Tag: twitter

Twitter And Sling TV Venture Into Conversational Interfaces

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter and Sling TV are expanding the ways users can interact with their services as they add support for voice-activated digital assistants. Twitter developed an Alexa Skill that leverages Amazon’s voice assistant service to let users hear trending topics, top tweets, notifications, and more. Sling TV has integrated with Cortana, Microsoft’s voice assistant service, on Windows 10 devices to allow users to search for specific shows or channels via voice commands.

What Brands Need To Do
Conversational interfaces have been gaining traction and voice-based interfaces in particular are changing the way consumers interact with their gadgets, creating a new paradigm for human-computer interaction. Therefore, brands should take a cue from Twitter and Sling TV and start exploring how to integrate your brand’s service into this type of interface.

For more information on how brands can take advantage of the rise of conversational interfaces, please check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Sources: Tech Times & Engadget

Twitter Opens Up Periscope Livestreams For Brand Sponsorships

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter is now allowing brands to sponsor livestreams on Periscope as the company looks to monetize its live video app. Grey Goose and Chase are now sponsoring Periscope livestreams from former world champion Andy Roddick at the U.S. Open, who will name-check the brands during the live show. The sponsorship is said to be part of a larger ad buy that also includes promoted tweets and Twitter Amplify preroll ads for the two brands.

What Brands Need To Do
Twitter has been trying to keep up with Facebook in terms of building out live video products as it vyes for the ad dollars pouring into digital video. Periscope recently started testing the use of pre-recorded and graphics in livestreams to offer content creators more leeway. As Twitter opens up Periscope for monetization, brands gain new opportunities to work with popular content creators and influencers to reach an online audience in real time.

 

Source: AdWeek

Header image is a promotional image courtesy of the Periscope blog

Twitter Extends Pre-Rolls And Creates Paid Stickers For “Fantastic Beasts”

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter announced today it is extending its Amplify Publisher program to individual video creators in the U.S., aiming to drum up video content to sell more pre-roll ads. Twitter is offering individual content creators 70% of ad revenue, which is higher than the 45 percent YouTube gives its creators, and does not require content exclusivity. Only creators approved by Twitter will be able to monetize their content through the program, which first opened to publishers last fall.

In related news, Warner Bros.launched a set of Twitter stickers to promote its upcoming “Harry Potter” spinoff “Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them,” making it the first entertainment brand to use paid Twitter stickers for its campaign. Earlier this month, Pepsi released a set of custom Twitter stickers to engage with Twitter users.

What Brands Need To Do
In-feed video ads on Twitter benefits from its context and produces better recall compared to other pre-roll ads, as our recent media trial concluded. Twitter’s searchable stickers are an extension of the emoji marketing that many brands including Coca-Cola and Toyota have experimented with. As Twitter continues to improve its various ad products to appeal to brand marketers in the hope of boosting its ad revenues, it is up to brand marketers to figure out which ad unit fits best for your campaigns.

 

Sources :AdWeek & Variety

Pepsi Becomes The First Brand To Sponsor Twitter Stickers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
When Twitter added searchable stickers in June, we anticipated that the microblogging service would soon turn it into an ad product. Now, Pepsi has become the first brand to sponsor Twitter stickers. For this campaign, Pepsi created about 50 stickers based on the emojis that the soft drink brand has featured on its bottles since February as part of its “Say It With Pepsi” campaign. Twitter declined to say how much it is charging for promoted stickers but announced that it is making this new ad unit available for all brands starting Monday.

What Brands Need To Do
Twitter’s searchable stickers are an extension of the emoji marketing that many brands including Coca-Cola and Toyota have experimented with on Twitter. In Asia, branded stickers have long been a popular ad unit on messaging apps, with Japanese chat app LINE racking up over $280 million in revenue from selling branded stickers in 2015. By making stickers available for brands to sponsor, Twitter is giving brands a new native ad product to engage users with. Brands seeking to add a fun sparkle to their Twitter campaigns should certainly look into Sponsored Stickers.

 

Source: AdWeek

Twitter Opens Up Moments To Brands And Influencers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter is set to open up its Moments feature to a select set of brands, influencers, and publishers, allowing them to create their own tweet collections. Besides Twitter’s own editorial team, Moments was previously only available to a limited group of media partners such as Buzzfeed and the MLB. Now, Budweiser, Allure Magazine, and activist DeRay McKesson are among the first to try out the new tool. Twitter says it will gradually roll out the feature to all users in coming months, but will continue to rely on its editorial team to determine which ones get published.

