Viva Fresh Expo Tom Edwards Keynote
I recently had the opportunity to deliver a version of the Evolution of Experience talk as a keynote during the Viva Fresh Expo in San Antonio, Texas.
The first half of the talk explored the rise of Amazon and it impacts on consumer behavior and retail experiences. Then the presentation shifted into the full Evolution of Experience through the E^3 Framework of Empower, Exponential and Enhance and discussed how we will evolve from us inputting into technology, to our environment adapting to us.
Empower is looking at how accessibility to mobile technology has led to consumers being empowered to create, amplify and influence across generations.
Exponential is all about acceleration through intelligent systems. This looks at the rise of virtual assistants and the ability to predict consumer needs and ultimately become a proxy of the individual that will forever alter the path to purchase.
Enhanced is all about the bridging of physical and digital and how immersive computing, AR, VR, computer vision will make the user’s camera intelligent and forever changing the retail experience.
The talk ends with an explanation of how we will evolve from a mobile-centric world to the new normal of voice, vision and touch experiences powered by AI including a date when it will all converge.
It was a great crowd and I really enjoyed the hour with such a highly engaged and interactive group.
If you are interested in having Tom speak at your event please contact here.
Tom Edwards Speaker Bio
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ZDNet Interview: Humanizing AI
I recently had the opportunity to be a guest on the Tonya Hall show. Tonya is a contributor to CBS Interactive properties such as ZDNet and Tech Republic.
Our discussion touches upon a number of currently trending topics such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, blockchain, emotive robotics and more.
Here is the full interview.
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Celebrating 500 BlackFin Posts
This post is number 500 for the BlackFin360.com/blog. Starting this blog was one of the best decisions I have made professionally. It provided me with a platform to share original thoughts, cover industry trends and serve as a repository for speaking and media coverage.
It has evolved significantly from the early beginnings in 2007. The blog was originally under the domain TheBlackFin.com. Now that domain is simply a redirect to BlackFin360.com. “BlackFin” was a nickname given to me by a co-worker at the time and the blog name came directly from my Xbox Gamertag “TheBlackFin“.
Here is a screenshot of the original look for the blog from 2007-2009. Why green for a blog named the “black” fin is something I still wonder about to this day.
Over the years the look and feel of the blog has changed but the core content focus on marketing, emerging technology, and gaming has remained to this day.
I officially moved the blog from theblackfin.com to blackfin360.com in 2009. By 2011 at least there were black/techie elements in the look and feel.
Now in 2018, the blog continues to serve as the primary entry point for speaking engagements, advisor opportunities, university lecturing, media coverage and over the past year it has shifted to more of a Vlog.
The look of the site will continue to evolve in 2018 and beyond.
Whether this is your first time here or you have been a subscriber since the beginning, I sincerely want to thank anyone who has stopped by and spent time with my content. I am incredibly grateful for this platform and I would highly recommend to anyone to find their industry voice and build their personal brand in addition to their professional.
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In The News: Entrepreneur.com RE: What’s Next?
Recently, both Entrepreneur.com and C-Suite Network featured my engaging conversation with Jeffrey Hayzlett. In the interview, we explored the delicate act of balancing present-day marketing strategies while keeping an eye on the future, as well as the potential impact of emerging technologies.
Click the image below for the full interview.
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68 Top Trends So Far in 2017
Over the past six months, my team and I have evaluated the top emerging technology trends that will fundamentally reshape how marketers will connect with consumers.
Here is a brief preview:
The full analysis includes 68 trends categorized by our trend framework of Empower, Enhance, Feel & Ambient Computing. This will replace our original framework of Connection, Cognition & Immersion.
Empower to create content, engage and connect through new interfaces and touchpoints.
Enhance your daily life activities and responsibilities through intelligent systems and proxy’s.
Feel emotional experiences like pleasure and excitement delivered through immersive computing.
Ambient computing is the alignment of all three behavioral drivers.
Download the 2017 Midyear Trend Deck Today!
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Symposium 2017
I had the privilege to speak and host Epsilon Symposium 2017. With hundreds of clients in attendance, I was tasked with discussing the role of artificial intelligence across Epsilon and Conversant as well as tease examples of emerging technology that my team and I are working on.
