• Amplify TV commercials on Twitter: Premiering TV ad targeting

    Thursday, May 23, 2013


    How the world experiences TV has fundamentally changed. We no longer watch TV as a silent participant, rather as an active voice, sharing the experience as events unfold with people across the globe. Last year, 32 million people in the U.S. tweeted about TV programming: big events, like the Super Bowl (24 million Tweets) or their favorite weekly series, like American Idol (5.8 million Tweets during 2012). People tweet so much about TV that Twitter is becoming a fundamental part of how TV is measured.

    With this shift in our sights, we’re announcing the availability of TV ad targeting on Twitter. 

    TV ad targeting was developed over time through the acquisition of Bluefin Labs and is designed to make it even easier to extend and enhance TV ad campaigns. TV ad targeting for Promoted Tweets is available today in a limited beta to selected partners running national TV commercials in the U.S.

    TV ad targeting enables marketers to engage directly with people on Twitter who have been exposed to their ads on TV. Synchronized Twitter and TV ad campaigns make brand messages more engaging, interactive and measurable, while making it easy for marketers to run always-on Twitter campaigns that complement and amplify their TV creative.

    To help facilitate a coordinated, multi-screen effort, we're giving advertisers a new TV Ads dashboard, which shows when that specific brand’s TV ads have aired. This will help digital teams align not only with what’s shown on TV and when, but give insight into how Promoted Tweets can be crafted in the most effective ways to build upon broader marketing themes.



    TV ad targeting works by using video fingerprinting technology to automatically detect when and where a brand’s commercials are running on TV, without requiring that advertiser to do any manual tracking or upload media plan details. Whenever a commercial airs during a TV show, Twitter not only determines where and when it ran, but can identify users on Twitter who tweeted about the program where the ad aired during that program. We believe a user engaged enough with a TV show to tweet about it very likely saw the commercials as well.

    As brands look to find better ways to coordinate their marketing activities, Twitter provides the perfect bridge between TV, digital and mobile. In fact, 64 percent of mobile centric users on Twitter use it in front of the TV at home. Twitter lets brands continue the conversations they start with their TV advertising by building on the awareness they generate through TV with the interactivity and engagement of Twitter’s social/mobile DNA. 

    TV ad targeting is currently available in beta for the U.S. market only, and only for customers running U.S. national TV ad campaigns, and have had previous experience running ads on Twitter.  For more information about how to be part of the beta, please contact your account manager.

    Posted by 
    Michael Fleischman - @mikef
    Product Manager, Revenue


    Posted by @ at 7:56 AM

  • Twitter Amplify partnerships: Great content, great brands, great engagement

    Less than six months in, 2013 has already been a remarkable year for the nexus between television and Twitter. The vast majority of the online public conversation around TV currently happens on Twitter – 95 percent, according to Crimson Hexagon. Half of all national Super Bowl commercials had hashtags on them, helping guide viewers to the collective conversation. And you can’t turn on the news without hearing a Tweet referenced.

    On the ads side, Twitter has further amplified the social TV conversation with real-time, dual-screen sponsorships and in-Tweet video clips from broadcasters. ESPN and Ford Fusion led the way, bringing football fans Instant Replays in Tweets during every college football bowl game. During March Madness, Turner Sports, the NCAA, AT&T and Coke Zero followed suit, offering fans Real-Time Highlights of hoops action throughout the tournament. And now, during the home stretch through the 2013 Finals, the NBA is pushing the best Rapid Replays from TV, through a Tweet, to your mobile phone thanks to Sony Pictures, Sprint and Taco Bell.

    Meanwhile, we’ve announced partnerships to extend the instant two-screen viewing experience from sports into other broadcast categories through partnerships with BBC America, FOX, Fuse and The Weather Channel.

    We think these types of two-screen sponsorships are a win-win-win. Users receive spectacular, timely content that rounds out their TV experience or reminds them to tune in. Powered by Promoted Tweets, broadcasters reach new audiences and open up new business lines. Brand advertisers get, for the first time, an integrated cross-platform tool for reaching the social conversation wherever it happens.

