Tag: twitter

How Puma Is Using Twitter’s New “Flock To Unlock” Feature

Posted on by Lab Team

Twitter has added a new feature to its multimedia ad platform “Cards,” and Puma just became the first brand to try it. The newly introduced “Flock to Unlock” feature enables marketers to reward followers with branded content that is unlocked by tweeting. Progress towards the goal is shown as a percentage graph rather than a specific number. 

Puma is testing this new feature with their “Faster Forever” campaign that encourages fans to tweet at the sportswear brand to unlock its new ad spot 2 days prior to its TV debut. The reaction so far has been lukewarm, possibly due to the lack of a true incentive. Rewards that are either beneficial (like coupon codes) or enticing (like exclusive content) would be better suited. Nevertheless, “Flock to Unlock” opens up a new way to facilitate interaction between brands and their fans on social media.

Twitter Acquires CardSpring, Moves In On E-Commerce

Posted on by Lab Team

Right after Facebook began testing a Buy button that enables its users to make purchases straight from their News Feeds, Twitter strikes back with the news that it has acquired CardSpring, a mobile payment start-up whose platform could let developers build credit card-linked offers such as electronic coupons, loyalty cards, and virtual currencies. With this acquisition, Twitter is no doubt betting on its mass platform, with its innate blurb-y style and targeted hashtags, to effectively distribute those integrated offers. In this tight race towards social e-commence dominance, this move might just give Twitter a little edge over Facebook.

Ashton Kutcher Brings Attention To TapTalk

Posted on by Lab Team

Right after the World Cup Final ended on Sunday, celebrity tech-enthusiast (and sometimes, investor) Ashton Kutcher took it to Twitter to shill a new messaging app called TapTalk to his 16 million unsuspected followers. Pretty much a simplified Snapchat with an instant “tap-and-send” interface, TapTalk was developed by Berlin-based company Onno Faber. It is unclear whether Kutcher has invested in this particular app, but he had taken a shine to other companies in Berlin in the past. It also remains unclear if enough percentage of Mr. Kutcher’s followers would give TapTalk a try to help it break into the U.S. market. But given that Gen Z, the major force behind the rise of messaging apps, is very fluid and fickle when it comes to their platform choices, such conversion is at least possible.

Twitter Launches New Analytics Dashboard

Posted on by Lab Team

Twitter has launched some brand new analytics to help digital advertisers and marketers alike to gain better insights on their tweeting efforts. For years, Twitter has been lagging behind Facebook in terms of providing a built-in native analytic platform that goes beyond simple favorites and retweets. Now available to Twitter advertisers, Twitter Card publishers, and certified users, this much-needed new dashboard features an impression count, i.e. how many people have seen your each individual tweet. Meanwhile, all click-throughs to profile pages, clicks on hashtags, retweets, replies, and link clicks are counted to generate an “Engagement Figure” for each tweet. Overall, this comes off as a move in the right direction for Twitter to offer a more detailed measurement tool to compete with other social media for the attention of brands and marketers.

Twitter Effective For Driving App Downloads

Posted on by Lab Team

Twitter may not have a wider reach than Facebook, more U.S mobile users than Instagram, or more social TV activity than Tumblr. But the blue bird reportedly excels in driving app downloads through its ad platform, especially lifestyle apps. Its ability to engage with users in real-time is evidently a contributing factor in this advantage over other social media platforms. In addition, Twitter is also really good at mobile retargeting, which enables marketers to retarget users who have already downloaded an app and may not have opened it in a while. With the vast capital pouring into social media marketing today, these two specialties will sure lend Twitter some advantage in this fierce competition.

Brands Chip In On The Most-Tweeted Sports Game

Posted on by Lab Team

The dramatic Brazil vs Germany semi-final match yesterday scored a massive 35.6 million tweets, making it the most-tweeted sports game ever. Of course, no self-respecting brand would miss out on such a grand global spectacle. Whether an official sponsor for the tournament or not, various brand, including Visa, Audi, and Red Bull, piled on by making real-time marketing jokes on the losing Brazilian team. As we reported, Twitter recently rolled out special onboarding features to attract the World Cup audience. Coupled with brands’ timely efforts, twitter is subtly redefining the way modern sport events are discussed, capitalized and marketed.

Amidst Declining Growth, Twitter Onboards Users During World Cup

Posted on by Lab Team

Twitter rolled out several special onboarding features to get new users setup to follow the World Cup on the platform. This included a step by step process to suggest the right players, brands and teams to follow and even what to tweet. It’s a smart strategy to combat declining user acquisition, engagement stock prices and this “starter kit” could also be an interesting monetization opportunity to promote events like the Oscars for TV networks.

Twitter Will Support Gifs

Posted on by Lab Team

Twitter announced that it’ll follow the rest of the Internet by supporting gifs on its network. It announced it with a cheeky gif of a Twitter employee uploading a gif for the first time, which received broad support across the twitter-sphere. When brands think about Twitter they often associate it with clutter and noise, but now gifs might offer a nifty way to cut through the volume with something a little more scintillating. 

Twitter Creates Dronie Account

Posted on by Lab Team

In conjunction with the Cannes Lions conference, Twitter unveiled its official @dronie account – a twitter account devoted entirely to selfies taken by drones. The account will be broadcasting selfies taken by drones at Cannes all week, the first of which being a Vine featuring Joel Lunefeld, Twitter’s VP of Global Brand Strategy, and Sir Patrick Stewart. Whether it’s a Cannes-oriented marketing stunt or a permanent way to track droanies, it’s a great way to drum up interest in new technology and Twitter’s integration with it. 

Twitter Video Hashtags Add Media

Posted on by Lab Team

As the World Cup starts up, Twitter is looking to cash in on the several different advertising campaigns that are being promoted across its social network. To do this, Twitter has partnered with Visa and Adidas to experiment with video hashtaging. The user simply writes in a hashtag, say #allin for Adidas, and a video is automatically embedded into the tweet. It gives Twitter another monetization stream, and allows advertisers to continue to think outside of the box for social media campaigns.