Hi. This week we're going to be talking about Twitter. Twitter is a unique social media platform built for interests and for content. We're going to learn how to leverage it in ways that drives business results and we're going to do it in ways that saves money. So let's dive into Twitter. What is it about Twitter that makes it unique? It's a platform that's built around small pieces of content. I'm not here to tell you what a tweet is, I think everyone's seen examples. But at its core, Twitter is really built for the breaking, the current, the now, and as a result, we really need to learn that Twitter is about the moment. So people use Twitter to learn about what's happening now. In fact that actually was one of their original slogans when they were first marketing the platform. So it has a lot of content based off of people's interests. You have to choose who you follow on Twitter, this is something that we do on all social platforms. But as compared to Facebook, Twitter is not a platform where we follow friends per se, but often people that were interested in, celebrities, journalists, politicians, and the like. So people use Twitter to talk to friends, that's certainly a use case, but it might not be the most common one and knowing that shapes the way that we think about using the platform. People are using it to find interesting content and to digest easy-to-understand interesting content. Tweets aren't just text. Twitter content is actually rich with multimedia, images, videos, all designed to compel the reader. Several studies and academia have shown that when tweets have interesting photos or interesting videos they're more likely to be engaged with, that's something to think about when you think about Twitter content. Even though tweets are traditionally 140 characters and now 280 characters, it doesn't mean that folks are just reading content. In fact, images compel and draw people in, It's something to think about when you consider the platform as a whole. Twitter has the ability to tell us about trends, that is, specific things that are happening now and today. Twitter is about breaking news. Twitter is about the current gossip on celebrities. Twitter is about current things happening in neighborhoods and in events in neighborhoods. So when we think about trends we think about the breaking, the now. Think about it as a 24/7 news media outlet tuned to specific types of content that users choose. These trends are personalized in that we actually have the ability to look at Twitter content that we really like. If if you have used the platform, its algorithms have begun to already understand what types of content you like, what types of content you enjoy, and what kinds of content you don't like. So here are some generic trends here for an account that I haven't really used much. And you can see it already has an understanding that there are certain things, such as politics and holidays, that are interesting to me, and other things that are not. So this is what we mean when we mean personalized trends on Twitter. One of the things that I think is really important to understand when you're thinking about using Twitter is that it is a niche social media platform. What I mean by that is the majority of folks don't actually use Twitter. Pew Research Center is probably the expert when it comes to tracking social media usage and it finds it only 22% of US adults actually use Twitter at all regularly. This has been relatively stable across time, and if anything, it's slightly decaying as the platform gets older. Now, just because 22% isn't a majority of Americans, does it mean that we shouldn't use the platform? Think about it this way, if there are 10,000 people in the town that you'd like to reach for your small business, only 3,000 of them actually use Twitter actively. That's something to think of when you're building a broader social media strategy. That is, we probably won't use Twitter to drive our primary advertising goals. Instead, It's probably an accent in something that we use in concert with a broader Facebook, or something like a YouTube that reaches the majority of Americans. I think what makes Twitter the most interesting is the concept of niche interests. So people follow folks that they're interested in. So the most popular celebrity on Twitter is Katy Perry, and her follower count is in the hundreds of millions. And what we have to understand about her is she's a desirable celebrity to many, and in fact, Twitter is the place where celebrities go to talk. And in fact, in that, we know that Twitter has an interest in pop culture and entertainment. It also has a sports interest. It is the place that sports journalists love to post. They're not posting about the dinner they had last week, instead, they're talking about content that's niche and for specific use cases. If we think about CNN and the way that it posts on Twitter, its breaking news account is by far the most popular. Even though it has a regular account dedicated to maybe more ongoing types of news, its breaking news account is most popular on the platform, because it is situated in the here and the now. We see that Barack Obama has one of the biggest followings on the platform, and this really shows that folks are interested in his content. Political Twitter in general is a robust section where folks actually engage in debate and discussion about the current issues that face society today. Brands maintain vibrant followings on Twitter. So whether it's Wendy's with their snark and sarcasm, or Starbucks talking about the new Frappuccino that they just released, we have the ability to look at content straight from brands just as it happens. Organic social on Twitter is vibrant. Brands actually have personalities. While some brands are factual and based in the now, other brands are interested in creating personas for themselves that exude specific types of behaviors. For instance, Wendy's is most interested in creating content with a type of snark that is in some cases rude and this is part of their personality on the platform. So we have to understand a few things by thinking about the success case that Wendy's has. Wendy's doesn't just generate content around products, or around the actual food, they serve, instead Wendy's has adopted a personality with real character. So in some cases, Wendy's actually goes out of its way to be like a human, we call this personalization. And this is actually one of the most popular use cases on the platform. People actually regularly tweet Wendy's in hopes that they will roast them, or be critical of them, and make fun of them on the platform in a clever way. That doesn't mean that the only organizations on Twitter are big brands, in fact, local businesses have vibrant followings. If we think of the example shown here of the Boulder Bookstore, we can see that they regularly post content that is about promotion. So they talk about events that are happening in the store. They talk about promotions that are happening, such as sales, and they also have a general feel for the literary needs of the broader Boulder community. So this bookstore account isn't acting like the Wendy's brand where it's exhibiting a lot of personality, but instead it's actually very factually based. If we consider the Boulder feeder example as well, we understand that no, it's not there to entertain it's more there to give consumers information about things that are impactful, that is things that are happening now. What are also-serves niche professional interests? Ad Age is arguably the voice of the advertising professional community and it has a vibrant following on Twitter. Folks look to this account to understand what's going on in the advertising industry today. The folks that follow Ad Age therein, are interested in advertising. This is a connection that is important to make. Folks follow specific interests on Twitter, therefore, we can use that indication of a particular targeting opportunity. If we want to reach folks that are in the advertising industry, simply building a targeting parameter around the fact that they follow Ad Age could be very effective. Journalists also exist on Twitter to a great extent. Here, we see a Twitter account from a popular baseball reporter for the blog 538. 538 is interested in sports and data, and as a result, we see that this reporter has that niche interest down pat. Folks that follow this reporter are interested in not only athletics, but the intersection of data analytics and athletics.