    Today we’re announcing yet another wave of multi-screen partners, from television and beyond. Along with these new partners, we now have a name for this partnership program: Twitter Amplify.



    If you’re a user, you can look forward to seeing more great, relevant content from these partners! If you’re a brand or content producer looking to form a Twitter Amplify partnership, contact us at amp@twitter.com.

    Posted by
    Glenn Brown (@gob)
    Director, Promoted Content and Sponsorships

    Posted by @ at 6:57 AM

  • Capture user interest with the Lead Generation Card

    Wednesday, May 22, 2013

    Marketers regularly talk to us about their goals, and for many it boils down to one major theme: generating leads, and ultimately driving purchases.

    With those goals in mind, today there’s a new addition to our suite of Twitter Cards, one which helps brands drive highly qualified leads: the Lead Generation Card.

    Twitter Cards let you bring rich experiences and useful tools to users within an expanded Tweet. The Lead Generation Card makes it easy for users to express interest in what your brand offers. Users can easily and securely share their email address with a business without leaving Twitter or having to fill out a cumbersome form.

    When someone expands your Tweet, they see a description of the offer and a call to action. Their name, @username, and email address are already pre-filled within the Card. The user simply clicks a button to send this information directly (and securely) to you.


    As with all our products, we’ve been testing this feature with a handful of brands, including New Relic (@newrelic), Full Sail (@fullsail) and Priceline (@priceline), and have received positive feedback about how it helps to drive deeper connections with customers. Additionally, many beta participants found the streamlined nature of the Lead Generation Card was instrumental in driving a low cost-per-lead compared to other technologies in their marketing suite.

    Today, the Lead Generation Card will only be available to our managed clients; we have plans to launch this Card globally and to small- and medium-sized businesses soon. 

    Visit our help center to learn more about Lead Generation Card creation and best practices. 

    Posted by
    Mitali Pattnaik - @mitali
    Product Manager, Revenue

    Posted by @ at 6:57 AM

  • New study: Tweets influence prospective auto buyers’ site visitation, brand consideration, and offline actions

    Tuesday, May 21, 2013

    Twitter users actively engage in auto conversations at all stages of the car buying journey – starting long before they’re officially in-market and continuing well after purchase. They talk about their dream cars, express purchase intent, learn about new models and features, field recommendations, directly interact with brands and often share unsolicited reviews.

    We partnered with Compete (@Compete) to get a better understanding of how Tweets from auto manufacturers and dealerships influence potential buyers in the US. Between September and November of 2012, the “Tweets in Action: Auto US” study found that exposure to Tweets increases the likelihood for users to take actions off-platform, including searching for car brands and engaging on owned or third party sites. In fact, users who saw a Tweet from an auto manufacturer were over 4x more likely to convert on lower funnel actions such as requesting a quote or looking for dealerships to test-drive.

    Download the infographic below to see how Twitter influences auto buyers at every stage of the car buying process.









    Study background & methodology:

    Compete observed the site visitation behavior of nearly 10,000 users to 360+ automotive-related sites (including those of manufacturers, dealers, aftermarket, and third party resources) from September through November of last year. The study looked at three different groups of users to understand the impact of their exposure to Tweets. The test group consisted of people who saw at least one Tweet from an auto brand. The control groups were made up of similar sets of users who did not see an auto Tweet. One was comprised of Twitter users and the other was representative of the average Internet user.

    For more insights, download the full whitepaper and follow @TwitterAds.

    Posted by
    Cheri Saito (@csaito)
    Analyst

    Posted by @ at 3:00 PM

  • Internet Week 2013: How to connect with Twitter

    Friday, May 17, 2013

    On Monday, Internet Week NY (#IWNY) kicks off and Twitter will join the industry’s top leaders to celebrate all things digital and business. 


    Don’t miss the chance to connect with our team at #IWNY headquarters as well as during sessions at OMMA Social (#OMMASocial), App Nation (#AppNation), CM Summit (#CMSummit), Digital Media Summit (#DMS13) and the Webby Awards (#Webbys). We’ll share how brands can be creative in 140 characters or less, connect with mobile Twitter users and drive business results with targeted Tweets.  

