Tag: twitter

Twitter Integrates Call-To-Action Buttons Into DM

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter is adding a new feature to Direct Messages (DM) to make it a better customer support tool for brands. Now, when brands manage their Twitter DM through Twitter’s API, they can send call-to-action buttons via direct messages that, when clicked, can direct people to visit a specific site, post a pre-written tweet, follow the brand’s account, or start a chat with another of the brand’s accounts.

What Brands Need To Do
This new addition should make Twitter DM a more convenient customer support tool to leverage and create a frictionless experience for customers. As Twitter continues to improve its chat functionality, it is attracting many brands to extend their customer support operations to Twitter DM. For example, Dutch airline KLM recently added their customer service bot to Twitter DM to better serve its global audiences that are not using Facebook Messenger, which is where KLM’s bot originally resides.

 

Source: VentureBeat

 

 

KLM Extends Customer Service Bot To Twitter And WeChat

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Dutch airline KLM was one of the first airlines to create a chatbot for Facebook Messenger, now the airline company has expanded its bot action to Twitter and WeChat as well. Rather impressively, the bots are fluent in 10 languages, helping KLM to better serve its international customers. They can provide booking confirmation, check-in notification, boarding passes, as well as flight status updates to any customers who checked in through KLM.com and elect to get their info through Twitter DM or WeChat.

What Brands Need To Do
This extended chatbot support underscores KLM’s commitment to using bots as a customer service tool to help streamline the flight check-in process. Messaging apps has become a channel for brands to effectively reach mobile customers, and bots can be a powerful and cost-effective tool for handling basic information requests, managing business bookings, and facilitating direct purchases. More brands should be coming up with a conversational strategy that includes not only how to use bots to improve their brand messaging and services but also how to properly promote the bots.

KLM is also smart to expand their chatbot support so as to better serve their international customer base. Different messaging apps enjoy varying regional popularity, as Facebook Messenger is most popular in the U.S. whereas WeChat dominates the Chinese market. Twitter DM is a good solution to cover the other global markets. For more in-depth analysis how brands can leverage global mega-channels and niche micro-channels to effectively reach key audiences across the world, check out the Global Culture section of our Outlook 2017.

 

Source: MarTech Today

Media Trial: The Art Of The Takeover

Posted on by Lab Team

MAGNA, the intelligence, investment and innovation unit within IPG Mediabrands, and IPG Media Lab, the creative technology arm of IPG Mediabrands, in partnership with Twitter today announced the results of a scientific media trial examining the location of video ads within a social environment. The resulting report, The Art of the Takeover: Optimizing What Consumers See First, reveals best practices for in-feed advertising as well as guidelines for utilizing takeovers across in-feed video and website platforms.

As websites and media properties’ offerings become more uniform, an advertiser’s ROI becomes more important to achieve sales figures. The report breaks down key differences in effectiveness between First View (Promoted Video at the top of the timeline) and “standard view” (Promoted Video throughout the timeline). Additionally, the study details how in-feed video ads located strategically at the top of the feed are twice as likely to be retained compared to similarly placed takeover ads on a website.

Key Highlights Include:

  • In a social environment, takeovers (ads at top of the feed) work harder than ads lower down.
    • With its premium location, takeovers excel at building brand awareness, likely because they are on screen an average of 50% more than ads lower in the feed.
  • Takeovers outperform in social environments.
    • Social takeovers are two times more memorable than similarly placed ads in a website takeover, likely because ads in a social environment feel more relevant and less intrusive to the user.
  • While shorter ads (GIFs and :06 seconds) feel most appropriate in a social environment, use :15+ second takeover ads to increase awareness of new products.

 

Download the Full Report Here

 

Twitter Launches Direct Message Card To Help Brands Promote Chatbots

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter announced a new ad unit called Direct Message Card to help brands promote their chatbots and other conversational experience in Direct Message (DM). This new ad unit is customizable using either an image or video, along with up to four call-to-action buttons meant to encourage Twitter users to start a conversation with brands via private DMs instead of tweeting publicly. Patrón Tequila is among the first to use this ad product to promote its “Bot-Tender,” which can recommend tequila-based cocktails based on occasions and flavor preference according to user input.

What Brands Need To Do
Twitter first started allowing brands to plug in chatbots to answer Direct Messages sent to their certified account in November, after steadily adding features for enhancing customer service on its platform throughout last year. Given that most consumers now prefer to use messaging to interact with businesses rather than calling, it makes sense for brands to take advantage of these improvements and upgrade their customer service tools on Twitter. For brands developing conversational experience accessible via Twitter DM, this new ad product should provide a great way to drive conversation and engagement.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building chatbots to reach consumers on messaging interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The NiroBot we built in collaboration with Ansible for Kia is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

 

Source: TechCrunch

Twitter Scores A Lot More NFL Content (Sans Actual Games) For Live Video

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter continues its aggressive push for more live video content on its site by signing a new multi-year deal to distribute official NFL video and other types of NFL content year-round. During football season, a new half-hour live show featuring NFL network personalities will air on Twitter five nights a week. In addition, the deal also includes live pre-game coverage such as Periscope broadcasts of play warm-ups and sideline interviews that grant football fans behind-the-scene peeks. However, the deal does not contain any actual NFL game.

