Media & Entertainment

Twitter for Professionals will begin to roll out this week for businesses and creators

Comment

Image Credits: Twitter

Twitter really can’t go a day without releasing new products. But if you’re running an account for a business or a public figure, its latest addition might capture your interest. Soon, businesses and creators will be able to opt into “professional accounts,” giving them additional tools to distinguish their profile, quickly promote content through ads and capitalize on Twitter’s future e-commerce efforts.

Though Twitter has introduced monetization options for popular tweeters, it hasn’t widely introduced different profile types for businesses, which its competitors at Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have already had for a while.

Twitter for professionals account flow image from Twitter. The image shows how you can select a category of your profile, choose if you're a business or a creator, and make your professional account.
Image Credits: Twitter

Twitter classifies anyone who uses Twitter for work as a professional — to qualify for a professional account, users must have no repeated history of violating guidelines, and they must be authentic, with an account name, bio and profile picture. That means no fictional characters, parody accounts or pet accounts allowed.

Not all users have the capability to switch to a professional account just yet. But, when it’s available, users will be able to find a Twitter for Professionals tab by swiping open the sidebar from the Home timeline on the app. A “Switch to Professional” tab will also appear under profile settings. Then, select the most accurate category and either a business or creator account type. Once you’ve converted to a professional account, you will be prompted to follow topics, promote a tweet in an ad campaign, or customize your profile with modules. These include an about module, a shop module and a newsletter module for users on Revue, the newsletter service Twitter acquired early this year.

Professional Twitter accounts can add modules for shopping, their newsletter, or more info about their business.
Image Credits: Twitter

If you decide that maybe you’re more of an amateur tweeter than a professional, it’s possible to switch your account back by navigating to edit profile, then edit professional profile, then switch account type. You also can toggle between whether you’re a business or a creator account, because at this point, sometimes it’s hard to tell! Twitter also wrote in its FAQ that you can only convert an existing Twitter account to a professional account (you can’t make a new account professional to begin with), and as of now, Twitter doesn’t have plans to allow for ads targeting professional accounts specifically.

More TechCrunch

The AI industry moves faster than the rest of the technology sector, which means it outpaces the federal government by several orders of magnitude.

Senate study proposes ‘at least’ $32B yearly for AI programs

The FBI along with a coalition of international law enforcement agencies seized the notorious cybercrime forum BreachForums on Wednesday.  For years, BreachForums has been a popular English-language forum for hackers…

FBI seizes hacking forum BreachForums — again

The announcement signifies a significant shake-up in the streaming giant’s advertising approach.

Netflix to take on Google and Amazon by building its own ad server

It’s tough to say that a $100 billion business finds itself at a critical juncture, but that’s the case with Amazon Web Services, the cloud arm of Amazon, and the…

Matt Garman taking over as CEO with AWS at crossroads

Back in February, Google paused its AI-powered chatbot Gemini’s ability to generate images of people after users complained of historical inaccuracies. Told to depict “a Roman legion,” for example, Gemini would show…

Google still hasn’t fixed Gemini’s biased image generator

A feature Google demoed at its I/O confab yesterday, using its generative AI technology to scan voice calls in real time for conversational patterns associated with financial scams, has sent…

Google’s call-scanning AI could dial up censorship by default, privacy experts warn

Google’s going all in on AI — and it wants you to know it. During the company’s keynote at its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, Google mentioned “AI” more than…

The top AI announcements from Google I/O

Uber is taking a shuttle product it developed for commuters in India and Egypt and converting it for an American audience. The ride-hail and delivery giant announced Wednesday at its…

Uber has a new way to solve the concert traffic problem

Here are quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they are announced.

Google I/O 2024: Here’s everything Google just announced

Google is preparing to launch a new system to help address the problem of malware on Android. Its new live threat detection service leverages Google Play Protect’s on-device AI to…

Google takes aim at Android malware with an AI-powered live threat detection service

Users will be able to access the AR content by first searching for a location in Google Maps.

