Twitter Australia ramps up brand personalisation

Sarah Homewood
By Sarah Homewood | 4 December 2015
 
Grant Baxter

Twitter Australia is aiming to get more personalised with brands, with the social network shifting its broadcast medium to one of personalisation.

The social player brought on Grant Baxter six months ago to lead brand strategy in Australia, and Twitter has already rolled out personalised campaigns for the likes of Samsung and Coles in this market.

The campaigns are based around getting consumers to interact one-on-one with brands. In the case of Samsung, the brand asked people to retweet a piece of content in relation to the Rugby World Cup. In doing so they were sent a personalised notification letting them know each time a game in the tournament was about to start. Consumers were also sent personalised thank you messages from the brand for getting involved.

For Coles, the brand asked people to choose a course of a meal they would like a recipe for, then consumers who answered the poll were sent a personalised message and a link to download a recipe from taste.com.au.

Baxter told AdNews that personalisation drives an uplift in engagement and sentiment for brands.

“In terms of sentiment, positive sentiment was really impressive,” he said. “We see in a lot of other platforms where brands struggle with negativity, when we run these types of campaigns on Twitter we see a really positive sentiment.”

Previously brand strategy was run from an APAC level, and Baxter reckons Twitter bringing him on board shows the social platforms dedication to the region.

“Australia is a key market for Twitter, it's a growth market for them,” he said.

“There's some big opportunities to do work with agencies and clients that is on par with the work being done globally. I worked in London for eight years before I came here, there was certainly a misconception that Australia was behind other regions, and I realised that wasn't true.

"I think it's the same from Twitters perspective, brands are hungry for it, we needed someone here to focus on working with those partners.”

The brand is also eyeing off the local Moments launch, with Twitter Australia already talking to brands about the local iteration of its news feature.

Twitter launched Moments in October, with the feature set to roll out in Australia in 2016 and Baxter explained that it is in the works for the business to have brands signed on for when the project is launched.

“We're hugely excited about Moments, it's going to be fantastic,” he said. “But it's all about making sure we have definitive dates about when it's going to roll-out. Every time I go and see someone they're asking about Moments.

“It's coming, but we want to make sure its a concrete thing before we commit brands,” he added.

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