Nowadays, we are no longer silent participants when it comes to television – we are able to share the experience with people around the world thanks to social networking platforms, especially Twitter. Every night, if you were to login to your Twitter account, you would see people posting Tweets about big events (such as the AFL grand final and breaking news) and their favourite programs (such as The Voice and The Block).
Because of this, Twitter have announced the launch of a brand new feature – TV ad targeting – which will help brands to better target potential customers. It achieves this by monitoring the airtimes of commercials and simultaneously tracking relevant conversation on Twitter. It works via fingerprinting technology that automatically detects where and when a brand’s commercials are airing on TV, as well as which Twitter users were posting about the surrounding program.
To assist marketers with keeping track of these trends, Twitter have supplied them with a brand new TV Ads dashboard. This comes in the form of a graph that physically tracks when their television ads have aired, helping them to establish what is showing on TV and when. This graph can be viewed for the last 90 days, the last 30 days and the last 7 days. It is hoped that this information will give marketers an insight into how they can use Promoted Tweets to their advantage.
Twitter has managed to perfect the bridge between TV, digital and mobile with the creation of their ad targeting feature. Most people who use Twitter on their mobile phones will do so in front of the television – this new feature lets brands continue the conversations that they begin on TV by building on this awareness with the engagement of social (and mobile) media. This synchronisation can make campaigns much more engaging.
The TV ad targeting feature was made available on May 28th as a beta to selected partners within the US. It is hoped that it won't be too long before marketers outside the US are given access, too.
