Twitter now allows advertisers to target specific words used in tweets
Twitter has finally crossed the rubicon and will allow advertisers to target ads to you based on the words that you tweet. specifically, the feature is called ‘keyword targeting in timelines‘, and its available today in 15 languages and all markets.
Twitter previously used the content of tweets to fill out its interest graph for advertisers, but this update brings laser targeting based on the topics that you tweet about to the product. Twitter uses the example of a person who tweets about enjoying an album from a band. A local venue could use a combination of Twitter’s location-based targets along with a keyword tuned to that band to pop an ad with a link to buy tickets to that band into the user’s timeline as a Promoted Tweet.
Twitter stresses that they’re not showing more ads in anyone’s timeline, they’re just going to be showing better targeted ones. And users will still be able to voice their disinterest by dismissing un-relevant Promoted Tweets. The ad targeting is also “based on the keywords in their recent Tweets and the Tweets with which users recently engaged.” That engagement could come in the form of retweets, favorites and other actions.
Twitter says that tests run with companies like Microsoft and Walgreens, they saw a jump in interactions with ads based on keyword targeting vs. other kinds of targeting.
Here’s what the new panel will look like for advertisers:
Anyone who has been following Twitter’s ad products over the past few months has just been waiting for this to become a thing. Targeting based on location and platform used was one thing, and the nebulous ‘signals’ that Twitter was using to target Promoted Tweets and such were already getting positive results. But specific word targeting is the holy grail of advertising, allowing brands and companies to tightly focus campaigns on those with very specific interests and along a very important vector: time.
When an ad is delivered is in many ways just as important as how it’s delivered and to whom. If you were just tweeting that you’re hungry for a burger, then see an ad for McDonalds, that’s much more effective than if you saw one hours later or hours before.
Here’s another example from TBG, an agency that allows business to create campaigns for networks like Facebook and Twitter:
The panel is from One Media Manager, which its designed to streamline the campaign creation process using keywords. It allows advertisers to create bundles of keywords that they can use to target ads.
This kind of targeting is offered outside of Twitter in other products of course, but Twitter’s super-real-time nature could offer a distinct advantage in keyword targeting effectiveness. Depending on how timely Twitter is in delivering ads to the timeline, this seems like it could have a huge impact in how likely people are to notice and act on ads. If there’s too much delay, that effectiveness could be blunted.
As a user, it’s unlikely that you’ll be seeing any difference in the volume or type of ads that you’ll see, but they might start to get freakishly accurate. Don’t be surprised if you tweet about a restaurant or type of cheese and see an ad pop up for those in your timeline a few minutes later.
Image Credit: AFP/Getty Images
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Well, That Was Fast: Twitter Already Shut Down Ribbon’s Newly Launched In-Stream Payments Feature
This morning, payments startup Ribbon announced support for “in-stream” payments on Twitter.com, allowing users to click a button directly within a tweet in order to make a purchase without having to leave the Twitter.com website. However, it appears that Twitter has already shut this feature down – within hours of its public debut.
Ribbon Co-founder Hany Rashwan has confirmed that Twitter has indeed shut them down, and the company is now in the process of trying to contact Twitter to discuss. We’ve also reached out to Twitter with questions, and will update if and when we hear back.
It’s possible that the way Ribbon implemented the in-stream payments using Twitter Cards (via the Player Card model) was a violation of Twitter’s Terms of Service. What’s interesting is how quickly Twitter reacted to the situation, which makes one wonder who might have brought the violation, or issue, to Twitter’s attention.
For background, Ribbon, which is something of a “bit.ly for payments,” previously allowed Twitter users to click and link and be redirected to a separate page offering a simple, one-page checkout experience. But today, it introduced a new, more integrated option for payments, which took advantage of Twitter Card functionality to allow for payment processing directly on Twitter.com.
On an expanded tweet, users could just click a “Buy Now” button, enter their email and credit-card info, then click “Pay.” The entire checkout experience took place on Twitter.com itself – the idea being that by not redirecting you off-site like PayPal does, merchants can increase their conversion rates.
However, now those same tweets no longer offer in-stream checkout, but instead point users to click a “view on web” link taking them to the Ribbon.co checkout page. You can see the new and current (degraded) experiences in the screenshots below.
Before:
After:
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Giveaway: New Relic Has Four Free Disrupt NY Tickets Plus Free RC Helicopters #Nerdlife
Disrupt NY is less than a month away. Tickets are still available at the early bird discount, but only for one more week. Or you can save some cash and win a ticket here thanks to our partner New Relic.
Fresh off of raising $80 million at a near-billion dollar valuation and announcing its mobile app monitoring offering, New Relic is footing the bill for four lucky winners this week. If that wasn’t enough, New Relic is also giving away free RC Helicopters to any developer who sets up their web or mobile monitoring on their applications.
Want in? Here’s all you have to do to enter.
To win a free ticket to Disrupt NY:
1) Retweet this post making sure to include the #Nerdlife hashtag in the tweet. We will post the winners at the bottom of this post on Monday after 7:30pm PT.
Please only tweet once, or you will be disqualified. New Relic will make sure you follow the step above and choose the four winners once the giveaway is over. Please note the free Disrupt tickets are for one ticket per winner only and do not include airfare or hotel.
To get a free Remote Control Helicopter from New Relic:
1) Follow this link and try New Relic’s Web Monitoring service or their newer Mobile Monitoring service (some basic dev skills required). You’ll get data on your web apps with your New Relic account and 14 days of their best PRO level of service for free. No worries, no obligation to buy whatsoever.
