, sometimes leaders need to realize that old and outdated measures need replacing with new and exciting new concepts. Twitter leaders knew that they were losing followers with a lack of a video streaming service, so they invested in new content solutions to get more investors and businesses involved. In 2018, the organization signed deals to stream golf, football, and formula 1 content on certain channels.