How Twitter keeps your brand relevant
On this episode of the CMO Show, Mark sits down with Angus Keene, Managing Director at Twitter Australia and New Zealand, to discuss how marketers can navigate the service’s signal to noise ratio and the emerging trends brands need to pay attention to.
Conversations have long been the backbone of Twitter. Since it began in 2006, the service has served as a digital public square, one where everybody has a voice and ideas and opinions are in abundance.
Angus Keene, Managing Director at Twitter ANZ, says, “We talk about Twitter being the world's largest focus group. We have this incredible treasure trove of human insight, consumer insight and cultural insight.”
But with over 500 million Tweets sent every day, how can marketers find relevant insights for their brands and meaningfully participate in the discussions happening on the service?
Angus says the path to success begins with bespoke analysis and aligning with the conversations that make sense for your brand.
“My recommendation would be to start with the values of the brand and understand where you play,” he says. “Can you join the conversation in an authentic way and is the audience going to bring you in and allow you to participate?”
Twitter’s The Conversation: Twitter Trends 2022 report points to some of the key trends attracting plenty of chatter across Australia and New Zealand this year – and some of them may surprise you.
Join Mark and Angus and Mark to find out more about those trends and what they mean for your brand.
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Credits
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The CMO Show production team
Producer – Rian Newman
Audio Engineers – Ed Cheng & Daniel Marr
Got an idea for an upcoming episode or want to be a guest on The CMO Show? We’d love to hear from you: cmoshow@filteredmedia.com.au
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Transcript
Participants:
Host: Mark Jones
Guest: Angus Keene
How do you build a relevant brand?
It's a really interesting balancing act because on one side you've got your own brand's agenda and your messaging and marketing, and on the other you've got a community of interest, and those communities of interest have their own agenda and they're talking about their own things. So how do you build a brand that's relevant? How well do you understand the zeitgeist?
Hello and welcome back to the CMO Show. How are you? My name is Mark Jones. It's great to be with you, and my guest today is Angus Keane. He's managing director for Twitter, ANZ. And wow, what a great conversation. I'm really excited about this one.
We speak about the role of Twitter in the marketing universe and Angus talks a bit about how he's been engaging with local agencies and marketers to help them build creative campaigns. And so there's lots of tips and ideas for framing that. And the other thing is this big question of relevance. If you are somewhere in the middle, meaning you're not really a detractor of Twitter and you're not a raging advocate, you kind of need convincing to add Twitter to your campaign.
And so we really dig into a bit of that. How are they approaching it and what are the sorts of things that get marketers over the line in terms of bringing it in? How do you make all of that work? So really great conversation. And as a spoiler alert, we don't talk about US politics. We don't talk about geopolitics cause well, I'm not interested in that for this conversation.
And we just want to keep it focused on how you can understand Twitter from a brand and a marketing perspective. So dig in and enjoy my conversation with Angus Keane.
Mark Jones:
Welcome to the CMO Show. My guest today is Angus Keene. Thanks for joining us.
Angus Keene:
Hi, Mark. How are you?
Mark Jones:
I'm doing very well. Now let's talk some dates first. And this is a really fascinating company that started back in 2006, just two years after Facebook for those playing at home. And from my point of view, I joined Twitter in about 2007, so I consider myself part of the OG set of Twitter. And you joined the organisation in 2013, I understand.
Angus Keene:
Yes.
Mark Jones:
So this has been around a while and yet there's a company that's still very much part of our everyday life. So when people say, "Describe Twitter to me," what are the sorts of things that you say?
Angus Keene:
I would say conversational, powerful, interesting, fun, exciting. It's both an incredible company to work for and an incredible service to be a part of and have conversations with people like you and have conversations on the service.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, you're quite right. Conversations is key to it. One of the things that fascinated me from, I guess, from a brand strategy and I guess a social platform perspective has always been this idea that Twitter essentially hasn't really changed in all that time. And now, I am quite aware of all the products and services and the updates, and I'm not suggesting it's not a mature platform, but that core focus around community hasn't really changed. And I think that's a great thing, but if you look comparatively across all the different social platforms, I've actually seen extraordinary diversification. I'm just interested in your reflection on that. I think this has been part of our, for me, a fascination with how you can get such longevity in a world that's otherwise moving really quickly.