    Here’s an at-a-glance guide to Twitter sessions at #IWNY:

    Monday, May 20, 2013

    OMMA Social:  Keynote - Creativity in 140 Characters
    Who: Guy Yalif (@gyalif),  Head of Global Product Marketing at Twitter
    When: 9:00am
    Where: Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 W 18th 

    Are sight, sound, and motion the familiar tools on your creative tool belt? How much can you really engage a consumer in 140 text characters? Turns out quite a bit. In this session, we'll inspire with ideas and examples of the state of the art in creativity on Twitter.

    Tuesday, May 21, 2013

    App Nation: The State of App Nation 
    Who: Glenn Brown (@gob), Director of Promoted Content and Sponsorship at Twitter
    When: 10:05am
    Where: Main Stage, 82 Mercer

    A diverse group of executives from across the app economy share their insights on how apps, mobility, and emerging consumer behavior are impacting and driving their businesses, product roadmaps, and core business models.

    CM Summit: Is There More Bad News Than Good News In The World?
    Who: Joel Lunenfeld (@joell)  Vice President, Global Brand Strategy at Twitter
    When: 3:20pm - 3:30pm
    Where: The Altman Theater at #IWNY HQ Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 W 18th 

    What does Twitter usage tell us about how much good news versus bad news exists? Does good news and bad news spread differently in the real world versus on Twitter?  Joel Lunenfeld, our VP of Global Brand Strategy, shares new insights and examples.

    17th Annual Webby Awards
    When: 6:00pm
    Where: Wall Street Cipriani's, 55 Wall Street

    The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. The Webby Awards presents two honors in every category – The Webby Award and The Webby People's Voice Award – of its five entry-types: Websites, Interactive Advertising & Media, Online Film & Video, Mobile & Apps and Social.

    Our Tweet Mirror will be backstage at the awards show Tuesday night.  Follow @thewebbyawards and the hashtag #Webbys to see exclusive backstage pics with winners and presenters. 

    Wednesday, May 22, 2013
    LUMA Partners Digital Media Summit: Real Time Giants
    Who: Kevin Weil (@kevinweil), Senior Director of Product for Revenue at Twitter
    When: 9:30am - 9:50am
    Where: Wharton Ballroom, 730 Third Avenue and E. 45th Street

     Fireside chat with Facebook and Twitter. 



     App Nation: Bootcamp – Twitter Moments that Matter for Brands and the Bottom Line
    Who: Melissa Barnes (@melissabarnes), Head of Brand & Agency Advocacy at Twitter
    When: 3:30pm - 4:15pm
    Where:  82 Mercer

    We see brands innovate on Twitter every day. And they’re doing so in a way that drives business results. Find out how the best brands pick, plan and execute their moments for maximum impact.

    Skipping  #IWNY this year? Follow @TwitterAds for real-time insights throughout the week. We’ll also share an insider’s look at our event for invited partners (#Twitter4Brands) on Thursday.  

    Posted by @ at 9:58 AM

  • New UK study: Tweets influence brand consideration and offline actions by prospective car-buyers

    Wednesday, May 15, 2013

    Many prospective car buyers engage in auto-related conversations on Twitter to seek information and listen to others’ experiences. To understand how Twitter helps automobile manufacturers connect with their potential customers, we partnered with Compete (@Compete) and looked at how Tweets from auto manufacturers influence the U.K. shoppers who see them. 

    The “Tweets in Action: Auto” study found that exposure to Tweets influences prospective car-buyers’ brand consideration and likelihood to follow up offline. In other words, the more Tweets they see, the higher the likelihood that they will search for auto brands and pursue offline activities such as sign up for a test drive or look for a car dealership.

    Study background & methodology

    The study analyzed nearly 1,800 users and their site visitation behavior in the United Kingdom. The study looked at three different groups of users. The first group consisted of those users who were exposed to at least one Tweet (promoted or organic) by an auto brand. The two remaining groups of users were control groups: one consisted of Twitter visitors who were not exposed to auto brand Tweets, and the other represented the average internet user.

