Twitter is “so last season”

Burberry Prorsum at London Fashion Week 2016 (via Observer)

It’s the middle of London Fashion Week. Not all of us are lucky enough to attend, but we have the next best thing: digital media.

Unfortunately for Twitter, it is going out of style in the fashion world. Why is it losing to other social media platforms?

In the month leading up to London Fashion Week 2016, there were 1,178 Twitter mentions using the hashtag #LFW2016. That number is drastically less than the same time last year when there were over 6,000 Twitter mentions of #LFW2015.

Comparatively, there were 5,602 Instagram posts with the hashtag #LFW2016 during the month leading up to the event this year. Designers and fans alike seem to prefer Instagram over Twitter this year.

Twitter is losing its popularity. By the end of 2015, the platform had 305 million active users. Instead of increasing, the number of Twitter users declined by two million during the last quarter. In contrast, Instagram grew to 400 million users this past September.

Instagram is more visually oriented than Twitter, with its streamlined layout. It is built specifically for viewing and sharing multimedia, so it is more compatible with distributing content produced by fashion houses. Instagram’s filters and editing tools also give it a leg up.

If Twitter wants to compete with Instagram, especially for the fashion industry, it needs to focus on visuals. Twitter could benefit from changing the way multimedia is presented on users’ feeds.

Recently Twitter launched a new feature that allows users to share GIFs in public posts, similar to the GIF feature on Facebook Messenger. The purpose of this feature is to make Twitter more appealing to the general public. However, it may make feeds more cluttered, which is the last thing the fashion industry wants.