Twitter Australia’s acting MD on TV, Spaces and Communities
Social media platform Twitter has been experiencing renewed growth of late, posting A$88.9 million profit in Q2 of 2021, as well as the rollout of several new features including Spaces and Communities.
Twitter Australia’s acting managing director, Angus Keene, spoke to Mumbrella about the audiences Twitter can help brands reach, particularly in relation to both television and streaming services.
Angus Keene, Twitter’s acting MD
Keene in particular spoke on the value of using Twitter in campaigns: “In the past 12 months, we’ve run Twitter brand surveys across finance, wagering, CPG (consumer packaged goods), government, technology, telco, and M & E (Monitoring and Evaluation): pretty much all of our big verticals here in Australia. What we’ve found from that research is that no matter your KPI, Twitter drives significant lift in ad recall.
“The second insight that we found is that when we partner with advertisers to create campaigns and activations that are designed around engagement, so designed around conversation and participation, it leads to much high memorability and increase the mixing consideration.”
One such brand that has used Twitter is Samsung Australia for the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S21. According to Twitter, the partnership led to a 72% increase in Samsung’s Twitter account (@SamsungAU) year-on-year, 1.5 times more hashtag mentions of #GalaxyS21 and 2 million pre-roll views connected to The Australian Open’s hashtag (#AusOpen).
By comparison, this year’s Australia Open men’s final with Novak Djokovic had 1.173 million metro viewers, with 1.547 million viewers nationally. The viewing figures are for one match, not across the entire sporting tournament.
Keene emphasised the use of Twitter as a “second screen” during significant TV events such as The Bachelor finale or the AFL Grand Final, particularly in reaching younger generations.
“We ran an analysis across a collection of cross-media Kantar studies. What it showed is that, by combining Twitter with TV, we deliver plus 5% incremental reach versus running TV alone. From the conversations I’m having with senior marketers in the market, we know that those younger audiences are becoming increasingly hard to reach and also expensive.”
On reaching audiences, Keene pointed out that Twitter provides an opportunity for brands to reach audiences who are watching shows on ad-free platforms, like Netflix, Binge and Stan.
Hi! I’m Vyshnavee Wijekumar (@vylentfemme), a Sri Lankan Tamil writer, arts worker, and aspiring hip hop dancer. I’m here to chat how #NeverHaveIEver accurately portrays experiences of culture, family, and grief as Devi embarks on another season of adventures. WE READDDDYYYYYYY! pic.twitter.com/OWrU3vQKCZ
— Netflix ANZ (@NetflixANZ) July 21, 2021
“We do a number of things for the big tentpole new releases, or say a second or a third series,” said Keene. “We can work really closely with advertisers to create that excitement pre-launch, launch with impact and then also maintain that conversation. We certainly see that with the right planning that we can align with the right conversation around those big streaming shows.”
Spaces, Twitter’s live audio-only platform and competitor to Clubhouse, has seen a number of brands in Australia begin to use it.
“We’ve had Salesforce testing Spaces around a thought leadership piece last week. We had our partner R U OK? on R U OK? Day sharing tips on how to have regular conversations about mental health,” said Keene, “The AFL is running a Space before games to really engage with those hyper-engaged footy fans. It’s a new area, but we’re really excited to see where this goes.”
Twitter did not have any statistics to share on the Spaces held by R U OK? or Salesforce.
Earlier this month, Twitter began to test Communities, which lets users join groups centred around specific interests, for example, dogs, sneakers and astrology.
On how brands can use Communities, Keene said: “I think it’s super early days: one week in or less than a week in. Obviously, the superpower of Twitter is conversations and this gives people the opportunity to have conversations around their passion. In the future, we obviously want to give opportunities for brands to engage with our audiences in new ways.”
Overseas, Twitter has been testing an in-app shopping function that is not currently available in Australia, at the time of writing. Keene did not have any information to share on that feature, but said that Twitter is “hyper-focused on testing new products, including commerce solutions. You’ll hear more from us on that.”
As well as introducing and testing new features, Twitter has also cancelled some, including Fleets, which was was Twitter’s disappearing stories feature, similar to features on Instagram and Snapchat.