    Key findings on Tweet exposure 

    1. Tweet exposure corresponds to higher brand site traffic.

    Compete found that Twitter users exposed to auto brand Tweets are 74% more likely to visit auto brand websites than the average internet users.



    2. Tweets influence brand awareness and consideration for auto manufacturers.

    More than one-third of Twitter users who see auto brand Tweets search for auto manufacturers, which is 54% higher than the average internet users.




    3. Exposure to Tweets influences the likelihood of conversion

    Compared to the average internet users, Twitter users exposed to Tweets from auto brands are nearly twice as likely to engage in lower-funnel activities, such as sign up for a test drive and locate a dealership.



    The exposure to Tweets helps drive consideration and conversion for auto manufacturers - the higher the frequency of exposure, the higher the likelihood to take offline, lower-funnel actions. Twitter users expose to Tweets are more likely than the average internet users to visit brand sites, search for brands and take lower-funnel actions.

    For more information, downloand the full @Compete whitepaper and follow @TwitterAdsUK.

    Posted by
    Louise Chow (@lougirlie)
    Analyst 

    Posted by @ at 1:22 AM

  • Tweet tips: Most effective calls to action on Twitter

    Tuesday, May 14, 2013

    One of the top questions we get from businesses is “What should I tweet?” Our typical answer (“Well, it depends...”) isn’t always the most popular answer. But it's the most honest one.  

    After all, your unique goals and your specific audience on Twitter influence what Tweets will be most “effective.” Plus, on Twitter, you are what you tweet. The quality of your content – how interesting, conversational and useful it is – ultimately determines how engaged your followers will be. 

    Although there isn’t a single silver bullet for tweeting success, over the years, we’ve analyzed our internal Tweet engagement data to determine some general best practices. In this new recurring “Tweet tips” blog series, we’ll share insights to help advertisers craft the most engaging Tweets.

    We know there are times when marketers want to balance having a conversation with driving immediate action. So, in our first blog post, we explore the most effective call-to-action strategies in Tweets. 

    Background and methodology

    This study analyzed approximately 20,000 Promoted Tweets randomly sampled from a three-month period in 2012 across direct and mid-market sales advertisers. The study looked at how various types of Promoted Tweet engagements differed depending on which types of calls to action were included in the Promoted Tweet, as compared to a baseline of Promoted Tweets including no calls to action. 

    Here are four findings you can use to optimize Tweets for action-oriented campaigns:

    Most effective call to action #1: Ask for a download. 

    Have a new product to promote that’s available for download? Want to generate leads with downloadable content on your site?  

    Promoted Tweets in timelines that explicitly ask people to download accompanied by a link increase URL clicks by an average of 13%. Promoted Tweets in search that feature this call to action also increase clicks by an average of 11%.



    Tweeting tips: Give people clear direction and incentive to click on the link you provide in a Tweet. Use hashtags and @handle mentions sparingly to keep clicks focused on one action: downloads. You can create a sense of urgency by including a deadline. 

    Most effective call to action #2: Ask for a Retweet. 

    Interested in turning followers into advocates and generating valuable earned media? Offer them a clear, compelling reason to retweet your messages. Contests or sweepstakes are a popular way to incentivize Retweets. You can also encourage users to retweet to show their affiliation with your brand or agreement with a statement.

    Promoted Tweets in timelines with an ask to retweet increased Retweets by an average of 311%. An ask to retweet in Promoted Tweets in search increased Retweets on average by 317%.  

    The best performing Promoted Tweets were twice as likely to spell out the word 'Retweet' (instead of simply using 'RT') as the bottom performing Promoted Tweets. The best performing Promoted Tweets also contained the call to retweet at the beginning instead of at the end of the Tweet.


    Tweeting tips: Always contextualize why your Tweet is worth sharing. In other words, give people something valuable in return for their Retweet. Keep formatting clear and simple so people know exactly what you want them to do: share your message.  

    Most effective call to action #3: Ask for a follow.  