Here are the key highlights I discussed during Symposium 2017. Part of my role is evaluating and embracing the latest innovations and determining how they connect to our Epsilon and Conversant solutions.
Whether that’s through conversational and voice based experiences such as Alexa Voice Services, Google Assistant & Siri, or the amazing artificial intelligence work happening here at Epsilon and Conversant or immersive computing such as augmented & virtual reality, that’s bolstered by our data, insights and creative execution.
So the last ten years I have talked about how disruption is the new normal. How emerging technology can impact consumer behavior and what it means for marketers.
Today we are at an inflection point. Where we are seeing the shift from mobile first to AI first. It’s less about disruption and more about acceleration through intelligent systems.
That’s where Epsilon and Conversant’s heritage of aligning data and technology and driving innovation is the key to leveraging whatever the future may bring and where consumers will be.
Within the agency business, we are using Machine Learning to categorize the data of culture along with our data of identity to fuel our creative approach.
From a product perspective, We are also achieving harmony (Pun intended ;) through machine learning and AI through a centralized intelligence hub for decisioning across channels.
Finally, Conversant is at the forefront of integrating AI through machine learning and image recognition to create world-class speed and scale where every 5 minutes, consumer actions across 160M individual profiles lead to over a billion model updates.
The key moving forward is empowering consumers, enhancing solutions through artificial intelligence and creating immersive experiences
Regardless of how the future state shifts and evolves… be it through bots becoming agents on our behalf, the evolution of consumer based journey’s expanding to include system based journey’s or a hyper connected augmented reality future. All of those elements will be highly dependent on Data and decisioning as the foundational element.
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C-Suite TV Executive Perspectives
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Jeffrey Hayzlett of C-Suite TV to kick off season 7 of Executive Perspectives. We discussed digital disruption, conversational experiences, artificial intelligence and best practices for leveraging data to connect with consumers.
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New Content Marketing Opportunities
Social Media To Social Messaging
Today, Twitter announced the integration of native GIF search support. This feature is designed to enhance a conversational user experience and is yet another signal of an impending shift that validates the importance of supporting visual language usage behavior (emoji, stickers, GIF’s).
Over the past few months I have talked a lot about the seismic shift in consumer behavior towards intimate sharing as well as platform and publishers integrating new features and testing conversational user experiences to keep pace with the shift from social media to social messaging.
This shift will redefine how brand marketers approach connecting with consumers. It will be less about the hallmarks of social media marketing which included personification of the brand in a witty way and more about enabling conversation and finding the key points to passively enable a conversation through visual language or by creating compelling customer experiences through messaging channels.
Publishers such as Facebook and Twitter as well as ephemeral platforms such as Snapchat are redefining the future of social media. In recent briefings with the Snapchat team, they stated emphatically that they are not a social network. And some brand marketers may not be comfortable with the pending new normal.
I recently discussed with iMedia how Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp’s go-to-market approach is key to their long term strategy to remain relevant with younger audiences and serves as a precursor to the shift that is coming.
Facebook is a microcosm for what’s happening in the industry. They have over one billion users engaging monthly, yet they are laser focused on evolving beyond social media and are doubling down on social messaging.
Facebook sees that consumer behavior is shifting towards intimate connection vs. broad-reaching social platforms. As a result, messaging apps, like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and SnapChat are dominating engagement with key demographics.
In addition to stickers, animated GIFs, and emojis, messenger applications will also focus on enabling customer service to serve as a primary commerce hub for publishers. Facebook has already tested programs connecting local service providers with consumers through Messenger, as well as enabling third-party developers to create new experiences that enable the messaging experience.
It’s not just about Messenger and WhatsApp. Facebook owned Instagram now has improved DM capabilities that focuses on intimate shareability of content. Instagram made it easier to share content without tagging as well as the ability to share with up to 15 people, respond with emoji or add additional images with a threaded approach. This is another signal of the importance of a conversational user experience.
Now Twitter is continuing it’s product evolution by adopting new functionality that is already prevalent with ephemeral messaging platforms. They announced support of native GIF search functionality across iOS, Android & web.