Google Maps is getting geospatial AR content later this year

The heat pump startup unveiled its first products and revealed details about performance, pricing and availability.

Quilt heat pump sports sleek design from veterans of Apple, Tesla and Nest

The space is available from the launcher and can be locked as a second layer of authentication.

Google’s new Private Space feature is like Incognito Mode for Android

Gemini, the company’s family of generative AI models, will enhance the smart TV operating system so it can generate descriptions for movies and TV shows.

Google TV to launch AI-generated movie descriptions

When triggered, the AI-powered feature will automatically lock the device down.

Android’s new Theft Detection Lock helps deter smartphone snatch and grabs

The company said it is increasing the on-device capability of its Google Play Protect system to detect fraudulent apps trying to breach sensitive permissions.

Google adds live threat detection and screen-sharing protection to Android

This latest release, one of many announcements from the Google I/O 2024 developer conference, focuses on improved battery life and other performance improvements, like more efficient workout tracking.

Wear OS 5 hits developer preview, offering better battery life

For years, Sammy Faycurry has been hearing from his registered dietitian (RD) mom and sister about how poorly many Americans eat and their struggles with delivering nutritional counseling. Although nearly…

Dietitian startup Fay has been booming from Ozempic patients and emerges from stealth with $25M from General Catalyst, Forerunner

Apple is bringing new accessibility features to iPads and iPhones, designed to cater to a diverse range of user needs.

Apple announces new accessibility features for iPhone and iPad users

TechCrunch Disrupt, our flagship startup event held annually in San Francisco, is back on October 28-30 — and you can expect a bustling crowd of thousands of startup enthusiasts. Exciting…

Startup Blueprint: TC Disrupt 2024 Builders Stage agenda sneak peek!

Mike Krieger, one of the co-founders of Instagram and, more recently, the co-founder of personalized news app Artifact (which TechCrunch corporate parent Yahoo recently acquired), is joining Anthropic as the…

Anthropic hires Instagram co-founder as head of product

Seven orgs so far have signed on to standardize the way data is collected and shared.

Venture orgs form alliance to standardize data collection

As cloud adoption continues to surge toward the $1 trillion mark in annual spend, we’re seeing a wave of enterprise startups gaining traction with customers and investors for tools to…

Alkira connects with $100M for a solution that connects your clouds

Charging has long been the Achilles’ heel of electric vehicles. One startup thinks it has a better way for apartment dwelling EV drivers to charge overnight.

Orange Charger thinks a $750 outlet will solve EV charging for apartment dwellers

So did investors laugh them out of the room when they explained how they wanted to replace Quickbooks? Kind of.

Embedded accounting startup Layer secures $2.3M toward goal of replacing QuickBooks

While an increasing number of companies are investing in AI, many are struggling to get AI-powered projects into production — much less delivering meaningful ROI. The challenges are many. But…

Weka raises $140M as the AI boom bolsters data platforms

PayHOA, a previously bootstrapped Kentucky-based startup that offers software for self-managed homeowner associations (HOAs), is an example of how real-world problems can translate into opportunity. It just raised a $27.5…

Meet PayHOA, a profitable and once-bootstrapped SaaS startup that just landed a $27.5M Series A

Restaurant365, which offers a restaurant management suite, has raised a hot $175M from ICONIQ Growth, KKR and L Catterton.

Restaurant365 orders in $175M at $1B+ valuation to supersize its food service software stack 

Venture firm Shilling has launched a €50M fund to support growth-stage startups in its own portfolio and to invest in startups everywhere else. 

Portuguese VC firm Shilling launches €50M opportunity fund to back growth-stage startups

Chang She, previously the VP of engineering at Tubi and a Cloudera veteran, has years of experience building data tooling and infrastructure. But when She began working in the AI…

LanceDB, which counts Midjourney as a customer, is building databases for multimodal AI