    Looking to extend your reach to new audiences on Twitter? It might be as simple as asking for a follow. 

    Promoted Tweets in timelines that asked for a follow increased follows by an average of 258%. Follows increased by an average of 86% when the same call to action was included in Promoted Tweets in search. 

    Tweeting tips:  Highlight the exclusive content your account offers followers. For example, you may want to emphasize that your account will share behind-the-scenes photos from popular events or sneak peeks at new products that won’t be available anywhere else. Consider sweetening the incentive to follow with a contest or prize-related promotion. 

    Most effective call to action #4: Ask for a reply.

    Want to spark a conversation with Twitter users? Pose a question and give people some motivation to engage one-on-one with your Tweets.

    Promoted Tweets in timelines that highlight an ask to reply increased replies by an average of 334%. Replies increased on average by 307% when this call to action appeared in Promoted Tweets in search. 


    Tweeting tips: Get users interested by getting personal in your Tweets. Use a conversational tone to humanize your business and make Twitter users feel comfortable responding to you via an @reply. To maximize the responses you get, combine the question with a contest or other exclusive incentive.

    ***

    Remember, Twitter is about conversation. Reserve the calls to action above for your most action-oriented campaigns. To avoid turning people off, balance Tweets with strong calls to action with other kinds of useful and entertaining content. 

    Check out more tips for creating engaging Tweets and follow @TwitterAds for real-time examples of engaging Tweets by brands and businesses.


    Posted by
    Jennifer Romanek (@jenniromanek)
    Sales Intelligence

    Posted by @ at 9:52 AM

  • Coca-Cola's Wendy Clark: So happy together

    Monday, May 13, 2013

    Last month, my colleagues at Twitter asked if I would write a guest blog post for their thought leader series. The exchange went something like this:

    Robin@Twitter: Hey Wendy, would you be open to writing a blog post for our site with Coke’s social media advice/tips?

    Wendy@Coke: Sure, but you know we don’t profess social as the ‘be all, end all.’ Are you brave enough to let me say Twitter’s great, but not by itself?

    And their answer is clear as my blog post sits here as evidence of Twitter’s bravery and, in fact, complete alignment with our thinking at Coca-Cola.

    Don’t get me wrong, we think Twitter is great, and important, and useful and, indeed, shaping the face of real-time dialog in a marketplace that has completely embraced acquiring wisdom in 140-characters or less and entertainment in six seconds or less.

    Twitter is the zeitgeist of our core target – teens and young adults.

    But, so too is social gaming, and mobile apps, and YouTube’s content, and broadcast live sports, and Snapchat, and FIFA cross-platform content and live-streamed concerts, and Spotify playlists, and live experiences, and brand co-creation opportunities, and...

    You see, their zeitgeist is plural, not singular.

    In the same way, they have room for Coca-Cola and many other favorite beverages, teens and young adults also have an endless thirst for content, technology, platforms, communications, apps and more.

    So today’s successful brands have to be adept at integrating their media efforts. At Coca-Cola, we have a principle of ‘no dead ends’ in our connections planning. Meaning, if we’re going to keep the attention and engagement of teens and young adults we must link together our connections points. At every juncture, we want a teen to be able to go deeper into our content, engage further into our brand stories, easily share and connect our content to others.

    Within our connections approach, Twitter is our Elmers. It’s the glue, a spoke, connective tissue – whatever metaphor you want to use to mean something that can connect potentially disparate things together and make them better – that’s Twitter.

    Study after study evidences social media’s role within an integrated media plan. TV + Social = better than TV alone. It’s logical. Teens and young adults are multiscreen content consumers. The TV’s on, the Tablet’s on, the Mobile Phone’s always on. As brands we have to tell one, shareworthy story that’s connected across screens, experiences and conversations. What she sees on TV tells the same story as what she sees online and what she experiences at a live event and so on.

    The consistent thread between all these connections points – TV, online, experiential, in-store, OOH, theater, gaming, magazine, radio, etc.? Social.

    If brands tell useful, interesting, important, shareworthy stories across their media connections then social becomes the vehicle, the platform, that enables that sharing and connectivity. Social = no dead ends.