This is in addition to their recent testing of Snapchat stylized doodles and photo editing and expanding the character limit via direct messaging.
It is important to consider the macro shifts in consumer behavior combined with the signals given by the platforms in response to where they are placing their bets for the near future. If the Asian markets are any indication of future behavior in the US, we will see the rise of micro-messaging branded initiatives similar to WeChat.
Here is an example of Starbucks leveraging WeChat in China to conversationally connect with consumers. By sharing their emotion they can engage with branded content and offers.
From a marketing perspective, it is important to begin thinking about how to create or leverage a conversational user experience as well as begin to understand the shift in approach to supporting messaging apps with an “enabling” approach vs. social personification or brand centric messaging.
Consider the role that sponsored brand chats, stickers, emojis or a 3rd party app in the Messenger app ecosystem can provide towards building connections with consumers.
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Adweek Commentary Twitter 10,000 Characters
I was recently asked by Adweek to provide commentary about how Twitter’s increase to 10,000 characters can add value for brand marketers.
“The biggest reason they are making the shift is not just for user behavior—to me, it is to increase the platform’s capabilities in search,” said Tom Edwards, chief digital officer of agency business at Epsilon. “With more content, it will be about getting more insights on individual behavior and other ad opportunities. This change allows to search more content, signal of users and increase the platform’s targeting ability.”
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IBT Q3 Earnings Commentary Facebook, Twitter & Google
Recently the International Business Times asked me to provide commentary and analysis of Q3 2015 earnings reports for multiple digital and technology organizations. I find quarterly earnings calls to be incredibly insightful, especially towards the end of the calendar year as new product investment announcements are made.
Below is my multi-article commentary about the future offerings that may impact new products and digital marketing experiences for Google, Twitter & Facebook.
FACEBOOK: Facebook had an impressive 3rd quarter as they continue to invest in core products and services. What was most impressive were the latest numbers being touted, specifically for private groups, messenger and WhatsApp.
Facebook’s approach to aligning products with varying levels of consumer intimacy while also keeping an eye towards the future of computing was impressive all while turning in impressive quarter over quarter earnings.
Post Earnings Facebook Commentary
Pre-Earnings Facebook Analysis
TWITTER: Twitter definitely faced turbulence with the release of their Q3 earnings report. I do believe that the renewed focus on maximizing interest-based connections through Moments is a key addition to better engage the existing & logged out users.
Time will tell if this will be enough to convince investors to stick with Twitter as a long term investment. But their recent emphasis on creating new experience based hubs is a strong move towards a maximizing the value created by their existing audience.
Post Earnings Twitter Commentary
Pre-Earnings Twitter Article
GOOGLE: I recently posted about Google’s Q3 earnings. Google’s decision to streamline their organization into a house of brands vs. a branded house will ultimately have a positive impact on their advertising business and more details about revenue and profitability will become clear in Q4 once Google & Alphabet separate revenue by business unit.
For Q3, By clearly defining the boundaries of Google vs. the other entities housed in Alphabet, Google has aligned the core revenue generating advertising products and simplified the value proposition of what Google is.
Moving forward as advertising dollars continue to shift from search into other advertising product lines, Google can further integrate their offerings into a comprehensive ecosystem that can flex to better meet the needs of advertisers and continue to be a core revenue driver to further compete with Facebook.
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Twitter Moments Analysis
Recently, I published a post outlining the launch of Project Lightning which became Twitter Moments. This was a major launch for social/digital marketers as it extends the ability to create contextually relevant content series on Twitter.
Below is my initial analysis that explores the user experience, competitive analysis and comparison to SnapChat’s Live Stories as well as explores the potential of sequential storytelling for brand marketers.
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Project Lightning Has Launched as Twitter Moments
Over the past few weeks I have heard rumblings about Twitter’s Project Lightning launch. As the announcement drew closer I connected with many members of the Twitter team and you could tell they were excited about the pending announcement but still remained very tight lipped about all of the details of the launch.
Today is the official launch day in the US and as the news was breaking I received messages from the Twitter team with links to the official blog post.
I then saw the update available on my iOS device and then caught the Periscope reveal of Moments by the product team. Now it’s time to jump into what Moments is and how is it applicable to brand marketers?
ABOUT TWITTER MOMENTS
When you update the Twitter app you now see a Lightning bolt in the middle of the main navigation. Tapping it opens a list of Moments from the day or various topics that include news, sports, entertainment and fun.
What you see are curated “moments” that users can engage and subscribe to. The user experience consists of full-bleed images + swipe to engage the next piece of content in the “moment”. Content types can including images, videos, Vines & GIFs.
By tapping on a moment, users have the option to retweet or favorite content and there is a progress bar that shows how much content remains in a particular moment.
Users can also follow moments to stay up to date as new content is added. Updated tweets to the moment then become a part of the users timeline without the need to navigate back and forth.
NEW INNOVATION???
From a marketing perspective this is a very similar approach to what Snapchat rolled out recently with their Live Story platform.
This is from last nights MNF game and this moment was curated by both Snapchat & Twitter.
Snapchat leverages event geo-fencing so individuals that are participating at an event or moment can submit Snaps that are curated into 3 to 5 minute live stories.
Snapchat has also rolled out a comprehensive mobile ad experience that integrates user-submitted Snaps with Snapchat’s full screen ad units, which normally included four units plus an event geo-filter for content.
Example of a Snapchat Live Story Ad Type
Example of a Snapchat Geo-Filter
The similarities are that both Twitter and Snapchat are curating content from specific events and making it discoverable. Twitter does not currently leverage geo-location as a filter to curate content, but Twitter’s goal is soon expand beyond their team curating moments and enabling individual users to create moments.
WHAT DO MOMENTS MEAN FOR BRAND MARKETERS?
Twitter’s goal with the Moments launch is to slow the flow of information down and extend the shelf-life of content while also providing new avenues of discovery to conversations and content across the Twitter ecosystem.
Moments also brings sequential storytelling capabilities to Twitter. By enabling the ability to craft brand narratives that seamlessly integrates with created, co-created, integrated and curated content opens up possibilities to create immersive experiences that can sustain themes for longer periods of time leading to more opportunities for organic discovery.
Moments allows Twitter users to have a more focused approach to consuming event content beyond individuals they follow. A use case would be an NFL game, a user following an NFL Moment would receive content from teams, broadcasters, players, the league, etc…
For brand marketers, once Twitter provides the tools for individuals and brands to create moments, it opens up the possibility of curating conversations and potentially packaging and promoting content beyond a single tweet to provide more contextual relevance.
Taking the same NFL example above, here is what I think the user experience could look like for a brand with an NFL sponsorship when this ad type is rolled out. You have NFL content, User Generated Content and the potential for relevant brand content.
It will also be very interesting to see how Twitter wraps it’s advertising products around moments. (UPDATED) The Twitter team just told me that brand testing will begin by the end of this month. At first, they will be 100% owned and curated by a brand with no immediate opportunity to sponsor an Entertainment Weekly “Moment” or an NFL “Moment” yet.
Based on past ad types, I assume there will be an option to promote a specific moment to bundle event content and focus the conversation, I also assume that brands will have an opportunity to place contextually relevant ad types into key curated moments.
The benefits for marketers is having the opportunity to reach new audience segments in a highly contextual way beyond simply promoted tweets and this may create more value for brands looking to build a connection with users in the moment.
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Twitter’s New Visual Tools Debuted at the VMA’s
I was recently asked by ClickZ about the recent debut of Twitter’s Visual Editing Tool the debuted during MTV’s Video Music Awards.
Clickz: Twitter is testing new editing tools to give its users a lot more creativity in the photo and video department soon. According to numerous images posted by Taylor Swift, Pharrell Williams and other popstars at MTV’s VMA awards show this weekend, it looks like users might soon be able to add stickers, doodles, text and more to photos and short video clips. What does this mean for Twitter?
Tom Edwards: This move by Twitter makes a lot of sense, especially for millennial users who have grown accustomed to customizing their messages with ephemeral social platforms like Snapchat, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. The evolution from text speak to visual language is key for Twitter to capitalize upon to remain relevant especially considering that globally, messaging applications are the primary engagement drivers.
Twitter has taken steps to amp up their approach to visually contextual content with custom emoji and hashflags. By incorporating more options for it’s users to extend their personalities through stickers and doodles they are providing additional options for users to expand their ability to tell a visual story and continue to expand context beyond 140 characters.
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Twitter Card 101 & Beyond
Twitter initially rolled out Twitter cards during the summer of 2012 and this feature has continued to expand. Twitter recently rolled out their new Twitter Cards analytics package. This roll-out reflects the growing focus towards not only creating a richer experience in-feed, but also validating the results and mapping influence.
Twitter cards allow content creators to attach rich photos, videos and media experiences to tweets. The cards are actually more dependent on the web destination than anything within the Twitter experience. Twitter cards require a few lines of HTML to allow Twitter to quickly organize the card information to create a differentiated experience in-feed.
Below is a consolidated view of the latest Twitter Card offerings covering: Summary, Photo, Gallery, App, Player and Product Card types.
Here is a great video from the Twitter team outlining the new Card Analytics offering.
Twitter cards can serve as a key point of differentiation, especially upon a share from the referring destination, to create a more complete experience within the feed and across device types.
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Evolution of Social Media Marketing
Here is a preview of my latest take on the evolution of social media marketing.
The presentation starts with a trip down memory lane by reviewing the rise of social media platforms across the globe.
Next is a look at the impact social media trends have had on consumer behavior. Everything from viral videos, #selfies and the rise of YouTube celebrities.
Then focus shifts to the evolution of social marketing globally and the role that content plays in today’s social marketing programs.
The journey wraps with a look at the future state of social marketing.
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Custom Audiences for Facebook and Twitter
I was recently briefed by the Twitter team about today’s formally announced tailored audience product release. The need to create custom audience segments based off of existing datasets is becoming increasingly important for organizations to further differentiate and target relevant messaging.
Twitters offering on the surface is very similar to how Facebook approaches custom audience targeting but with a few subtle nuances. Facebook’s approach allows organizations to use existing e-mail addresses, phone numbers or Facebook User IDs to create a match with users on Facebook to create custom segments.
This is represented simply by the Identify, Find & Reach visual below.
The way that Facebook’s matching works is your organization would map the selected customer base into groups of people you want to target with specific messages and then upload the list via the Facebook power editor. That data is then hashed via a one way hash. This information is not “kept” by Facebook and a rep recently stated an example… “You cannot run sausage back through a grinder to make a pig“. This hashed data is then mapped against existing Facebook UID’s and a custom list is created with a match rate of over 80%.
Here is an example of how it works.
One of the questions I receive a lot on this topic is if the brand has to do this or can it be administered by a third party? The answer is both. Those comfortable with the process can create custom audiences or pass to a 3rd party to facilitate the mapping.
This type of targeting is ideal to pair with paid to deliver a highly impactful message. An example would be taking an offline loyalty database, taking the top 5% of purchasers and create a custom mapped list based on past purchases to deliver a high impact message.
Twitters announcement today regarding what they call tailored audiences is a similar concept. Twitter already has a number of ways to target individuals on their platform.
What is interesting about their approach to targeting is that they can target off of both CRM and Web. From a CRM standpoint the process is similar to Facebooks where offline data such as e-mail is matched against Twitter users to reach them with Twitter Promoted Products.
Where it gets very interesting is Twitter’s ability to tailor web audiences as well. This is done by a data partner sending anonymized cookie ID lists composed of chosen audiences that is then mapped against Twitter lists.
With further dependency on paid due to lower organic reach, the ability to target and activate existing assets socially is going to be of paramount importance to the success of going beyond engagement to create intent with targeted consumers. The ability to further align offline & online behavior to those who have shown interest through purchase or other means is a key point of consideration moving forward.
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Visual Storytelling Twitter Style
In celebration of Twitter’s IPO, I recently put together the following POV on the new visual Twitter experience outlining what changed, potential impact for programs as well as best practices directly from the Twitter team.
When: This update was rolled out to the public on October 29th, 2013
What: Images, Videos & Vines in users Twitter feed for both web client & mobile apps are now auto expanded (contingent on users updating their iOS & Android apps to the latest update version of the Twitter app).
Why: Twitter wants to make the service a more visual experience heading into their IPO. One of the core goals of Twitter is mainstream adoption and user growth. In Q3 their user growth rate declined slightly so the goal is to make the product more approachable by incorporating a more visual feel to the timeline similar to Facebook & Tumblr.
Impact: Previously, a user would need to click on a link to see the preview of the image or video. Now, the user will see a preview of the image and have the ability to zoom in or watch the clip in stream. The visual redesign has also streamlined the ability to replay, retweet or favorite a tweet without leaving the timeline as before.
Currently there is no way for a user to turn off the visual previews via the web. However, users can opt to turn off the visual option in the mobile application via settings. Based on past behavior though, this extra step may not be taken by a majority of users.
From a metric standpoint, this change may have an impact on the total interactions per tweet as prior to the update users would need to click on the link to preview an image and that would count as an interaction.
Thus interactions via the tweet may go down, but providing more visual content directly in the stream may impact overall engagement in a more positive way as the visual content will stand out from the traditional text based tweets.
Final notes: The new visual Twitter update still does not support animated GIF’s and there is currently no filter or blocking functionality for the individual user. Also, Instagram and other services are currently still represented as links vs. auto expanded.
Note this example highlighting Instagram as a link & images uploaded to Twitter as expanded
Recommendation: The new best practice associated with image posting per Twitter renders at 440 x 220 and uploaded via pic.twitter.com in order to be auto-expanded.
Here is additional info that I just received from Twitter RE: Image pixel size and file size:
The longer side of your photo should be 1024 pixels and the shorter side should be proportionately fewer pixels. This applies to horizontal, square, and vertical photos with any aspect ratio. For example, a horizontal photo with a 4×3 aspect ratio should be sized 1024 x 768 pixels. A square photo should be 1024 x 1024 pixels
Photo file size limit is 3MB
To show your entire image in the Tweet preview:
Use an image in horizontal/landscape orientation with a 2:1 aspect ratio (e.g. 1024 x 512 pixels)
If you do this, the preview image will be the same as the image shown when the Tweet is expanded and/or when the photo is fully revealed.
Currently, there are no text restrictions on the images, so there is an opportunity to maximize the real-estate of images. One key point of consideration is that mobile users still need to update their Twitter app to get this feature so that is still a barrier to removing legal copy from photos as only 6% of Twitter users use the web client. Also note that Twitter has been very strict with 3rd parties who use their API, so at some point this update will push through that ecosystem as well.
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Vine Strikes Back
With the recent launch of Instagram Video the natural inclination was what would the response be from Twitter’s Vine service. What features would be added to further compel brands & users to leverage their platform? On July 5th we received our answer as Vine announced the following on their blog:
New Camera Tools: We’ve redesigned the camera and included new grid, focus, and ghost tools to make shooting great videos even easier.
Channels: We’re introducing 15 channels for you to submit posts to or browse from the Explore screen, including comedy, music and nature — each with their own theme and Popular feed. They’re a great way to highlight the awesome posts that are shared every day.
On The Rise: Discover new people who are starting to capture the attention and interest of the Vine community.
Revining: Share other people’s posts with your all of your followers in one tap.
Protected Posts: Most Vine posts are public, which means they can be viewed, discovered and shared by anyone on Vine. If you want more control over who can see your posts, you can now protect your posts, which means only the people you approve to follow you can see them. And of course, if you choose to share one of your protected posts to Twitter or Facebook, then it will also be viewable on the web.
All features are available on iOS and all features will be added to Android in the next week.
FEATURE IMPACT DISCUSSION
Each of these features were implemented to continue the direct competition with Instagram & to create points of differentiation between the two platforms. The interesting elements in my mind were the focus on discoverability & sharability.
Channels were a surprise and one of the smarter moves by Vine. By creating top level categories in addition to adding “popular now” and “on the rise” allows for users to quickly filter to content that may be of interest to them, thus potentially increasing connectivity between users & content creators that are of interest. This may be a future areas where branded content can be further amplified as well.
