Today’s PM360 Panorama featured an article “Fifteen Ways Pharma Can Take Advantage of Twitter’s Redesign.” My comments were featured in the article, and the full article is here. Below are some further thoughts on the redesign and its applicability for pharma.
With a full header image and stats on friends and photos, I can hardly tell if I’m on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram these days. Perhaps it’s the well-known attention and engagement that visual content garners. Or, perhaps it’s the monetization that Facebook has been able to create in it’s newsfeed that makes the revenue officers at Twitter sit up and take notice.
This is a big change. Pages on Twitter.com originally were sparse, functional, and not particularly attractive destinations. There have been several design revisions, the most dramatic of which was last Fall just before the IPO when Twitter added photo and video previews to the feed of items that users see when they log into the service from the Web or mobile applications. This latest redesign, and the expansion of Twitter Cards, are a major push towards increasing the visual element of the newsfeed, and keeping uses on-platform by allowing then to get what they need right in the feed.
One of the biggest reasons for Twitter’s initial success was an open API that allowed developers to build Twitter tools and apps that complimented the platform. So, many early adopters immediately set up Tweetdeck or Hootsuite as soon as they started their account. Today, this divide still exists. There are two main ways to use Twitter: Twitter apps, which include Twitter.com, Twitter for iPhone and Android; and third-party clients or applications, such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck (owned by Twitter), and many others. These third-party apps come in desktop, web and mobile flavors.
It’s worth noting that these design changes and Twitter Cards largely affect those using Twitter’s products – webpage and apps – they do not apply to the huge number of users on third party apps. However, Twitter’s apps have a large mobile share which is where the bulk of the traffic is headed.
Twitter’s expansion of card formats offers new opportunities for pharmaceutical marketers. You can get much more content into your tweet beyond the original 140 characters, plus users can interact with this content without having to leave Twitter or their Twitter app. In particular, App Cards are promising. Experienced app marketers know that creating the app is just the first hard step, and the rest is getting installs and usage. App Cards display a prominent name, description and icon – with only one click needed to install. Additionally, Twitter has extremely useful targeting options for promoted tweets, so you can combine cards with advertising. How about promoting only to females using the keyword “diabetes?” Or, to those similar to the followers of the well-known diabetes blogger @sixuntilme?
Pharma marketers cognizant of digital trends are always seeking striking visuals for their social media posts to increase visibility and engagement. Twitter Photo Cards (a single image) and Gallery Cards (up to four images) offer ways to syndicate this work and drive traffic back to the main platform or website. These cards can be great additions to a content marketing strategy. For Twitter accounts with large followings, this may be enough, otherwise promoted tweets or promoted accounts are again an option to achieve scale. Marketers can also extend their YouTube reach and push video content rather than still images with Player Cards.
Limited space does not offer opportunity for fair balance, just as with Tweets themselves and paid search marketing. The options above are best used for disease education, unbranded, corporate, or potentially branded reminder ads with no indications or claims. However, most pharma social campaigns and apps fall into this area, so cards can compliment and build on existing strategies. Summary Cards and Summary Cards with Large Images are in a similar class – besides the tweet itself, you have 200 characters for descriptions – clearly not enough for fair balance, but enough to push your unbranded visual content.
Another interesting option is Lead Generation Cards. Companies can collect emails and Twitter handles right from the card for lead generation and CRM. For categories with engaged communities of sufficient size, like Multiple Sclerosis, this could be an strong tactic. You can bet an aspiring Pharma media planner is running the numbers for that right now.
The Twitter ecosystem is taking a big step forward with these new card formats. Hopefully for pharma, there’s some luck in these cards.
PS: I decided to setup a Twitter Photo Card for this post. I used a WordPress plugin and it was not difficult to do. Here’s what the card looks like:
However, Twitter needs to approve website owners. When I applied, I got a note that I’ll be approved in a few weeks! (I got it approved and other card types approved, in less than fifteen minutes.)
So, in a few weeks I’ll leave a comment when this is ready. That’s got to be frustrating to content publishers. The card is active, and if you tweet this blog URL, rather than the website, the card will be used.
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