    And why do we value sharing so much? Reach.

    As brands, the very core benefit of social occurs when we publish interesting, useful, important, shareworthy content to our embedded communities of followers and fans (our initial audience) and, if we do our jobs well on the compelling nature of that content, our followers and fans act as our salesforce and spread that content to an ultimate audience far greater than we could reach alone.

    And this leads back to my initial point on social not being an effective standalone tool. When we’ve over-rotated on standalone social in the past our programs have failed to effectively meet our goals. Teens and young adults are fickle and their attention is, at best, fragmented. No one medium can effectively engage this audience and create the impact and results brands seek.

    Social platforms, like Twitter, help connect and amplify our brand messages within this highly fragmented, always-on reality. Said in 140 characters or less, Twitter isn’t a silver bullet but it makes everything else we do better. And for Coca-Cola, where we can reach up to 15k Tweets per day, that means more reach, more engagement, more effectiveness, more impact, more Happiness, all created by integrating our media connections together.

    Posted by
    Wendy Clark (@wnd)
    SVP Global Sparkling Brand Center
    The Coca-Cola Company (@CocaCola)

    Posted by @ at 9:07 AM

  • Agency influencer series Q&A with Ian Schafer:
    Twitter captures the moment like no other platform

    Tuesday, May 7, 2013

    Deep Focus agency CEO Ian Schafer (@ischafer) understands how quickly the worlds of mobile, advertising, content and social are evolving and – in many ways – converging.  

    That’s why in part two of our Q&A with @ischafer, we asked him to share his thoughts on one of the biggest challenges for marketers today: ROI. He also revealed what he thinks the biggest opportunity is on mobile (we like his answer!) and the next big trend he’s watching.  

    @TwitterAds: How do you measure ROI on mobile and social?

    @ischafer: When we’re evaluating success of our mobile efforts, we’re not following the click stream. We’re measuring our ability to generate more engagement, more shares, more impressions. The more impressions we create, the more successful we feel we’ve been. And the more of those impressions that are created by other people, the better.  

    We all know that people trust recommendations from other people. Brands spend all this money on celebrities to be relevant. But I think it’s just as important that people hear what our brands have to say through someone they know. 

    Twitter offers an opportunity to reverberate a message through people...and ideally track its progress. Twitter is also an opportunity to take an event in a specific place and make it global – that’s something that I really love about it and drives results.  

    @TwitterAds: What do you see as the biggest opportunity for mobile advertisers right now? 

    @ischafer: Twitter is one of the purest forms of what everyone is buzzing about: native advertising. A brand can wrap itself within the conversation on Twitter instead of just around the conversation. That really doesn’t exist on any other platform. 

    No other platform captures the moment quite like Twitter does. Other platforms may capture a zeitgeist but Twitter is literally about what people are interested in right now.


    Things change and time is just as much a part of contextual relevance as everything else we’ve classically considered like demographics and psychographics. Time is a variable. It’s a very important one. It’s just one that we were not equipped to deal with because we couldn’t publish that way. But now we can so the sky’s the limit.


    As a communications medium and an ad platform, Twitter has a disproportionately large relative impact.  You don’t have to start big. You can start small and it can get big on Twitter. It can get big quickly or it can be a slow burn. But getting big quickly is a very appealing thing for an advertiser.

    @TwitterAds: What do you think the next big trend will be in mobile? 

    @ischafer: The biggest trend is going to be the uncoupling of data or harnessing the data generated from mobile devices to make better business decisions. Obviously there is so much relevant information captured by our phones. I think there’s a potential for taking that data and applying it to other things whether that’s desktop display or addressable TV commercials.

    Being able to say certain things in ads because we know they are going to be more warmly received by a particular person – not a particular audience but a particular person – is going to be something we are all going to look at next. A person is a person. And that’s the same person that watched something on TV that saw something in a Tweet and also read it in a magazine.

    The next step is getting better at not bombarding audiences with the same message across 12 pieces of content. Instead, we'll thread a story that is most relevant to them. At the end of the day, it will actually minimize the advertising that someone sees because it's more effective.

