~ The Past ~
Twitter was created
by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone; three co-workers at Odeo Inc, a
podcasting company in San Francisco, California. Their intention, when first
creating the site, was just to find another way to send simple text messages
from their cell phones. The first official tweet was sent on March 21, 2006 by @Jack
(Jack Dorsey) – it simply read “just setting up my twttr.” The rest, we can
easily say, is history.
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, where did the name
Twitter come from in the first place? The original product/code name was
actually “twttr,”
inspired by the likes of Flickr and SMS short codes being only five characters
long (keep in mind, the purpose of the initial program was to simply send text
messages). In the beginning, there was
no limitation on the amount of characters you could include. However, the
messages would not always be delivered in order and cell phone bills were
getting slightly out of hand with all of those additional SMS texts being sent!
Eventually, the creative team settled on 140 characters; this would allow room
for a member’s username and a colon (;) at the beginning of each message.
“Twttr” launched to the public on July 15, 2006 as a
web-based site and was described as “a short burst of inconsequential information.”
Fun fact: A bird enthusiast originally owned the twitter.com domain. Just six
months after the launch of Twttr, the founding team decided their idea would
eventually catch on and purchased the Twitter URL.
~ The Present ~
Fast forward seven years and we see a completely different
platform; one that has come a long way from that cryptic SMS sharing site. However,
the basic goal of Twitter has remained pretty much intact. They have yet to
stray from their 140 character limit and they are still providing “short bursts
of information” to their more than 550 million
registered users. With an average of 58 million tweets
sent out each day, Dom Sagolla’s early tweet of “oh this is going to be addictive” seems pretty
accurate!
As a social networking and microblogging service, Twitter is living up to its intended use. In fact, Karen Wickre, editorial director for Twitter, said it best,
“As we’ve grown, Twitter has become a true global town square — a public place to hear the latest news, exchange ideas and connect with people all in real time. This is where you come to connect with the world at large. Get on your soapbox to critique elected officials, or go sotto voce to the neighbor next to you. And as in other gathering places, commerce happens too (and jokes and art-making and debating, and — you get the idea).”
So who is using Twitter? As of December 2012, 55% of Twitter users are female and 23% of users are ages 25-34.
Nearly 38% of users have a college degree and 30% of users have a household
income of $150 thousand or more.
What about the famous hashtag? The creation of hashtag usage
can be traced back to Chris Messina. In August of 2007 he tweeted, “how do you feel about using #
(pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?” After some initial skepticism, the
hashtag took off and now you can even find a how-to guide on the proper ways to use hashtags in your tweets. Hashtags are
simply ways to categorize messages or topics have spread to other social sites as well, now being
used on Facebook and Google+.
~ The Fun Stuff ~
In July of 2011, Twitter integrated its own photo-sharing service and completely re-launched
their platform. You now had the ability to link your Facebook to your Twitter account – and they said the day would never
come! Now days, there is a “share” button on nearly every website you come
across; allowing you to send out tweets with a URL link to the exact story you
are reading to product you are viewing.
Let’s not forget our smartphones and mobile devices! In its
IPO filing, Twitter recently said, “Mobile has become the primary driver of our business.” In May of 2010, Twitter
launched their first mobile application for iPhone and iPod touch. Now, in
addition to Apple products, the Twitter app is available for Android, Nokia, Windows Phone, Widows 8 tablets,
Blackberry 7, and Blackberry 10. In fact, 75% of monthly active users access Twitter on their mobile devices.
In January of 2013,
Twitter introduced Vine to the world. Vine is described as a mobile service
that lets you capture and share short looping videos. As of late August 2013,
Vine had more than 40 million registered users – a huge accomplishment in in less than eight
months!
Justin Bieber has over 45 million followers, Barack Obama has over 37
million followers, Starbucks
has over 4 million followers, and Pepsi has over 2 million
followers.
~ The Business Stuff ~
While Twitter is clearly an enjoyable place for people of
all ages to “hang out,” connect with friends and get information quickly; it is
also a great tool for your brand to live and play as well! Aside from simply
have a Twitter account for your brand or company, the social platform actually
has built-in features to encourage and promote advertising to followers and
potential followers. Shall we take a look?
I think so!
- Allows you to target by geography, interest or gender
- Gets your name to show up in search results and in “who to follow”
- Larger brands can create custom campaign plans with a Twitter Ads
specialist
- Gain a bigger following and get your message spread in greater volume
- Regular tweets with the bonus of reaching current and potential target
followers
- Target by different methods:
- Keywords in tweets
- Targeting keywords in timeline to reach users at the “right moment”
- Interests and gender
- Target a specific gender or interest (gamers, foodies, sport
enthusiasts)
- Geography
- Target by country to metro area so people in the right places see you
- Device
- Target specific mobile or desktop devices to reach busy bodies or home
bodies
- Similarity to existing followers
- Target followers similar to your current followers
- Larger brands can create custom campaign plans with a Twitter Ads
specialist
- Track different aspects of your Twitter Ads activity
- Learn about the behaviors of your customers
- Watch your promoted tweets and accounts in real time
- Including impressions, retweets, clicks, replies, and follows
- Use your Twitter timeline to view specific tweets and measure their
performance
- Allows for campaign adjustment to gain better results
- Get to the top of the trending list and jump right into heavy
conversation
- Target your trend by country or reach a worldwide audience by going
global
- Associate your Promoted Trend with Promoted Tweets of your choice
- Trends are placed next to user timelines and get incredibly huge
exposure
- Charged only when:
- People follow your Promoted Account
- People retweet, reply, favorite or click on your Promoted Tweets
- Allows you to attach media experiences to Tweets
- Add HTML to your website and users you who tweet links to your content
will have a “card” added to the tweet that their followers can view
- Give you control of how your content is displayed in tweets
- Drive more traffic to your website
- Increase your number of followers through content attribution
~ Real Life ~
Let’s take a look at one particular brand that came to
Twitter Ads with a very specific challenge. Arby’s
(@Arbys) wanted to grow its email database by encouraging users to sign up for
a monthly newsletter. Twitter’s solution was to use Promoted Tweets with Lead
Generation Cards to give users a way to sign for the newsletter and receive
coupons and deals. Lead Generation Cards allow users to safely and easily share their email address
with a business without leaving Twitter or filling out an annoying form or
application.
Arby’s used interest and keyword targeting in search and timeline
to further the reach of their Promoted Tweets. They targeted phrases like “Arbys” and “I want Arbys” for users interested in their
product and keywords like “#fee” and “coupons” for users that were searching for
deals.
In the end, over 400 leads were generated, had a 31%
higher email open rate than any other type of lead, and a 45%
higher click through rate than the average email subscriber. Pretty successful
use of Twitter’s advertisement tools, huh?
~ The Future ~
The future is bright for Twitter. If they continue to meet and
exceed the needs and demands of marketers while not losing site of the general
user’s desires, Twitter will only continue to grow and prosper. I definitely
have a new appreciation for all of the marketing and advertising tools
available for brands on Twitter. With implements like the promoted tweets and
trends, brands can easily jump into conversations with followers and potential
followers without being “in your face” and “pushy.” I always assumed that Twitter was for the
general public and brands were just “there” attempting to make something out of
nothing. Clearly I was wrong – and boy am I glad! So tweet on world…tweet on!Be sure to check out my Prezi, All Things Tweet Worthy, for more Twitter marketing tidbits.
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