During its second-quarter earnings call, Twitter revealed that its mobile advertising comprised 89 percent of total advertising revenue, up 18 percent year-over-year and signaling the potency of targeting on-the-go users on their most frequented social networks.

Despite revenue and user numbers falling short of Wall Street expectations, Twitter?s quarterly revenue jumped 20 percent jump over-year-year to reach $602 million, a feat likely accomplished in part due to the network?s recent advancements and partnerships in the live-streaming space. By drawing more eyes to longer-form content, Twitter is able to maximize its mobile ads? outreach and ensure that marketers continue rolling out their ad units within its feeds.

?The biggest news for Twitter this quarter was the emergence of live video broadcasts, starting with Wimbledon earlier this month and continuing with the political conventions,? said Sean Cullen, executive vice president of product and technology at Fluent. ?Later this year, Twitter will simulcast the NFL Thursday Night Football and is also adding free MLB and NHL games. 

?One of Twitter?s strengths is its sports content, ranging from fan reactions to breaking news, so these broadcasts are a natural fit for the platform.?

The focus on mobile
Although Twitter experienced a strong uptick in revenue, the number was still eclipsed by Wall Street?s estimates. Wall Street reportedly expected an average of $606.7 million in revenue for 2016?s second quarter, while the actual number clocked in at $602 million.

Twitter?s year-over-year revenue growth came in at 61 percent in Q2 of 2015.

The social network?s shares fell by 10 percent after the market?s close on Tuesday.

However, several of Twitter?s bright spots came in the form of mobile ? namely, mobile monthly active users and mobile advertising.  

Mobile monthly active users made up 82 percent of its total monthly active users, per Twitter. This proves that consumers are increasingly looking to consume bite-sized pieces of content on social networks through their smartphones instead of on their desktops.

?We also saw an improvement in user active minutes, up double digits,? said Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, during a conference call with analysts to discuss the company?s financial results.

Twitter?s advertising revenue reached $535 million in Q2, seeing an increase of 18 percent year-over-year. Mobile advertising revenue consisted of 89 percent of total advertising revenue.

United States revenue reached $361 million this quarter, seeing a 12 percent jump year-over-year.

Banking on live-streaming
Twitter is attempting to reinvigorate advertisers by transforming its network into a go-to destination for live-streaming, mainly within the sports and political realms.

?Seeing and sharing what?s happening also includes live video,? Mr. Dorsey said during the call. ?People can now watch an event like the Republican or Democratic National Convention directly on Twitter, and talk about it in the same experience.?

Twitter is on track to become a significant competitor to major television networks with Major League Baseball and National Hockey League partnerships that bring weekly live-stream viewing for games to out-of-market fans and nightly sports highlights that tap trending data (see story).

?We?re focused on live sports, live news and politics and live entertainment,? Mr. Dorsey said. ?We do have the live-streaming product that will launch in a more considered way in September.?

Angling for advertisers
Although Twitter saw mobile advertising reign supreme this past quarter, the company is still brainstorming ways to entice new advertisers to join its platform and ensure that its current premium advertisers leverage its latest products.

?In terms of reacceleration, we?ve been talking about two big opportunities that we see ahead of us,? said Adam Bain, chief operating officer of Twitter, during the analyst call. ?One in video and the second in VR and performance budgets.

?We have become a video-centric platform,? he said. ?Video is now the number-one ad format in terms of revenue on Twitter, which is interesting because just a year ago, this set of products did not exist.?

The social media platform will see new challenges this year as it continues fending off competition from Facebook, which also continues to roll out evolving ad units with more precise targeting abilities.

Facebook is enabling advertisers to more accurately measure their campaigns? effect on in-store sales with new features and metrics, including a native store locator for mobile ads, leveraging a strategy previously rolled out by Google and underscoring how mobile's return-on-investment is becoming clearer (see story).

?With limited bandwidth and budgets, Twitter has to fight to stay relevant in the eyes of advertisers,? said Christian Brucculeri, CEO of Snaps. ?Facebook continues to scale its sponsored video products, win on distribution for publishers, and capture more consumer attention.

?The attention of consumers and advertisers are both a fixed pie game, and without a compelling differentiated product, Twitter is going to struggle to scale its brand advertising revenues.?