Angus Keene:
Yeah. I think you, as a power user, probably understands this best, and that is that having conversation at the heart of Twitter makes it unique. And I think that's what we've seen over the past 15 years, is that our purpose is to serve the public conversation. That's what we talk about internally. So I think if you compare that to other platforms, that's pretty unique. And when you speak to people like you that have used the service for a long time and when you just follow threads, when you just follow trends, when you just have conversations, even when you get feedback from Twitter users, and they love giving us feedback, the thing they come back to is the simplicity. They come back to the conversations. They come back to the community.
And I think that's the beautiful, powerful, exciting thing. And I think as a company and a service, I'm proud that we've stuck to that. And We talk about that a lot. We talk about that in terms of what we're trying to do for Australians and people around the world that are using the platform. And when we talk about new consumer products, even when we talk about ad products, we come back to that purpose. We come back to community. We come back to conversations. I think you're a hundred percent right.
Mark Jones:
Yeah. So tell me about Australia and New Zealand then to the extent that you can. What does your role entail? How do you think about the community here? I guess as somebody who also leads a local team, what are the levers you get to pull? What decisions can you make? How do you differentiate the experience for Australians? Give us a window into your job.
Angus Keene:
Yeah. So my job is pretty diverse. It changes daily. I think we're focused on partnerships with advertising agencies and marketers. So a big part of my role is working with our commercial team on how do we provide value for marketers and for brands? We work really closely with content providers as well, particularly there's a real natural synergy between Twitter and TV and also sports leagues and entertainment providers. So a big part of the role there is building those partnerships and nurturing those partnerships and making sure that we're getting value on both sides. And then there's a whole array of areas and teams, marketing, policy communications, etc. that I work hand in hand to both support the users but also support those brands that work with us closely every day.
Mark Jones:
So what are the trends then? I know that there's a report that we'll have a chat about in a second, but what are the trends more broadly in the Australian marketing sector in the industry, you mentioned the ad agencies, from a media buyer perspective? What are the issues you're faced with?
Angus Keene:
Yeah. We're working really closely with the agencies and marketers direct to meet their core KPIs. So fundamentally, they're wanting to engage with their customers, build brand loyalty and deliver ROI. So we're really focused on that. We've spent a lot of time over the last couple of years on insights and research, so that's been a big part of what we are delivering, and I think we're doing a better job of that in the Australian and New Zealand market, and that's reports like the one we'll probably touch on, but also really, really bespoke reports. Whether that's reports around big emerging topics like sustainability, that's something that we're working on at the moment, or whether it's a report on, say, the streaming category. Obviously, the streaming category is huge in Australia and around the world. So we work really closely with those partners to deliver them bespoke insights into the audiences on Twitter and what can they gain from that as marketers and then how can they meet their KPIs and what they want to deliver for their brand?
Mark Jones:
In that context, what's your sense about what marketers believe is the best use of Twitter? The reason I ask that question is that's the pointy end, isn't it? Which you're going through your list of channels to pick and we'll have a bit of this and we'll have a bit of that and we'll throw a bit of money over there. Tell me how you play into that space because I really feel like that's where the rubber hits the road.
Angus Keene:
Yeah. I think that's a great question, and I think that's our challenge and that's what I wake up every day thinking about, is how do I-
Mark Jones:
You're welcome.
Angus Keene:
And I think we split. We probably have a bunch of advertisers and agencies that sit in different buckets, so there are those advertisers. We had advertisers that were almost physically knocking on our door when we opened the office in 2013. So these were partners who they were working with our global teams from thousands of miles away. They knew the platform. They were pushing at the boundaries of what they could possibly do. So there are those really mature brands, and they get it. They get the value. And what we talk to marketers about is that Twitter is that place to launch something new, launch a product, a new app, a new car, even an update to your brand, create bars and conversation.
And then secondly, we talk about to align with of cultural moments. And so these are the cultural conversations that are bubbling and happening every day in Australia, and they're able to connect to those conversations, whether they're kind of part of those conversations or whether they're just aligning to those conversations.
And they're sort of the ways that we talk to advertisers. And I guess that challenge that I talked about is how do we have more of those agencies, more of those marketers deeply understand, and importantly deliver results? And that's where we talk about research and insights. We need to be able to actually deliver results for them.
Mark Jones:
Now at the risk of oversimplifying things, is in my conversations with CMOs, with marketers, with our clients, with other agencies, I reckon there's probably three buckets to think about. And one are people who don't believe Twitter works. Another one are the people who are like rusted on loyal, they're the knocking at the door, people that you referenced and they're just all about Twitter. It's their first pick in the ad buys. It's what they think about. Most often, they wake up thinking about Twitter and they check to see what's going on in the world, etc.
