@EarlyBird to offer Twitter users “promoted deals”
Bargain hounds on Twitter are now able to follow the official @EarlyBird handle for relevant, timely offers and deals from Twitter’s advertisers. Twitter will partner with select advertisers to give followers of the account the inside scoop on limited-time or –quantity offers. It remains to be seen whether branded accounts that rely on offering last-minute deals (like JetBlue’s Cheeps, for instance) will be affected, since offering deals not available elsewhere is a key component of many branded Twitter strategies.
Facebook and Twitter battle for control of connected TV
As Google and Yahoo launch their social television platforms (Google TV and Yahoo Connected TV, respectively) designed to connect your TV to your friends’ Facebook and Twitter are shoring up resources to tap into the social TV ad market. The two social media giants are vying to be the leader in key areas of the new technology, including “socially-targeted TV advertising, pay-TV content recommendation, TV show marketing, next-generation EPGs and interactive viewing.” Perhaps the most interesting point to ponder is the assertion that the dominant position will go to the platform that “is able to establish themselves as the primary way to connect with friends and exchange information” because those are two very distinct strengths, and one could argue that Facebook excels at the former while Twitter dominates the latter.
The NBA takes the plunge with Twitter’s new ‘promoted trends’ by sponsoring “LeBron James”
In an effort to harness some of the tremendous buzz around the free agency of hoops superstar LeBron James, the National Basketball Association took advantage of Twitter’s new promoted trends to bump the topic “LeBron James” to onto the list of trending topics. While it may seem like James’ name might already be a trending topic, the NBA hopes that sponsoring the term will drive users the league’s website instead of outside news sites. James also joined Twitter this week (@kingjames), gaining more than 150,000 followers in his first seven hours as a member.
Twitter Search volume up 33% since April
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced at the Aspen Ideas Festival this week that Twitter Search is handling 800 million queries per day, up from the 600 million per day he reported at the Chirp developers’ conference in April. While Twitter’s growth in user base is a major contributing factor, the value of the Search function’s ability to give insight into conversation trends and real-time information is driving major traffic for Twitter. This will likely have a huge impact on the site’s ability to generate revenue through its new ad platform.
YouTube, major film directors want to know what your day looks like
Renowned film directors Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald are partnering with YouTube to create a wholly user-generated documentary film about life on all over the world over the course of one day. Participants are being asked to film part of their day on July 24, 2010 for possible inclusion in the doc, which will debut at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The project is interesting because it’s an extremely high-profile example of crowd sourcing content for repurposing as mainstream entertainment. Though this has been done numerous times (and with varying degrees of success) by brands in the past, YouTube’s project relies not on a prize or reward but on the public’s desire to share the intimate, mundane details of their personal lives. Sounds a bit like social media in general, doesn’t it?
Tags: deals, earlybird, facebook, Google TV, LeBron James, NBA, promoted trends, promotion, tv, twitter, Twitter Search, youtube
