• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, January 7, 2022

In its latest effort to better compete with TikTok and Instagram Stories by offering more visual, customized engagement modes, Twitter has launched a live test on iOS of a new custom video/photo reply option.

All Twitter users can now use “Quote Tweet with reaction” to respond to a tweet by adding a full-screen video or image. The original tweet is embedded in the image.

The feature repurposes elements from Fleets — Twitter’s would-be competitor to Stories that was discontinued last July after only six weeks of testing.  

In December, Twitter also began limited tests of an updated text editor that allows for more customization and creativity in creating tweets.

Twitter reported 211 million monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) as of October — up 13% year over year, but representing a fraction of TikTok’s user base, which is on track to reach 1.5 billion this year.

Between Q2 and Q3 2021, Twitter added 5 million international users (to total 174 million), but its U.S. users were stagnant, at 37 million.

Last February, Twitter declared its intention to reach 315 million by Q4 2023 —which would require a 20% compound annual growth rate from the 152 million mDAU it reported in Q4 2019.