And then there's this middle group that are a little bit unsure. I reckon that's probably where you probably have to spend most of your time, which is how do we unlock that? I reckon that's what's really been fascinating me as I've been thinking about Twitter, is how do you really convince people who are on the fence that they need to think about Twitter again?
Angus Keene:
Yeah. I think, again, that's a lot of what we do every day, and it's a lot of what our teams do. So we have dedicated agency teams that work with agencies. We have verticalized specialist teams that work with marketers and their agencies. I think education is a huge part of it. So we have education programmes. So obviously, we have bespoke education programmes. We have something called flight school, a bit of a bird reference there that the team can go out and actually help agencies and marketers understand the platform. It's online. They can be certified. So that's a really, really big part of what our teams do.
And I think then it goes to that insights and return on investment. So I think if you're the rusted on Twitter marketer that's been working with us for a decade, you've already seen those results. We've shown them on Twitter research studies, off Twitter research studies with the likes of Nielsen, Kantar, but the middle group that you referenced, maybe they've tested a little bit. Maybe they haven't done those research studies. So we haven't delivered the ROI they're looking for, and we haven't delivered the research and results. We are absolutely laser focused on that.
Mark Jones:
So you mentioned education. I guess that's really where I was headed, which is what are the things that actually convince people that get them to believe? What I heard you say just then was effectively test and learn, so take a little bite of something, prove the ROI, demonstrate the efficacy. In other words, when they can see it, then they'll do it, and then you run it and run it and run it and run it. Is that really how you're getting the traction?
Angus Keene:
Yeah. I think probably one step before that I'd say is audience insights. So we've developed, we've grown out our audience insights team, and I think that is probably almost the secret sauce at the start.
Mark Jones:
Yeah.
Angus Keene:
I think the marketers and the agencies, first of all, they want to understand our audience. To your point before, they're already working with other platforms. They might not be working with us. They want to know, how are you different? What's unique about your audience? What can I understand about my brand from your audience?
And I think through our audience and insights team, we build verticalized insights, so we're rolling out finance, media and entertainment, wager and government, etc., and we're delivering those on sometimes weekly, sometimes daily basis, sometimes monthly, and then we go even deeper. So I think as those advertisers test and learn, then we start going, okay, well, let's look at beyond your category. Let's look at you and let's look at what the connection points are between Twitter and your particular brand. So I think it starts with that insight. Maybe that's that human insight. Maybe it's that brand insight.
Then it goes, I think you nailed it, it's that test and learn. It's rare that an advertiser who hasn't worked with us comes in and says, "Let's do a multi-market complex, never been done before campaign." Absolutely, they test and learn. And then we deliver them more insights, we deliver them that research, we deliver them the ROI and that's when they really build.
And then lastly, I'll just add just one final piece, and we talk about this a lot internally. We call it campaigns worth talking about, and that's when you're getting beyond just the insight, beyond the test and learn, and it's that creative campaign where we're doing something really interesting. And I think that's what sparks the interest beyond maybe the social manager up through the media manager or even up to the CMO.
Mark Jones:
Let's dig into that analytics piece and the insights piece for a second because I reckon there's something interesting going on here. We began talking about conversations and that being the backbone of Twitter. But I wonder whether the future of Twitter is actually analytics, an insights company. I wonder if that's where the value is headed.
It's not meant to be a leading question by the way. It's just how do you think about the audience meets the insights? Because clearly, you've got all this AI capability, you've got the ability to surface information. How will that all play out?
Angus Keene:
I think I can give you our local perspective, and that is that we haven't in the past delivered enough insights to our customers. And I think to your point, we talk about Twitter being the world's largest focus group.
And I think if that's the case then, and we believe it is, we have this incredible treasure trove of human insight, consumer insight, cultural insight. and that is a vision into potentially the future. Where is culture going? So I love your prediction. I'm not sure, but I certainly think there's an opportunity there and we're diving into that now. We're doing that in Australia, and that is to deliver really interesting insights for our customers.
Mark Jones:
So Angus, when we think about analytics then and maybe this broader picture, which I'm always fascinated by, you're probably familiar with this term, signal to noise ratio. This is the biggest issue for me in social media generally from a marketer's point of view. What are the messages? The signal as it were would be those quality insights or that one tweet that really sparks a whole movement or a conversation and then there's just all this noise, right?
I have actually struggled with this and I think a lot of marketers possibly subconsciously struggle with this because there's really great value in clarity. And when you're time poor, you haven't got a lot of attention span to really endlessly scroll. So this has been one of the existential dramas playing out in Twitter, which is why I'm so fascinated by this analytics conversation.
