Twitter's charm offensive begins as it hires new marketing chief

Twitter has appointed American Express executive Leslie Berland as its new marketing chief.

The appointment comes just two days after the social media site announced four of its senior staff would be leaving the company.

Share prices have dropped sharply in the past year and the site only managed to add four million new users in the final three months of 2015, leaving it with around 320 million – more than one billion behind rival Facebook.

Widely respected in the technology industry from her time at the financial services firm, Ms Berland has been recruited from Amex by Twitter chief Jack Dorsey in order to improve the micro-blogging site's struggling fortunes, something Mr Dorsey touched upon in his tweet announcing Ms Berland's arrival.

The marketing executive is said to be well-liked in Silicon Valley, and landed several key deals while at Amex, including one with car-sharing firm Uber.

Following his return to Twitter last year, Mr Dorsey admitted that the site struggled to attract new users who found it too complicated to use and did not fully understand its purpose compared to other platforms. Twitter has seen the likes of Instagram and Snapchat not only establish themselves as alternative ways of connecting, but also quickly surpass the size of Twitter's user base.

The site has also been criticised for the way it handles abuse and 'trolling', with former chief Dick Costolo admitting Twitter "sucks" at handling abusive behaviour before his departure last year, calling for an overhaul of the reporting process.

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Source: Twitter's charm offensive begins as it hires new marketing chief