What Brands Need To Do
By opening up the Moments feature to brands and influencers, Twitter is making yet another tool available for marketers to capture Twitter users’ attention. Moments allows brands to string a series of rich-media tweets together to craft an engaging narrative, and brands seeking to reach customers on Twitter should consider giving it a try or working with an influencer to push out brand messages.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Twitter Launches Ad Product That Unlocks Content For Retweets

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter is launching a new interactive ad product that lets brands offer exclusive content in exchange for user engagement. With the “Instant Unlock Card,” which hides a photo or video behind a call-to-action button, brands can encourage fans to tweet about them with a customized hashtag or simply retweet in order to unlock exclusive content. Along with this ad product, Twitter has also created new measurement tools to track user engagement and impressions these interactive cards generate.

What Brands Need To Do
Twitter has been steadily rolling out new ad products to appeal to brand marketers in the hope of boosting its ad revenues. It launched an ad unit in February that helps brands’ tweets stay atop timelines and introduced multi-tweet Carousel ads in June. The “Unlock” cards incentivize users to tweet by offering them access to exclusive content, which brand marketers can leverage to increase the organic reach of their tweets while also improving user engagement.

 

Source: AdWeek

Twitter To Live Broadcast Its First eSports Matches

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
In the beginning of July, reports surfaced that Twitter was in talks with Turner Broadcasting for the live-streaming rights of some of its eSports content. Now, Twitter announced that it has struck a partnership deal with Turner to live broadcast the semi-final and final games of ELEAGUE’s tournament for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive this weekend, marking the first time Twitter has branched out into the eSports territory that is typically dominated by Twitch.

What Brands Need To Do
ELEAGUE is a professional eSports league co-owned by Turner Broadcasting and talent agency WME/IMG that started this May. Its broadcast on Turner-owned TBS scored 509,000 total viewers during its first primetime telecast and has since consistently brought in a new audience to Turner network throughout its first season. Now by inking a deal with Twitter, Turner is looking to further extend the reach of its eSports content.  

In the past few years, the competitive gaming industry, which attracts a massive audience and generates billions of dollars, has quickly grown into a media opportunity that brands should not ignore. Some early-adopting brands, such as Coca-Cola and Geico, have been sponsoring eSports events to reach its young, male-skewing audience. More brands should consider leveraging the massive reach of eSports events to reach consumers via sponsorships or, in this case, Twitter ads.

 

Source: Engadget

 

Twitter Scores Live-Streaming Rights Of MLB And NHL Games

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Reports surfaced at the beginning of the month that Twitter was in talks with the MLB and the NHL in its quest for more live sports content. Today, Twitter announced that it has reached a deal with MLB Advanced Media to stream live weekly games from the two aforementioned sports leagues. Viewers will be able to stream games for free, no login required. Twitter will pay the leagues a set amount of ad sales it generates, and the companies will split the additional ad revenue.

What Brands Need To Do
With this pact, Twitter has now established relationships with the four big pro-sports leagues in the U.S. to broadcast their content. Previously, Twitter won the simulcast rights for NFL Thursday Night Football games in April and announced a deal with the NBA for original live shows during games last week. As Twitter builds out its live sports content, it emerges as a burgeoning media channel for brands to reach sports fans online. Agreeing to split ad revenue with content providers, Twitter demonstrates an ad-friendly approach toward live streaming that brands, especially those targeting sports fans, should take into consideration while seeking to reach an online audience.

 

Source: Variety

Twitter Scores Original Live Video Content From NBA

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter continued its quest for more live sports content as it struck a deal with the NBA to broadcast exclusive live content on its platform. It is important to note that the two “live original programs” that Twitter will be getting from the NBA will not include actual game broadcasts. As part of the deal, Twitter will also double the number of ad-supported NBA highlights it posts to Twitter and Vine. Twitter reportedly splits the ad revenue from those highlights with the NBA. Last week, Twitter signed a deal with Pac-12 Networks to live stream over 150 collegiate sports events during the upcoming 2016-2017 season.

What Brands Need To Do
As Twitter continues to buff up its live video content with a heavy focus on live sports, it opens up more opportunities for brands, especially those in sports, activewear, and fitness, to reach their target audiences on social channels. Agreeing to split ad revenue with content providers, Twitter’s ad-friendly approach toward live streaming should be taken into consideration as brands seek to connect with an online audience that may be difficult to reach via traditional media buys.

 

Source: Re/Code

Twitter Opens Gnip’s Audience API To Offer Brands More Data

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Gnip, a data platform owned by Twitter, announced on Tuesday that it is opening up access to its Audience API, which was first launched with limited access in October. Now with easy access to Gnip’s data, brand marketers will be able to learn more about their Twitter audience, such as what languages they speak, what kind of music they like, and other demographic and interest data points. To ensure user privacy, Gnip’s data is anonymized and aggregated to groups of over 500 Twitter accounts.

Why Brands Should Care
Twitter has been steadily improving the targeting capability of its ad products, including an emoji-based targeting option introduced last month. By opening up Gnip’s Audience API to marketers, brands gain a valuable tool to gather insights on their audience, which can be then leveraged for ad targeting and improving customer services.

 

Source: Marketing Land