So how do you think marketers should be thinking about the signals they pay attention to?
Does it just come back to very simple principles like just stick to your hashtags, the topic areas you know are of interest, or are there other practical ways of thinking about making sure I get those quality insights as a user of the platform?
Angus Keene:
I think it goes back to it's less about Twitter and more about the brand. So what are the values that those brands care about, and what are the areas that they're playing with offline, for example? Because often, we see that where they're focused on above the line campaigns, where it's deeply embedded into their values, where they are focused on in TV, in sponsorships? I think for many brands, that's a really easy place to play. Those insights and those conversations are happening on Twitter. And if it's Toyota and the AFL, huge volumes of conversation around AFL on Twitter, a real natural place for a brand like Toyota to play in, and they do, and they partner with us. A while back, ANZ, they're no longer a major partner of Mardi Gras, but that was a two-decade or at least decade plus partnership. It was an area that they had a right to play in. They did it authentically. And then there was huge volumes of conversations around Mardi Gras on Twitter. We partnered really closely with them. It was authentic. It was real.
So I think my recommendation would be start with the brand, obviously. What are the values of the brand? What are the focus areas? What are they doing in other channels potentially? And then where are the opportunities to play in Twitter? Obviously, that's probably the safer place to play. We also see lots of brands doing some really interesting things with us that are beyond that. A great example was Milo. Milo ran a campaign with us called hot versus cold.
And I think that was such a great ... It was this ongoing debate that people had had for aeons. Do you do your Milo cold or do you do it hot? There were conversations already happening naturally on Twitter about that. And really they just planted the seed. They just sparked the conversation. They just joined into that conversation. It was natural. It felt right for them to be there.
Mark Jones:
And I can see the creative process behind that. And I wonder just practically, how can a brand not just do a version of that Milo campaign but start something on Twitter that then, as we see time and time again, starts on Twitter, ends up in mainstream coverage? Becomes part of that, I don't want to say viral, but let's pretend I didn't say viral, but it becomes a meme.
Angus Keene:
Yeah. Interesting you asked that question. I had this exact conversation with the head of strategy at Ogilvy last week and they ran that campaign from a creative perspective. And I asked him exactly that question, . His answer was bring Twitter in early. And I know that's super simple, but social is often the last one to be briefed. And often, we are further down that planning process when it comes just purely to digital, let alone creative. And often if a campaign like hot versus cold, it's a very creative led campaign.
Mark Jones:
Yeah. So in other words, don't treat it like a push channel.
Angus Keene:
Absolutely. Yeah. And it depends on the campaign, doesn't it? But your question is, how do you create something that ends with genuine buzz and excitement and conversation and it starts on Twitter and it ends up in the real world and it delivers the results for brands? I think the simple question is bring us in early. We have creative teams. We have insights teams. They brought us in really early and we actually delivered the insight from Twitter. So they brought us in. They had this idea and then we actually delivered them data that showed that those conversations were already happening and that it would be a really natural fit for them to spark that seed and spark that conversation.
Mark Jones:
Maybe this is a seamless transition to the Twitter trends 2022 report. And we don't need to have a whole history lesson here by the way. But social movements in general, if we look at the Arab Spring, for example, there's plenty, MeToo, there's hashtag something. Really what you're talking about, this is the first trend you're speaking about, which is voices powering change, is that we've seen this organically in Twitter for the longest time where movements are sparked, where like minds get together and realise that there's an opportunity to advocate for positive change. How do you do that without destroying your brand's credibility? What's your view? This is trend number one in your report. I guess there's something for us to learn here?
Angus Keene:
Yeah, I think absolutely. I think that brands need to understand where they play in those conversations. Are they authentically able to be part of that conversation and is the audience going to bring them in and allow them to participate? So are they going to, as I said before, the ANZ Mardi Gras example, ANZ was part of Mardi Gras before social media was even around. So I think when they started to partner with us and they actually ran their own bespoke hashtag with a branded emoji and they sparked a conversation, they created a wonderful, beautiful creative video and the audience participation and feedback was just overwhelmingly positive. And that's because they were able to be authentically part of that conversation. Not all brands can do that. I think they need to understand where they fit in that community, where they fit in that conversation. They need to listen, they need to learn, and then they need to really find the way to be authentically part of it.
Mark Jones:
The second trend is next level gaming, . And there's a huge space here, which we haven't got time to really dive into. But obviously, top of the list is the metaverse and how people are getting their heads around it. What's the insight that really fascinated you about the role of Twitter in that space?
