Twitter Canada's Kirstine Stewart Brings Moments to Life at ClickZ Live

On Twitter, people talk about everything: cars they’re shopping for or driving, politics (who are they voting for?), where they shop, where they’re going on a trip.

As a marketer, you can tap into these everyday moments, said Kirstine Stewart, managing director of Twitter Canada, during her “#InTheMoment – Bringing Your Campaigns to Life” keynote at ClickZ Live Toronto.

“All of these different genres are moments [Twitter] can help people connect and find information, content, or the brand they’re looking for in the moment,” said Stewart, who previously worked for CBC before becoming the first employee of Twitter Canada a year ago.

One billion tweets are sent every couple of days, and many are quite revealing. Every day people are sharing what they’re doing, whether it’s waking up, going to bed, or that they’re hungry. Brands need to find these predictable patterns and jump into the conversation in authentic ways, she said.

For example, if someone’s hungry, what are they hungry for? If you’re a burger company, you’d be most interested to find out when people are hungry for burgers. Or if someone tweets that they’re tired, a brand like NyQuil can jump in and say, “Let’s go to bed together.”

Using herself as an example, Stewart said that as a woman over 40 with a couple of kids at home, you’d expect her to be watching Oprah or a gardening show, when in fact she’s watching NFL football every Monday, Thursday, and Sunday.

“You know who knows that? Twitter,” she said. “Conversations reveal personality and give content creators and brands opportunities to connect in meaningful ways…by creating great content and messages.”

However, on average, only 5 to 12 percent of your followers will see an organic tweet in their timeline. That’s where Promoted Tweets come in. She said Promoted Tweets deliver:

• Seven times higher total engagement.
• Six times more clicks (with a video link).
• Nine times higher retweet volume.

Television has some predictable patterns as well. People are also multi-screening: 87 percent of Canadian smartphone users multi-screen at least once per week and 51 percent always have a smartphone or tablet when watching TV, Stewart said.

VW advertising on the TV show Glee was one example of how brands and companies can break through to users.

“Imagine the opportunity a brand has when advertising on a show on air (Glee) to close the loop of a conversation they start with an on-air campaign,” she said. “By creating a 360-view, you can carry a message that resonates on TV, then close the loop on a smartphone through Twitter.”

Some other brands she highlighted as developing creative Twitter campaigns included:

• Target and Justin Timberlake: Before Justin Timberlake released his latest album, Twitter users could get two tracks exclusively by tweeting a hashtag. The combo of text, picture, and offer was a powerful trio, as it delivered more to people than just a text message.
• Xbox:When enough people tweeted with a hashtag, it would unlock a box in the real world. When enough users had tweeted, the box lifted up and revealed a bunch of zombies.
• Telus:They sponsored a vending machine at a mall in Vancouver that would give a stuffed panda to people who tweeted #HomeTweetHome.
• Tide: Check out their Vine posted during Shark Week:

We get out blood stains, too. #TidePower #SharkWeek https://t.co/l4tDM4A62b

— Tide (@tide) August 5, 2013

After Twitter’s #Tweetacoffee, every brand wanted to tweet a this or that, Stewart said. She continued that while these provide very compelling connections, it requires work and you need a great relationship and community already built up.

“One-hundred-forty characters is no longer a one-way message,” Stewart concluded. “It’s a multi-directional conversation.”