• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, April 3, 2017

Using Twitter’s Direct Message platform, businesses can now request and share locations with individual customers.

In tests, TGI Fridays used the new feature to help customers find nearly restaurants, and then make reservations and place food orders using Direct Messages.

“This will make it easier for businesses to tailor their responses and interactions with customers, based on location,” a company spokeswoman said on Monday. “You can imagine this opens up a whole new array of opportunities for brands to engage with people.”

For Twitter, the change is partly based on internal research showing that personalized experiences have a lasting impact on customers, who are more likely to recommend brands, reach resolutions, and be satisfied with a brand after having personalized experiences.

For several years now, Twitter has been trying to position itself as a direct-messaging service on par with Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

More recently, the social giant has appealed to businesses with Customer Feedback Cards, quick replies, and a welcome message.

Separately, in a digital world increasingly populated by bots, Twitter recently offered to help businesses add a human element to direct messaging. With a new feature, Custom profiles in Direct Messages, businesses make it clear to customers they are communicating with a real human representative.

In the fourth quarter, Twitter saw revenue increase by just 1% to $717 million, year-over-year, while monthly active users were up just 4% to 319 million. Worse yet, ad revenue totaled $638 million, down slightly year-over-year.

Analysts didn’t hide their disappointment with the once-high-flying company.

“Current quarter results were weaker-than-expected, with a big negative from what guidance implies about the coming quarter and the year,” Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser said in a recent investor note. “We are altering our long-term forecasts on the company and reducing our price target from $17 to $15 on a [year ending 2017] basis,” he said.