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Twitter bets big on video this Diwali
Twitter is late to the video party, with Google and Facebook already having gained higher traction among users.
Twitter is late to the video party, with Google and Facebook already having gained higher traction among users. But the micro-blogging site is now looking to change all that.
This festival season, Twitter, which is moving away from its 140-character limit, wants to push its video offerings. Users can now post lengthy videos, even up to 10 minutes. Then there’s Vine (a six seconds video feature that runs in loops), Periscope (live broadcasts), Snappy TV (editing and social distribution of videos), Moment Maker (which pieces together tweets, videos and images), among others.
“Videos can be as long as 10 minutes… We are offering a platform that gives brands many options,” said Parminder Singh, Twitter’s MD for India, Southeast Asia and West Asia.
While Facebook has “Live”, Twitter has Conversational Video for direct brand campaign message. Airtel was the first one to use it to promote its 4G services. Then there is Scratchreels, which allows forwarding and rewinding animated gifs shared on Twitter. Maruti Suzuki used it for its VitaraBrezza campaign. Tata Motors launched the Tiago using First View, which is also used by brands, including SurfExcel, BMW and Vodafone. For a more engaged interaction there is Promoted Video, which allows brands to measure the reach and effectiveness of the content.
Two weeks ago, Twitter announced it will not count photos, videos, gifs and polls within the 140-character limit.
The move is paying off. The micro-blogging site has already seen 400% more traction in video content over the last few months. According to a report by TNS research, Diwali-based video content has grown over three times on Twitter, and brands have increased their product videos by 1.5 times.
