#Sweet16 - Connecting with customer passions on Twitter

Whether you’re looking forward to Euro 2016, the Summer Olympics, or a new series of “Bake Off”, there’s a lot to be passionate about this year. And for millions of people in the UK, Twitter is where each of those passions comes to life.

Over the last few years, Twitter has continually evolved so that people can better enjoy their passions by sharing images and gifs, Periscopes, Vines, and video. This also means going into 2016 there are more ways than ever for brands to connect with customers and prospects around their passions.

The most successful brands have known for years the importance of delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time. New formats and tools — combined with Twitter’s live and open nature — make Twitter the perfect platform for doing exactly this.

Right message
There are many ways to distribute great content across Twitter that can help a brand’s message to resonate. Our focus on mobile video over the last 12 months means that Twitter now has a mobile video product to fit your strategy.

Our native video player offers a new standard for high-quality video: your business is only charged if a video is 100% in view for three seconds. And brands are using video content more and more to enhance the impact of their campaigns on Twitter. For instance, we’re seeing a rise in both gifs and Vines (more than 200 million people watch every month), fun and playful formats that combine the impact of video with the shareable nature of Twitter.

Twitter Amplify

Twitter Amplify offers brands a way to align their passions with their audiences passions via premium content from the top TV broadcasters, sports leagues, digital publishers and others. In a similar way to TV sponsorship brands align themselves with great content to provide real-time clips on Twitter. There will be lots of exciting opportunities such as the BRITS available this year. Here’s an example during the Rugby World Cup where Samsung sponsored ITV real-time footage of the key moments during the games.

Periscope

The year is barely underway and live broadcasting via our Periscope app has already made a splash. Periscope has the ability to bring people together by providing access to live and exclusive moments. The most successful Periscopes feel intimate, and leave people feeling amazed that they’re able to watch something interesting unfold in real time. The unique window it offers can open up onto anything from breaking news to backstage at Fashion Week to watching people navigate a puddle in Newcastle.

What makes Periscope particular exciting this year is that as of today it’s fully integrated into Tweet timelines on iOS.

Niche

Niche, which launched in the UK in November, is a technology platform that connects brands and agencies with creators skilled at making content that resonates with their audiences. The scale of the Niche talent pool, with over 23,000 creators, plus the fact they’re platform agnostic, makes Niche particularly exciting. It’s also quick and painless, as Niche offers an end-to-end managed service. The first UK Niche campaign for Doritos debuted just before Christmas, and the second will be live very soon.

Moments

With so much great content on Twitter it can be hard to see everything. That’s one of the reasons we launched Moments, which arrived in the UK shortly before Christmas after launching in the US and Brazil. Designed for mobile, Moments has its own ‘lightning bolt’ tab. Pressing this takes you to the very latest news, sport,  entertainment, and fun stories. It’s visually rich, and a great way for people to discover what’s happening at a tap.

We’re planning to test Moments as a native ad unit for brands, and are currently working with hand-picked partners on what the first UK Promoted Moments might look like. We hope to roll it out more broadly later in the year. In the US brands including Starbucks have used Moments to tell visually stunning stories around key news.

Right audience

At its core Twitter is a network for passions, and our main targeting options are designed to make it easy to connect with people around whatever they’re most passionate about. We’re also working with brands to help them extend the reach and impact of their campaigns on Twitter and beyond. In particular, we are at different stages of roll-out in two areas:

1. Twitter Audience Platform - This helps brands extend their Promoted Tweets off Twitter to reach an audience within thousands of mobile apps, and also extends the potential reach of Twitter in the UK to 26 million people. The extension works via our MoPub network and brands are able to apply the same targeting tools they use on Twitter.
2. The logged out experience - Every month 320 million registered users access Twitter. But there are 500 million people who visit twitter.com each month who aren’t logged in. Until now, advertisers couldn’t reach this wider audience. We’re now testing total audience reach so brands can do exactly this.

Right time

With so many great moments ahead of us this year, our new events targeting tool could come in very handy in helping you to plan. Here you can find insights, keyword packages and interested audiences grouped together. From Pancake Day to the Olympics or Euro 2016, you can use the tool to find insights into the reach of an event, the people interested in it, and where relevant the best Tweets from the corresponding event last year.

With a passionate audience, a fantastic creative canvas and the reach and tools to help you succeed, we hope there’s plenty to get you excited about the year ahead.