Starting this month, Twitter is rolling out Moments Maker, a new visual story telling tool. This ad unit is an exciting opportunity for brands that haven’t been able to execute the more pricey Promoted Moments and want to create more visual, linear storytelling that expands beyond the current, curated-only Moments tab. Twitter’s launch of Moments Maker marks yet another move from the platform to arm brands, publishers and users with visual story telling as it aims to position itself as the go-to place for breaking news and live events.
In their current state Moments are curated content that live in their own tab, identified by a lightning bolt on Twitter’s mobile and desktop applications. With this latest update, brands will be able to promote and publish Moments within the main timeline. Moments Maker expands brands’ capabilities on the platform, they can take advantage of dynamic creative like, video, GIFs and Vine and there will be more opportunities to elevate influencer partnerships, user generated content, product and campaign launches. Brands won’t be the only ones with access to the tool, users will also be granted access in the coming months. As user behavior adapts to more immersive content on the feed, it will be expected that brands speak the same language.
When Twitter introduced Moments in 2015 it became a new way to tell a story from a social platform and allowed brands to create outside of individual tweets. Coming out of the initial launch, Twitter also introduced Promoted Moments, a 24 hour buy that featured the brand in the Today Tab and as a Promoted Trend. Moments Maker will not be dependent on the curated content that lives in the Moments tab, but will instead give brands, publishers and users the opportunity to compile content into a capsule that lives as a promoted or organic tweet in feed.
For Brands
Brands and marketers should consider leveraging Moments Maker in the following ways:
- Tell a Richer Story: The options are now more exciting for marketers to stitch together content to showcase products and launches, content from live events and behind the scenes featurettes.
- Use Video: Brands must invest in ‘for the feed’ video content, including GIFs, Vines and short form media for their capsules. Marketers should focus on video for all platforms, but specifically how it can help tell your brand’s story in a Moment.
- Promote Fan Advocacy: Activations and campaigns that rely on user generated content or are actively pursuing partnerships with fans should use this unit to highlight those moments and even create a hub for that content. Working with influencers to be whitelisted or featured on a Moment is another way to authentically connect with fans.
- Target Interested Users: Moments can be organic, but it is not recommended to create and publish without paid media to properly target and engage with the right audience.
When using Moments Maker, marketers should aim to tell a linear story. Capturing visual and dynamic content that is also supported by strong copy will help prompt engagement and interest from users. Before executing with Moments Maker, brands should storyboard the Moment and map out the corresponding visuals and copy. 360i was granted early access to the tool for beta testing and found success with both Oreo and USA Network brands. For the #WonderVault campaign and launch of the Choco Chip Flavored Oreo Cookies in Los Angeles, Oreo published this Moment. And for USA’s Queen of the South we created this Moment. In both cases, it was learned that although the format is new to the feed, content was still engaging for users and is best viewed on mobile. USA’s Queen of the South Moment ended up being the top performing tweet during that week of promotion.
For Users
Twitter’s key differentiator, when compared to other platforms, is the powerful nature of its user base. The average engaged user can be just as influential as a brand and can open doors to increased conversation and discoverability. Capitalizing on the nature of its user base, Twitter evolved the Moments format to live on the feed and give all users the opportunity to be social storytellers.
In the coming months, users will also have the opportunity to create their own Moment capsules through a separate tool called Moment Maker Light. This will be available through Twitter desktop. Just like brands, users will be able to compile content from various rich media sources, owned created content like video and stills, as well as public tweets from the Twitter timeline.
Twitter is focused on improving its offerings for marketers and publishers in order to help them create captivating content that is discoverable, shareable and engaging for new and current users. As social apps and platforms like Instagram and Snapchat continue to integrate vertical and full screen content, Twitter’s Moments feature will begin to feel natural on the feed. In order to find success with Moments Maker, brands need to adapt their social storytelling to be more linear and immersive. Meanwhile, marketers will want to keep a close eye on new ways consumers are engaging with this unit in order to tap its full potential.
