Equally, I’ve not noticed many people sharing Moments within my feed.

However, Twitter is persisting with this new feature and therefore so shall I.

Here’s a quick overview of how to use Moments along with my initial thoughts.

Getting started

If you click into the Moments tab on a desktop client, you’ll notice a ‘Create new Moment’ button in the top right of the screen.

Not everyone currently has access to the feature, but it’s only a matter of time.

On the next screen you need to give your Moment a headline, a description, set a cover image, and then begin selecting the tweets you want to include.

The cover image can be pulled from one of the tweets you’ve chosen to appear in your Moment, so best to leave that part until the end.

I decided to focus on a suitably important topic – the old bridge in my home town of Marlow was shut indefinitely this week after someone drove a 37 tonne lorry over it. 

The bridge is only designed to withstand three tonnes. 

It’s big news in a small corner of Buckinghamshire, let me assure you.

You can select tweets either by browsing user accounts, search by keywords or links, or by browsing tweets you’ve previously favourited.

I just searched by ‘Marlow Bridge’ and began selecting tweets which helped explain the story.

This included Marlow residents expressing their outrage, news outlets giving the latest updates, comments from local celebrities, and, somewhat surprisingly, the lorry owners expressing remorse for their actions.

Rearranging things

Once you’ve picked all the tweets you want to include, it’s a simple case of rearranging them to tell the story.

Each tweet has a pair of arrows next to it that enables you to move it up or down the timeline.

Very simple stuff.

Before publishing

In the top left of the screen there’s a button which simply says ‘More’.

It offers some useful options, such as adding a location, sharing the Moment privately, or marking that it has sensitive material.

You can also choose a mobile theme colour for your Moment.

Set it free

The time has come to publish my Moment.

And here it is for you all to enjoy.

That’s not the end of it though. 

You can continue to edit your Moment by adding or removing tweets as you see fit, ensuring it remains bang up-to-date with new developments.

In conclusion…

The process of curating and publishing my Moment was both enjoyable and extremely easy. Twitter certainly deserves praise for the simple UI.

I’m also quite positive about the potential use cases, as I can see some value in viewing Moments created by certain influencers.

For example, journalists could use the feature to help tell a breaking news story, or an NGO could use it to highlight a particular cause or issue.

Equally, a clothing brand could use it to highlight their favourite tweets following a fashion show.

And I’ll certainly be trying it out from the Econsultancy account at our upcoming events and conferences.

But just because there are potential use cases, it doesn’t inevitably follow that people will want to read and share these Moments.

It’s another case of just waiting to see whether users show any interest.

For more on this topic, check out these resources: