Twitter is the place people go when they want to find out about the world, whether it’s a specific topic or just a restless curiosity to discover what’s happening. This gives it a unique advantage over platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, which are geared towards expressing one’s own experience. Twitter, on the other hand, gives brands the opportunity to connect with people when they’re most open to new content and points of view.
Research supports this view, showing users come to Twitter with three discovery mindsets:
- Mission Discovery: when people come to Twitter for a particular reason, like to find out who the winner of The Apprentice is.
- Inspiration Discovery: when people are open-minded but focused on a certain topic. This form of discovery typically happens as users browse their timeline, keen to discover and engage with their preferred topics.
- Serendipitous Discovery: this usually happens through retweets or browsing moments when the user is relaxed and open to new things.
The challenge for marketers is to optimise Twitter content for each mode of discovery. The good news is that Twitter has developed a number of unique ad solutions over the last year that allow brands to facilitate this discovery and join the conversation like never before.
And with 91% of Twitter users stating they’ve user Twitter to make a shopping decision in the last 12 months, there’s never been a better time for brands to join the conversation. Below we’ve highlighted a few of the newest and less-known Twitter ad formats that will be shaping the best brand experiences and driving discovery on the platform in 2018.
First View
First View helps brands achieve significant reach with exclusive ownership of Twitter’s most valuable advertising real estate for a 24-hour period. When people visit the Twitter app or access twitter.com, the top ad slot in their timeline will be a Promoted Video from your brand. This premium placement gives brands maximum reach but comes with a price tag. Advertisers are billed per day for this product but have seen significant results – high impact campaigns can reach over 6M users and achieve a 130% increase in ad recall.
Sponsorship
Sponsorships enable brands to place pre-roll ads to content from Twitter’s premium video content partners. It’s like YouTube’s Premium Partners, but on Twitter. Premium video partners work with Twitter to identify opportunities for promotions, like The BRITS or #TransferDeadlineDay, and work collaboratively with Sponsorship advertisers.
This solution is a great fit for brands looking to capitalise on events like the Love Island finale that see a lot of Twitter conversation and could particularly help extend brand ownership of TV sponsorships to the second screen.
Conversational Video
Conversational tweets help brands build viral views through call to actions that prompt users to Tweet about your brand to all their followers. When a call to action button is tapped, the Tweet composer opens with a pre-populated brand message accompanied by the creative and hashtag buttons. The consumer can then personalize the Tweet and share it with their followers. Each shared Tweet is powerful because it drives earned reach for the brand at no extra cost. Conversational tweets can contribute significant reach to campaigns when done properly, but brands need to provide consumers with relevant content they’re willing to engage with for them to work.
Promote Mode
Promote mode is a breakthrough automated tweet promotion service. Advertisers pay a one-off monthly fee of £79 and Twitter does the rest, providing an always-on amplification service that foregoes the pain and admin of individual tweet promotion. Since rolling out in early 2018, this service is proving to be great value for money in terms of reach, engagement and time saving.
360 Video
360 video tweets give users the ability to navigate 360° of an image or video. They have a huge amount of potential for engagement and gamification, particularly for treasure hunt-style content, which challenges users to find a hidden clue or prize in a 360° image.
Instant Unlock
These tweets incentivise users to tweet about your brand by offering them access to exclusive content once they have tweeted. This format works really well for entertainment and sports brands that have tribes of die-hard fans desperate to see new content but can also be leveraged for educational content like recipes, white papers and thought-pieces.
Twitter is the place where people go when they want to discover something new. But the truth is that brands and marketers generally don’t utilise the solutions that are best optimised for meaningful discovery. This not only gives a competitive advantage to the marketers that are prepared to adopt new solutions in their strategies, but also facilitates greater reach and engagement amongst your community and beyond. So, what are you waiting for?
Click here to discover more about the business solutions available on Twitter.