Angus Keene:
I think the fascinating part was actually the trend prediction that we saw. So obviously, gaming is massive on Twitter. There's a huge community, huge conversation, but what we saw is this real evolution, so we saw this evolution from just single player, multiplayer. You went Nintendo in the '90s then you went multiplayer then you went online, and now you're moving into metaverse and even further, which is decentralised gaming, which I think is fascinating. So you're moving away from single ownership of brands and games to these decentralised games. They're on the blockchain. The ownership of the asset is going to be NFT based so your avatar is going to be owned by you rather than a corporate. And then if you move into the finance, so obviously the transactions around these online games is massive, but the actual transaction will be crypto based.
So I think that is just a fascinating space, and that's a real emerging trend on Twitter. So that's really picked up over the last 12 months and something to follow over the next couple of years.
Mark Jones:
I think we will need to, yes. And as you say, you've got the blending of the emerging gaming metaverse and that decentralised thing, which is a little bit of a mind blow quite frankly, and then crypto and the future of money. So there is almost an underlying, and this is not a critique, but this vague hinted anarchy from the very early days of Twitter where it was like we want to have conversations outside of the mainstream. It was that, I'm digging back into of cultural history here, but we won't be told how to speak or we'll find our own platforms. The people has the voice. It's all that stuff. I'm not suggesting that's the tone and the culture these days. But there is that underlying current in society where we're always looking for places where we can explore, push the boundaries and try something. And I think that's the very bleeding edge that you're talking about.
I wonder, how did marketers, without actually doing it themselves because I think ... How much time have you got? I don't know, but how do you stay at the bleeding edge? How do you make sure that you understand what's going on there?
Angus Keene:
Yeah. I had this conversation with a senior marketer at Microsoft Xbox last week, and it's test and learn, it goes back to what you said, doesn't it?
Mark Jones:
Yeah.
Angus Keene:
The conversation I was having wasn't necessarily about testing and learning on Twitter. It was testing and learning in that exact space. What do we do in the metaverse? What do we do in game? We're testing that. We're not quite sure we know there's communities there. So I think that's both a recommendation for Twitter and that's a recommendation for the Metaverse.
I think decentralised gaming is so much at the forefront that it must be incredibly complex for marketers to think about, but what we can deliver is it goes back to what I said in the early start of our chat, and that is insights. Reports like this give insights to marketers on where are the trends? Where are the communities going and what's next? I think that's fascinating for marketers. It's fascinating for us and hopefully we can deliver some value for them.
Mark Jones:
Well, look, it's really encouraging to hear that you're engaged in the local industry from a marketing perspective, but more broadly, the idea that Twitter wants to make sure it's relevant in terms of the cultural stuff because obviously that's the touchstone. If you lose that sense of relevance, particularly with so many options out there, that's a really difficult space to be.
Angus Keene, so great to have you on the show. Thanks for being our guest. And really great to hear how you're thinking about the local relevance of Twitter and how marketers can engage in the conversations here in a way that is authentic and delivers value. So once again, thanks very much.
Angus Keene:
Thanks for having me. Thanks, Mark.
So that was my conversation with Angus Keene. And one of the fun things I've been reflecting on, if I go back to the very early days of Twitter, I remember my wife saying, “That thing will never take off.” And here we are. And I think many people were like that. And we, in fact, all of us can be like that with all our social platforms.
We wonder whether these things will take off. And the interesting thing about the Twitter story is not just its longevity, but its ability to continually, make sure it's part of the conversations, and create spaces where communities can get together. And I love this idea that our purpose is to serve the public conversation. So that's really a great perspective, to be customer centric, to create that customer experience that we talk about in other contexts.
So that was really great. I liked the point about testing and learning and having the courage. It's almost like we've got to think about it in an R&D context where you get some people in there to really, you know, shake the tree, as it were. And then I'm also fascinated by the analytics angle and how we can start to see Twitter as a source of really interesting consumer data, understand what are the social trends that are shaping our world?
Because, like it or not, these conversations, these stories that are being shared on Twitter are profoundly changing the way that we think about the world we live in. And so you can sit back and kind of look at it or you can dive in and be involved. And I think if that's one thing to take away, there's an opportunity here to really make sure that you're part of a relevant conversation.
So I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did. As a reminder, if you haven't already subscribed to us on the social channels, on Twitter, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, please do so. Give us a rating and tell your friends about us. So that's it for us, for now. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you again soon.