    That’s a very optimistic way of looking at it and my hope is that we’ll be able to figure out how to take mobile data and have the advertising experience augment the media experience instead of interrupt it.


    Want more @ischafer? Join him and our own Head of Brand and Agency Advocacy Melissa Barnes (@melissabarnes) at Creative Week NYC for “Beyond Real Time, The New Creative” tomorrow at noon.

    Posted by @ at 9:20 AM

  • Agency influencer series Q&A with Ian Schafer:
    The best mobile strategy is a real-time content strategy

    Thursday, May 2, 2013

    Interested in social and sports with a side of snark? Then you should follow Ian Schafer (@ischafer) on Twitter.

    @ischafer is the founder of the Deep Focus (@deepfocus) agency and he recently picked up the Shorty award for “Best Social Media Presence of a CEO” and “Best Social Media Agency.” In November, @deepfocus launched The Moment Studio, a “creative newsroom” that produces real-time content for clients like Pepsi (@Pepsi), Purina (@Petcentric) and Pernod Ricard (@MalibuRum and @AbsolutVodka).



    He also happens to be the quick-witted mastermind who started @InvisibleObama during last year’s Republican National Convention and keeps the political zingers coming with the Twitter account. 



    @ischafer is one of the industry’s most quotable thought leaders so we asked him to share some pearls of wisdom on his specialty: creating content optimized for social and mobile. Here’s part one of our two Q&As with him to kick off our agency influencer blog series: 

    @TwitterAds: How are your clients engaging consumers on mobile and moving the needle? 

    @ischafer: Pepsi has been really successful with Twitter which makes sense because their brand tagline is “Live for Now.” They’ve made time a characteristic of their brand. On Twitter, Pepsi gets to contribute to the popularity of its own content and feed into momentum as it’s happening. 

    For example, a new Beyonce commercial will get millions of people talking and sharing that ad. On Twitter, Pepsi can further associate its brand with that new content by advertising on the platform that people are using to talk about and share that content.



    Plus, we get to, in a sense, pre-test our ads performance on Twitter. We can turn our most shared organic content into ads right away with Promoted Tweets. We’ve been able to double our mobile penetration with all of our clients – we've seen 30% to 60% increases – by applying that kind of content strategy. 

    That’s where it starts to get really interesting for brands. If they focus on producing content that people are going to want to share versus ads that they hope people click on, they can make much more informed media buying decisions. The best mobile strategy is a real-time content strategy. 

    @TwitterAds: How is content that’s optimized for social and mobile different?

    @ischafer: One of the most fascinating things about mobile – and Twitter can take significant responsibility for this – is that now the primary screen has reoriented from horizontal to vertical. We live in a feed-based world when it comes to discovering content and being influenced. 

    That means that content that’s created for the feed is all about the actual content whereas a few years ago it was all about links. You can now embed content within Tweets and now it’s about getting someone’s thumb to stop scrolling. Brands need to offer something that makes them not only stop but stop and share.

    @TwitterAds: What makes mobile consumers stop and share?

    @ischafer: The number one criteria is that the content or ad has to be interesting. That means something different to every person but it’s our job to figure out what that means for each campaign and every audience. 

    The next criteria is weight. The lighter the content is the better. The lightest content appears immediately in the Twitter feed. The ability to see an image in the feed and not require two clicks to get there is very important now.  


    Video playing naturally in the feed through Vine or when you expand a Tweet is both lightweight and potentially interesting so it’s going to get shared more often. 



    The other thing is the time-based relevance. So if you’re a retailer, sharing an exclusive offer that has a time limit attached to it. Or the exclusive release of content is something that people are going to want to share because time is of the essence.

    That immediacy is what makes mobile so powerful. Whether it’s buying, finding or sharing, there are tons of potential opportunities for advertisers to both close or open sales on mobile.

    In part two of our Q&A next Tuesday, @ischafer shares more insights on ROI, what’s unique about Twitter and the next big mobile trend.

    Posted by @ at 10:15 AM