The most important update was tied to the creation of “Revining” by allowing quick sharing within the app to a users followers, it instantly increases the virality potential of Vine related content.
From a brand perspective, Protected Posts was a key addition by allowing more control over content, a brand can more easily experiment with Vine content but note that if you choose to share to Twitter or Facebook that content is also viewable on the web.
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Twitter Interest Graph
Today featured a rather large announcement from Twitter regarding the future of their advertising product. According to multiple sources the announcements hit the wire today. I was at Twitter HQ in San Francisco just a few days ago and the Twitter Interest Graph was a featured topic of discussion. I just received the green light to discuss publicly from Twitter today, so here we go.
Now that the news has been unveiled, let’s take a deeper look at the Twitter Interest Graph and it’s potential impact for our clients. With 140 million users and strong international growth, further developing their ad platform was an obvious next step to drive increased value and offer additional opportunities to monetize their brand relationships.
Currently, the promoted tweets product was focused primarily on amplifying messages to users who were either already following a particular brand or a similar association as deemed by Twitter. Now by introducing the ability to target promoted tweets via other factors such as location and now interests, this opens up the landscape for brands to capitalize on growth and awareness goals that were simply not feasible until now.
An example of this would be American Airlines. Currently, AA could use a promoted tweet to target it’s 415,000 followers or people deemed similar by Twitter. Now, AA could essentially target new users based on interests tied to travel or destinations.
Google has it’s Google Knowledge Graph, Facebook it’s Social Graph and now Twitter has it’s Twitter Interest Graph. This graph, based on 25 top level and 300+ second level “interest categories” in addition to custom interest segments, uses asymmetrical real-time signals by users to drive the correlation with a users interests. In layman’s terms, Facebook shows a direct relationship between an interest and a user via a Like. Twitter takes other signals such as who an individual follows as well as your retweets to make associations of interest. This is also an extension of the logic used by the “who to follow” suggestions on your Twitter homepage.
From an earned media perspective, this definitely changes the game when it comes to driving value from Twitter. I cannot go into the details of the models discussed, but know that based on actual Twitter data the value of a campaign over the course of multiple years is extremely positive.
From a data standpoint, it is still unclear how this data will extend beyond the ad platform. With Facebook’s social graph, we have access to 180 points of data if authorized by the user that includes interest level data. This is incredibly powerful information to create highly relevant experiences and spark action on behalf of a user. As it stands now, and this could change as the graph evolves but today, the data is primarily tied to insights associated with paid campaigns.
Example of Facebook’s Social Graph data points
This is a great next step for Twitter as it continues to evolve it’s platform from simple utility for brands to becoming a major factor in not only impacting real-time and topical events, but harnessing the true power of it’s 140 million users and more closely associate brand goals with better targeting options to truly maximize opportunities.
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4 Brand Benefits of Twitter Brand Pages v2.0
Last December, Twitter launched their version of brand pages which provided the first step towards leveraging Twitter as a destination for brands. While the validity of brand pages in their current form have been questioned based on how users consume feeds vs. actual page interaction, it is clear that this was the initial step in a broader strategy.
Today, it was announced that Twitter is now taking the next step with their brand pages offering and will soon allow brands to create specific experiences tied to the brand page, including e-commerce, contests and sweepstakes and according to early reports will be contained within the brand’s tweet timeline vs. a 140 character limit.
This is big news for brands for a number of reasons:
1 – Brand centric activation opportunities – By allowing brands the opportunity to directly tie contests & sweeps to a brand page vs. separate landing pages, their is an opportunity for longer dwell times on a branded presence and more of an opportunity for a user to directly connect with the brand. This also provides additional value to brands who have or will invest in Twitter’s advertising platform.
Here is an example of how brands have facilitated Twitter sweeps in the past. The new announcement will create associations directly with a brands page vs. separate landing pages as shown below.
McDonalds is already using a combination of pinned & promoted posts & a Hashtag centric campaign. In the future, this will drill into a Twitter based branded experience vs. micro-site that facilitates deeper brand engagement & also drives a more robust CRM strategy.
