Twitter will now run American Express pre-roll ads before Fox programming is displayed on the social network. As part of the Amplify program that launched last week, these Fox spots are ads themselves by design, so the American Express pre-roll ads are effectively ads on top of ads. It’s part of Twitter’s continued effort to become profitable as soon as possible in light of its IPO. Right now, that’s scheduled to be 2015, but if the company can leverage ads to make that happen sooner, they’ll take every chance they can get.
Tag: twitter
Twitter Launches Visuals In Feed
Twitter’s feed has been living in the past in regard to visual content for years, but now it integrates previews of photos and Vines to bring something other than text and links to its primary means of presenting content. No longer will users have to click through blind links to see photos on the service. Certainly, this is a minor update that should have taken place long ago, but its effects could be felt in a big way as Twitter grows and begins to create a service closer in look and feel to more familiar social media formats.
BBC & Twitter Reach Embedding Agreement
The BBC agreed to a deal with Twitter that means that it’s Twitter stream will now feature embedded video clips – complete with pre-roll ads. It’s an announcement that continue’s Twitter’s attempts to justify it’s financial worth via network partnerships and advertising nous in advance of its IPO. It’s unclear what metrics will be used for the now-far-reaching ad platform, or how it will be monetized – let alone how it will be received by tweeters worldwide. These are big questions that the company will need to answer in the coming weeks before it goes public.
Twitter Music Going Silent
Only six months after a very high-profile launch, Twitter #Music may very well be closing its doors. Although there was a lot of positive press generated around #Music’s launch, the target audience of mobile app users failed to materialize. Only nine days after its launch, Twitter #Music fell off the top 100 free apps in the iTunes store. It’s hardly even cracked the top 1500 overall apps, and it hasn’t been in that category since May. To contrast the success of the video-sharing app Vine, which sits at 15 out of all free apps, it’s a pale comparison, and a clear sign that it didn’t live up to its promise. What happens from here is anybody’s guess, but for Twitter to be ready to admit defeat is a big step back in the music space.
Communication Breakdown: Brands Struggle On Twitter
Be human, conversational, and on-brand. These Twitter guidelines are easier said than done for brands on the social platform. Digiday’s “Tweeting Bad” segment gives plenty of Twitter mishaps to gawk at, but how do we put an end to this shameful activity?
Aside from getting great copywriters, there are a host of tools that aggregate relevant stories across the web based on a brands interest. With technology from Percolate, Rallyverse and others, brands can find their voice and publish timely commentary on a range of issues aside from their product. Because if you’re a CPG brand, there are only so many tweets you can post about toilet paper and baby wipes.
Twitter To Debut ‘See It’ Cards
Between Nielsen ratings and instant replay partnerships, Twitter has been making overt attempts to cozy up to the TV industry. It’s latest move could see its biggest payoff yet: it’s a broad deal with Comcast that aims to turn Twitter itself into a TV-watching service. It’s a bold move, but it’s actually incredibly simple. This fall, users will see a “See It” button on tweets about Comcast-owned, NBC Universal shows. Clicking on the button will open a “card” with more information about the shows, and paid Comcast users will be able to record or watch the show directly from their phones. For a company that is trying very hard to prove that it drives views, this new deal will allow the social network to prove itself very tangibly. As it stands, Twitter is the only social partner to make a move of this nature, but if it comes off, it could mean a whole different level of social engagement and interaction.
Does Twitter Drive Tune-In?
Twitter has bet big on TV, establishing a new department, a standardized rating system and advertiser products like Amplify which re-purpose video content within tweets . Yet, for many the focus seems to be on compelling content from the actors. It has to respond to the programming in real-time, be human and offer exclusive viewing like behind-the-scenes footage. Yet, the argument can be made that all of these interactions are supplementary to the show, attracting all the hardcore viewers but likely not additional tune-in. While some shows can generate thousands of tweets per minute, did that really affect the ratings? That’s the argument Twitter needs to make with the networks to be successful at the moment.
Fortunately, we’ll soon be able to judge whether Twitter actually drives ratings, thanks to a new metric called the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating. The statistic will be able to judge the social media impact of a program, looking at the total audience for social TV activity, both in terms of the size of the populace participating on social activity about shows, as well as those who were exposed to the activity but didn’t take part. In so doing, Twitter and Nielsen are looking specifically at the size of the effect of social TV on TV programming.
So although there’s not an immediate metric to say that, yes, twitter did affect ratings, it’s now possible to look at the social TV metrics, in conjunction with Nielsen ratings spikes, and effectively reverse engineer the correlated results. Certainly, correlation doesn’t equal causation, but by taking stock of the Social TV rating, the regular Nielsen ratings, their conjoined movements, and other external factors (for instance, the social media buzz around Breaking Bad that undoubtedly drove ratings up), we will have a much clearer picture of social’s effects in the TV ratings sphere.
NFL Highlights Come To Twitter
As Twitter continues to work towards going public, it’s trying harder to become intertwined with the television industry. On September 26th, NFL and Twitter agreed to a deal that would allow custom NFL video content to appear on Twitter, the first partnership of it’s kind. It falls under the umbrella of Twitter Amplify, Twitter’s advertising initiative that dates back to May, whose stated goal is to “amplify” the social TV conversation with real time, dual-screen sponsorships. The ultimate goal, for Twitter, is to provide a unique viewing experience that deepens engagement across the social network while increasing its potential value for future advertising and brand partners. And with content that’s as popular as the NFL, it appears as though they’re well on the way to doing just that.
Chirpify Makes Purchases With Hashtags
Chirpify, the startup that provides for buying and selling products via Tweets, announced a new type of hashtag that allows consumers to make purchases simply by clicking on it. Called an “action tag,” the company wants to turn hashtags like #buy or #donate into URLs that can be reprogrammed for the second screen audience to acquire products they see on TV. It works through both TV and digital ads with instructions like #buy #cocacola, which could be cross-posted to an individual’s Twitter. Chirpify would then process the order through Pay Pal. The startup is alrady working with big brands like Adidas and the Portland Trailblazers, so the idea is already implemented in the world, and is proving effective.
Twitter Tests Related Tweets Feature
As many have noticed, Twitter is constantly testing new features online. Today’s no exception, as Twitter is testing out a Related Tweets system that appears below the tweet box when you visit the unique URL of a tweet. It will present related tweets that share similar words or links. It has yet to appear in any non-web apps, and it’s not viewable to everybody yet, so it’s not quite completed yet. Nonetheless, it’s easy to see many uses for such a software, particularly for advertising companies who could stand to benefit from their social media campaigns appearing in related tweet threads for pertinent topics.
