THE POWER OF THE PLATFORM: VISUAL STORYTELLING ON SOCIAL NETWORKS 87 the clutter; this is a “clean” experience. Twitter also has an array of new keyboard shortcuts, which will appeal to marketers who spend a lot of time using Twitter. A recent study that analyzed The network has grown rapidly in recent years to 739,000 tweets found that 76% embrace large new demographics, including companies of content that was shared on and business users. The high percentage of young people Twitter had a photo attached, on Twitter is just one of the factors that appeals to mar- and 18% had a video as part of keters keen to engage with this previously hard to reach the message.87 group. Although primarily a microblogging site, Twitter has steadily been getting more visual. In 2011, Twitter added a new gallery feature that gave an image-based look to the network. This means that pictures now stay around much longer—100 photos can be displayed at any one time, so rather than disappearing down your feed, followers will be able to see all the images you’ve tweeted recently. It’s worth sharing plenty of visual content or your gallery will look a bit empty. As these pictures stay around for a while, think about what you are tweeting and how the overall picture will look to an observer: Do you have a good mix of images, or do you tend to concentrate on one type? Twitter cards are a recent addition to the site, and they have added a whole new visual dimension to tweets that make them far more engag- ing. Twitter cards make it possible for you to attach media experiences to tweets that link to your content. They are little summaries of web pages, such as articles, blog posts, products, or companies. Tweets that link to participating websites can be expanded by users to show a whole range of media, including content previews, images, and videos. It’s worthwhile for marketers to be aware of the technology behind Twitter cards: if you add the code on your own site, you can determine what sort of content will be shown by a Twitter link. The potential for highlighting particular content could be very beneficial for visual campaigns. There’s a new twist to the Twitter cards too: lead generation. With this simple but brilliantly interactive tool, users interested in a particular offer or promotion will be able to fill out a field on the card that links to