2 – Social Commerce – The future connection between Twitter & e-commerce is officially on the product roadmap. Based on the dual role of co-founder Jack Dorsey, who is also the CEO of mobile-payments company Square, we definitely foresee an opportunity to further drive e-commerce interaction that is tied to existing Twitter behavior. This is further fueled by Twitters performance over the 2011 holiday season, where Twitter led the way in average order size over Facebook.
Recently, Twitter partnered with American Express allowing Amex card holders to sign up for a service that ties a users tweet via a Twitter hashtag, or search term, that’s unique to a specific offer. After the user makes a purchase, deal savings are automatically credited to that customers American Express card statement within one to three days.
3 – Destination vs. Portal – Since inception, Twitter has performed as an aggregation hub or portal vs. a true end destination for users. This is supported by the amount of overall referral traffic Twitter creates. By connecting branded destinations with branded acquisition enablement vs. simply aggregating content, advertisers can now create more robust programs via Twitter by providing an end destination within Twitter vs. driving to Facebook or other owned channels.
4 – Connect Organic & Paid Content – This move will also greatly lift the importance of Twitter’s ad programs as brands can leverage promoted tweets and other ad types to drive brand engagement directly with their branded presence. Those brands that incorporate promotion with natural extensions of Twitter’s most compelling engagement techniques will be the ones to truly capitalize on additional engagement & acquisition rates.
While Twitter has a ways to go in order to rival Facebook in terms of direct brand interaction, today’s announcements show Twitters dedication to continue to enable brands by providing more opportunities for users to interact directly with a brands presence vs. simply consuming their feeds.
NOTE: It should be noted that only brands that spend a minimum in advertising are eligible for brand pages.
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5 Brand Benefits of Twitter Brand Pages
At long last Twitter has decided to allow brands to create Facebook/Google+ style brand pages. This along with a major redesign focused on usability & discoverability of content was unveiled yesterday.
With a slew of launch partners such as Best Buy, American Express, Dell, GE, Nike, Heineken, Disney and more, Twitter is following in the footsteps of Google’s recent roll-out of Google+ brand pages.
One of the primary reasons for the rollout is to better support advertisers. According to eMarketer, Twitter’s global ad revenue is projected to reach $139.5 million in 2011 and approach $399 million in 2013.
By creating branded destinations vs. simply aggregating content, advertisers may engage in more robust programs via Twitter if the possibility to drive additional engagement with specific content over longer periods of time becomes a consistent option.
What is the value for a brand to embrace the change? Here are 5 feature benefits of the new Twitter Brand pages.
1) Customizable Headers | Brands have the ability to further express their essence with a larger profile image and a customizable header.
In the Pepsi example below, they take a creative approach to their header
2) Promoted Tweet | Brands have the opportunity to control the message visitors see when they first come to the profile page via a promoted tweet at the top of the timeline.
The “Top Tweet” becomes a showcase opportunity to drive additional engagement on relevant content, be it promotional, educational, etc.. without the risk of being lost in the timeline.
3) Auto Expand Embedded Content | Promoted content will also go beyond simple links and actually show the content, if it is a video, etc… top tweet will auto-expand to reveal photos or videos from various sources.
4) Optimized Moderation | – The update now allows brands to separate their @ replies & mentions. This will be extremely useful for those that manage the day-to-day engagement on behalf of brands. Users also have a nice option to speak directly to the brand with the new layout with the “Tweet to Brand” option directly under the header.
5) Advertising Performance | Twitters advertising offerings have grown considerably over the last year. With options tied to promoted tweets, accounts & profiles. By creating additional opportunities to drive dwell time on a branded destination, in theory the opportunity to drive additional impressions and clicks becomes greater.
The one issue I have initially is related to how Twitter content is consumed. With a large number of individuals consuming their tweets via platforms outside of Twitter directly & TweetDeck, it will be interesting to see if there is more of an emphasis to not only follow a particular brand, but to also drive directly to their branded presence when specific campaigns are in action.
Follow Tom Edwards @BlackFin360