• by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, September 15, 2014

It's a big week for Twitter as it moves from last week's questions over why it would need to borrow a billion and a half dollars to the potentially more positive question mark over how well its "Buy" button will do.

The new ability to click on a button in a tweet to purchase the item mentioned will receive a lot of attention. My concern is that although there will undoubtedly be some success stories, it will receive more attention in the headlines than it ever will on the social media network itself. 

There are several reasons why a Buy button will struggle on Twitter. The very obvious first one is that peoples' timelines are constantly being refreshed with content from hundreds -- and often, thousands -- of accounts they follow. Trying to keep up with what's on the average feed is a little like trying to keep an eye on flotsam and jetsam flashing past on a fast-rolling river. If it's a marketplace, it certainly isn't a place for quiet consideration -- more of a bustling loud open space with the potential for users to be confused by stall traders shouting out offers from every side. 

There's also the very obvious restriction of character length. Can you really sell an item in 160 characters with a Buy button better than you could with a URL taking users to your Web site? If anything, the Buy button will -- at least in principle -- give marketers back a few extra characters that won't be taken up by a URL, but will it make a massive difference?

The big question, of course, is whether people will trust Twitter with their credit card details. Most people have been hacked or know someone who has been hacked on Twitter already. Are people really going to trust the site with their credit card details?

The final one, that could put pay to all of this, is whether people actually want to buy things through social. There has been very little evidence of this so far in a channel that people either use to keep in contact with pals, boast about how well their children are doing or tut at someone else's view on an article of headline they are sharing.

So the omens are not favourable, although I think we will have two camps here. Content will be crucial to selling on Twitter because space is so restricted. Show a picture that captures the imagination and provide a Buy button and you can see people will want to buy what the model is wearing, download the gaming app, pre-order a DVD or book a restaurant table.

With anything that is of high value, however, users will typically need to go to another page to research the purchase, which I can't help but think they can already do now. Where the immediacy of the Buy button might appeal is with the low-cost, low-consideration items in our daily lives -- but I believe that is where mobile marketing -- particularly with iBeacons -- fits in. If you're catching a train, or walking out to lunch without a clue what you're going to eat, I think a tailored iBeacon offer on salads and a bottle of water is more likely to catch the attention than a tweet buried among a thousand other tweets. 

This leads to the next obvious conclusion -- that the Buy button is surely going to have to be used by brands promoting their tweets if they are going to get the reach and scale they need to make it worthwhile. So, presumably it will be good news for Twitter while brands try out the new facility.

So ultimately, I think there will be some winners. Fashion and accessories, I imagine, will do well as people click to buy what's in the photo. It might well be the same for a brand with a massive niche following. A football equipment supply company with great content or an entertainment Web site offering tickets to events to experiences and products that the person already knows they like could well find they sell more stock. Anything that requires more thought -- like a new widget or an expensive piece of technology or an amazing trip to a dream resort -- might just take a lot more research than a Buy button and 160 characters can supply.

My take on it is that while people are talking about impulse purchases being the big winner here, I'd agree only so far as to refine it to impulse purchases somebody already knew they wanted to make -- if that doesn't sound like a contradiction?

Brands are still waiting to see how the Buy button pans out. Once the current limited rollout turns into a general launch, will Twitter want to take a cut -- and will it charge for a Buy button, or perhaps limit it to promoted tweets?

There are lot of question marks there, and so the Buy button is unlikely to take the world by storm.

For selling people things they already probably wanted but didn't realise were available -- a new DVD or a swanky handbag -- there may well be some success stories. Otherwise, I'm expecting it to be a bit of a damp squib because people haven't yet shown a great appetite from buying through social and certainly not one as crowded and noisy as Twitter and which will expect to hold on to your payment details. 

If you give your credit card details to a brand and things go wrong, you typically know things will be sorted out for you. Would you be so sure of a faceless entity such as Twitter?