What Brands Need To Do
Earlier this year, Twitter lost the bid to stream the NFL’s Thursday Night Football games this year to Amazon. But the microblogging service has been adamant in ramping up the video content on its site, as it works with Bloomberg Media to launch a 24/7 live news channel and signed content deals with 12 digital publishers for more original content earlier this month. Twitter is hoping these new video content will attract enough viewers to sell video ads against, and its ad-supported live video provides brand marketers with a valuable channel to reach sport fans, especially those whose viewing habits have shifted away from traditional linear TV and are therefore hard to reach via TV ads.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Twitter To Launch 24/7 News Livestream Channel With Bloomberg

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter has reportedly struck a partnership with Bloomberg to launch an around-the-clock live news channel in the fall, as the social media company continues its aggressive push into livestreaming. While Twitter has been hosting official live streams for various sports events such as NFL games and the Wimbledon matches, this would be the first continuous video feed to be hosted on the platform. The 24/7 live news channel is expected to launch this fall, and it will air  news reporting from Bloomberg news bureaus around the world while also incorporating “a curated and verified mix of video posted on Twitter.”

What Brands Need To Do
For brands with a global presence, this upcoming live news channel on Twitter could be an exciting new channel to look out for. While not specified, this live channel is expected to be ad-supported, giving brands an always-on channel to reach online viewers. Considering the finance-heavy focus on Bloomberg’s news reporting, it could become a particularly valuable channel for audience in that segment. As live streaming continues to gain momentum, more brands should seize the rise of this emerging medium to directly connect with consumers.

For more in-depth analysis how brands can leverage global mega-channels and niche micro-channels to effectively reach key audiences, check out the Global Culture section of our Outlook 2017.

 

Source: Wall Street Journal

Twitter Releases New APIs To Boost DM-Based Customer Services

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Thursday, Twitter released several Direct Message (DM) APIs and announced plans to unify its API platform as it aims to make it easier for businesses “to deliver faster, richer and more engaging human- and bot-powered customer service, marketing and engagement experiences.”

The new APIs released include a beta Account Activity API for subscribing to real-time activities related to an account, a new DM POST endpoint for sending DMs with supporting features like quick replies and shared media, as well as a welcome message endpoints for creating and managing welcome messages in DMs.

What Brands Need To Know
Twitter has been steadily adding customer service tools to its platform, and this introduction of chatbot services is a natural step for Twitter as it builds out its DM as a customer service platform to appeal to the growing needs of brands. A study by Twilio found that most consumers now prefer to use messaging to interact with businesses rather than calling. As Twitter continues to make its platform more brand-friendly with new messaging features, we expect to see more brands utilize the tools to provide better customer service.

To learn more about how brands can reach and engage with customers and deliver hyper-personalized experiences with AI-powered chatbots, check out the Augmented Intelligence section of our Outlook 2017.

 

Source: AdWeek

Twitter Adds Pre-Roll Ads To Periscope Content

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter announced today that it will begin selling pre-roll video ads before some Periscope live streams and Periscope videos that are no longer live but still on Twitter. The company first started experimenting with monetizing Periscope content last September when it started doing sponsored live streams and allowing brands to play a short clip before the live video starts. Now, this pre-roll option is available for a number of select publishers and high-profile broadcaster to leverage to monetize their live content.

What Brands Need To Do
As viewers increasingly turn to live streams for immediate connections and updates, more brands are embracing the live format to connect with consumers via sponsored events.  This announcement underscores Twitter’s aim to monetize its live video content and attracting publishers and content creators to join the platform. It also offers brands another new ad unit to piggyback on popular Periscope content to reach viewers.They can partner with publishers and broadcasters whose content or live events aligns with the interests of their core demographics.

 

Source: Re/code

Header image courtesy of Periscope’s promotional image

Twitter Replaces “Moments” With “Explore” With A Focus On Live Videos

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter has revamped its app layout, replacing the “Moments” tab with a new “Explore” section that brings together trending tweets, Moments, and live videos in one place, with recommended live videos front and center in the tab. Twitter says it will also use this tab to display important broadcasts, particularly the ones from its content partners such as NFL and Bloomberg. Earlier this week, the company reported its livestream of the presidential inauguration amassed a record-breaking total of 6.824 million unique views and a peak of 377,000 concurrent viewers. In comparison, its NFL streams averaged 265,800 viewers per minute across ten games.

What Brands Need To Do
Twitter was one of the first social networks to launch livestreaming capabilities, but recently it has been eclipsed by rival live video products from Facebook, Twitch, and recently, Instagram. This revamp is an evident move to push live video in front of more casual users as Twitter continues to simplify its platform. With the major social platforms steadily improving their respective live video products, brands will have more and more channels to disseminate their live content and reach a wider audience.

Early adopting brands such as Birchbox, Popeyes, McDonald’s, and GE have experimented with Facebook Live to reach customers while brands like Carl’s Jr, Coca-Cola, and Geico have sponsored livestreams on eSports sites. All these examples showcase the versatility of marketing opportunities that live streaming offers, which more brands should leverage to connect with their audiences in innovative, exciting ways.

 

Source: VentureBeat

 

Amex and JBL Harman Sign On As Sponsors For Twitter’s Original Live Shows

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter has found two brand sponsors for its upcoming original live shows. Brand messages from American Express and JBL Harman will appear in and around The Starters and The Warmup, which are both athletic-minded shows produced by Twitter partner Turner Sports in conjunction with the NBA. The shows were first announced in July and will be broadcasted weekly via their designated Twitter pages as well as the NBA’s Twitter page.

What Brands Should Do
This announcement underscores Twitter’s aim to monetize its live video content and attracting sports fans who are also cord-cutters. As more and more consumers choose time-shifted viewing over linear TV, brands should follow the viewers and work with content creators to explore new TV ad formats on connected TV devices and engage with the audience in their living rooms.

According to a new report from eMarketer (paywall), US connected TV users is projected to reach 202.1 million in 2020, up from 181.8 million this year. To read more on how brands can reach viewers on OTT platforms with ads and branded content, please check out the Appified TV section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: AdWeek