Over the weekend Twitter did two things for the first time; launched their curated branded hashtag pages as well as advertising the platform through a series of 15 second TV adverts during a popular American sporting event.
The ads, which aired during a Nascar race, highlight the potential for other brands if they follow Nascar’s lead and partner with Twitter. But aside from Twitter using conventional TV advertising, what’s really interesting to us, is that Twitter highlighted the need for knowledgable community management through taking the curation in-house. A dozen of Twitter’s staff helped select tweets, commentary and media from Nascar fans, pundits and drivers to be showcased on the #Nascar page.
Could taking curation in-house and adopting more of an editorial approach signify a change in Twitter’s model moving forward? And potentially be one way to answer the ever increasing questions of how they’re going to ever make any money? Maybe. But we think it’s more likely that Twitter curated the page themselves, with a resource-heavy team, to ensure the branded hashtag page not only maximised all of its new features and appealed to a wave of potential advertisers who are probably scrambling to get a design team briefed on creating their new hashtag page, but also provided more value to its fans.
Either way, the new branded hashtag pages look much clearer, showcases the most relevant content and offers yet another way for advertisers to offer a personalised experience for fans.
@mattbrawn