Twitter launches Certified Products Program
As Twitter continues to tighten the belt concerning the use of its API, it wants to strike down traditional Twitter clients and lift up innovative tools, especially for business use. As a part of this plan, Twitter launched a Certified Products Program to endorse products that can help businesses grow.
The program will identify the right tools “to help them engage with customers, understand what people are saying about them on Twitter, and learn more about their followers so they can share more valuable, timely content.”
The Certified Products Program has broken down tools into three verticals:
- Engagement: “Products and services which bring businesses closer to their customers, and help Twitter scale to the needs of larger organizations.”
- Analytics: “Tools that help businesses learn from what their customers are saying on Twitter.”
- Data Resellers: “Platforms for innovation where businesses can build atop large volumes of Twitter’s public Tweets.”
The program launched with twelve partners, including HootSuite, Mass Relevance, Radian6, and Topsy, but is accepting applications for more certified products and services. In order to become part of the Certified Products Program, a product must be unique, solve a market need, have potential for large impact, and meet the requirements for one or more vertical.
Increased targeting for Twitter Advertisers
Twitter is also finding more ways to get businesses to use their Promoted Products, such as teaming up with HootSuite. Last Thursday, Twitter announced that advertisers could now target their Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts campaigns by interest to reach Twitter users that will be more likely to engage with the ad.
The first way to use interest targeting is to choose any of the more than 350 interests that are grouped into broader categories such as ‘Law, Government, and Politics,’ ’Life Stages,’ ‘Music and Television,’ or ‘Sports.’ The Twitter Advertising Blog explains that using this tactic should be used for a broader reach.
For an even more targeted approach, you can create custom segments using @usernames relevant to your campaign. This does not allow you to specifically target the followers of a certain Twitter user, but rather Twitter users with similar interests as the followers of that @username. The blog post gives the example of promoting a band’s tour, you could add the @usernames of similar bands so that you are reaching users with the same taste in music.
Twitter is also lowering the minimum bid for all auctions to one cent.
Twitter’s looking to hire a storyteller
Twitter already does a great job on its blog of showing how people use Twitter and demonstrating its value, through posts such as their frequent #OnlyOnTwitter blog posts and recaps of events like Euro 2012. But Twitter is looking to amp up their storytelling by hiring a Data Editor.
Twitter is not the first company to have such a position, as TechCrunch points out, but right now very few companies have data comparable to Twitter’s. The position will be responsible for executing a data-driven marketing strategy, define and document best practices, and basically show everyone (especially partners and advertisers) how Twitter is changing the world.
Look forward to this position being filled, because once it is we’ll surely see even more interesting case studies and stories.
Like what you’ve read? Click here to subscribe to this blog!
Tags: Ad Targeting, promoted products, social media, storytelling, Twitter, Twitter Tuesday