About New Relic: New Relic is a fast-growing SF SaaS company that serves over 300,000 developers worldwide and collects over 100 billion metrics every day for sites like Groupon, Wanelo, Kickstarter, Nike and Comcast. They also are the first nerdy systems management company to get over 300,000 views on a rap video celebrating the #nerdlife. Watch it below. MC Frontalot FTW.
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What’s in a tweet?
Today, Twitter tweaked the marketing language in the description of its iOS app. This isn’t necessarily notable on its own, but the changes do speak loudly about how Twitter thinks of itself and its service.
If you’ve been reading stuff I’ve been writing about Twitter you’ll know that I wasn’t all that pleased with the way it handled its dismissal of third-party clients. But you’ll also know that I’m still very much excited by the service and that I’m keenly interested in how it’s been handling its transition from a real-time message company to a real-time media company.
The changes to the iOS app’s description, implemented today, sketch out a roadmap for what to expect from the service as it continues to move down this (more ad-friendly) path. Lets break each change down with the original in italics, and the new line in bold.
Wherever you are, Twitter brings you closer. / With Twitter, you can watch the world unfold like never before.
Not too different here. Bringing people closer and watching the world unfold are similar concepts but the second phrase is better because it’s about ‘exposing’ more of the world, rather than actually ‘moving’ you. This makes it clear that you’ll be ‘watching’ (an active term, but in a passive way) things on Twitter, rather than making you actually go anywhere.
Essential: An organized stream of Tweets that delivers the best content to you. / Get real-time stories, pictures, videos, conversations, ideas, and inspiration all in your timeline.
This is good stuff, as it eliminates ‘Tweets’ entirely (the word no longer appears anywhere in its description section). Instead of a ‘tweet’, which is a term that most people have come to associate directly with ’140 characters of text’, the focus is on content. Stories is text, and technically so is ‘ideas’, but pictures, videos and ‘inspiration’ are all bigger and more inclusive concepts.
Conversations, though still related to text, implies a back and forth, rather than a broadcasting. The focus on media unsurprisingly matches what Twitter has been doing with Cards. If every tweet had a ‘Card’ attached, Twitter would be just fine with that. I’ve pointed out before exactly what the future of Twitter will look like, and this fits in well with that.
Instant: All the media, news, events, and information you need. / Follow people and your interests to get unfiltered access and unique behind-the-scenes perspectives.
Previously, Twitter was selling the service with media, news, events, info. Now, it’s ‘unfiltered access’ and ‘unique perspectives’. In other words, Twitter wants to present itself as ‘less filtered’ than a typical media or news service, where you’ll be seeing a neatly packaged message. This is good, because it’s largely true.
Tapping a couple-dozen tweets from a certain location can give me a far less neatly summarized view of an event or ongoing situation. Not only is it less filtered, it’s immediate (which is what the real-time emphasis was about in the line above). If Twitter is becoming a media company, that’s fine, but it needs to make sure people know it’s not the same kind of media company, it’s a newer, faster, less ‘on message’ one.
Personal: Your world, expressed in Tweets and photos. / Express yourself with photos, videos and comments.
Roughly the same, but the new emphasis on videos is obviously referring to Vine. While the Twitter app currently lets you upload videos through a couple of other providers, it recently eliminated a couple. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it take over the video hosting duties altogether soon enough. The use of the word ‘comments’ is interesting, though, because it’s really referring to replies, or perhaps original tweets about a topic. Either way, ‘comments’ are something people are familiar with. Tweets still have a text baggage. Why can’t your comment be a picture?
Search in real time, Follow people you’d like to know. Watch rising trends. / Twitter is your global town square.
The Global Town Square branding is something that Twitter has been using since New Years, and its implications are obvious. It’s the place that everyone comes to see stuff and talk about that stuff. A ‘comments section’ for real-time real-life.
I’ve got some more thoughts about where this kind of shift is taking Twitter, and how it compares to the Twitter of the past, but those will have to wait. I just thought that the changes here were telling. Overall they paint a picture of Twitter moving away from the specific and (perceptually) limiting ‘tweet’ and towards media as an anchor for new posts on the service.
After all, if you were to ask someone in 2010, ‘what’s in a tweet?’ the most likely reply would have been ’140 characters’. Now? It’s much likelier to be ‘all kinds of stuff’, and that’s just what Twitter wants.
Image Credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
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Twitter expands ‘Twitter Archive’ download option to 12 more languages, including Hindi, Farsi and Hebrew
When Twitter started rolling out the option for users to download their tweets and retweets from days past back in December 2012, it said it only did so for a small percentage of users whose language is set to English.
Today, the company is expanding the scope, also enabling the fresh feature for users whose language is set to the following languages: Hindi, Farsi, French, Hebrew, German, Spanish, Dutch, Malaysian, Norwegian, Finnish, Hungarian and Polish.
Your Twitter Archive is now avail. in: Dutch, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, & Spanish.
— Twitter (@twitter) March 11, 2013
If you’re keeping count: that means the so-called ‘Twitter Archive’ option is now available in 13 languages.
To obtain your archive, go to the Settings area and look for the new “Your Twitter archive” feature (or the equivalent in your native language, obviously). Once requested, you’ll receive a link to download a ZIP file of your tweet archive by email.
Also read:
Image credit: DAMIEN MEYER for AFP / Getty Images
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