How to market in the moment on Twitter

Major events provide fantastic ways for brands to connect with consumers on Twitter. Whether it’s Australia Day, Mother’s Day or the World Cup, many moments can be planned in advance.

Australian brands certainly take advantage of many of these moments:

To help brands identify some of the events that might be right for them, we’ve launched the Twitter #OwnTheMoment planner. The planner is packed with tips and suggestions to enable brands to make the most of any occasion on Twitter.

Marketing in the moment is a powerful strategy, so here are our top three tips for brands of any of size to make the most of the moments that matter to them and their followers.

1. IDENTIFY. Consult the #OwnTheMoment planner and choose a moment that is both relevant to your audience and your brand.
2. CONTENT PLAN. Start planning your #OwnTheMoment Tweets and how you will respond to your followers. Consider if you can develop some Tweets, images or video in advance, and do a closed practice run.
3. GO LIVE. Enjoy a shared moment with your audience and get closer to their interests and passions!

To underscore how many chances there are for brands that take advantage of these moments, consider this: the average consumer unlocks their mobile phone as many as 110 times a day.

That’s a mind-boggling number, and understanding its implications has huge potential for marketers. It underscores how our mobile phones are actually gateways to content discovery. Perhaps most important, it indicates that how we are discovering this content is rapidly changing.

The study neatly articulates how people are always on the lookout for new content, and that they don’t just enjoy it on their own: if they like it, they are very likely to share it. In a 2013 study of Twitter UK users that we commissioned, Nielsen found that the top reason people retweeted a brand did so because they liked the content.