Twitter has announced it will be testing and releasing an edit button at some point.

Although this is good news with the rejoice of millions across the world, it does come with its complexities. Twitter is a domain where words and information are prominent to Twitter users. Unlike other social media where visual is more dominant and users from these other apps can take context and meaning from them, Twitter is a domain where more than most, words dominate interpretation.

One example, if a user sends out a tweet which gains a couple hundred likes, then the user realized they made a typo which completely changes the narrative of that tweet, what then? Does the tweet engagements remain with a ‘this tweet has been edited? Or do all the likes, retweets and comments just disappear with a clean slate? Either scenario does not sound too great.

Another hard problem with adding an edit button is creators of viral Tweets adding new links. Whether this is by choice or being persuaded to do so, potentially this could be harmful on multiple layers.

It’s often seen that comments under tweets can gain greater engagement than the original tweet itself. A user who puts effort into commenting on a tweet may not be too pleased to see their efforts is now been misinterpreted out of context because the original tweeter changed a word or change the wording of the tweet entirely.

So how does Twitter maintain user satisfaction without breaking the most basic construct of its product?

Twitter has added tweet keywords which I created a similar concept about 3 years ago within my Medium posts, so I thought I create another simple one with Twitter edit.

Suggestion/How it could work.

1. Karennne typed a tweet. The tweet says

2. Karennne pressed send and doesn’t notice her typo for 43mins

3. After 43mins, Karennne notice she has multiple responses and a large amount of engagement. She starts to wonder what the hell is going on and then notice her typo within her tweet.

4. After seeing the high level of engagement she feels a bit embarrassed and silly but feels she doesn't want to delete it because of the interaction the tweet has gained. So she edits the tweet.

Edited tweet. Clean slate with previous engagement removed.

5. If users see an edited label tweet, all they have to do is press and hold the tweet to see the unedited original and all of its engagements just like ‘3d touch’ the new tweet will have a clean slate of engagement to help reduce any form of confusion.

The original tweet, engagement and comments are not gone, just hidden behind the new edited tweet. The original tweet will be flagged as invalid and edited for all to see. further engagement on invalid tweets may vary. Anyone who interacted with the tweet will get an edit update notification.

6. If users decide to press and hold the edited tweet to see the original tweet, this will show them the tweet without its metrics. Only the amount of users who have viewed the tweet, popular users who have engaged with the tweet and any advertisements.

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7. If the user continues to hold the tweet with their thumb, the blue bar will then shrink within 4 seconds and then take the user to the full tweet showing all engagements.

Wait bar

Full Tweet

During the 4 seconds, ads could be shown to produce revenue with Twitter subscription.

Conculusion

Press and hold also incentives a quick easy route for users to see the unedited tweet. After a while, most users may not care for the original unedited tweet because it’s just not worth the effort to check, users may become habituated even though the edited orignal tweet may be of significance.

Press and hold is quick and easy, giving viewers the option to expand the tweet along with business opportunities through advertisement.

The below demo with Nike is also a fun, creative and engaging way in which individuals and businesses can use edited tweets to further increase interactions on Twitter.

Demo gif mockup.

First page: Press and hold to see unedited tweet

Last page: Go back to edited tweet