In its continuing efforts to right the ship, Twitter is on a critical mission to grow monthly active users following less than 1 percent growth last quarter to 313 million users. As the Rio 2016 Olympic Games open today, Twitter is teaming with the US Olympic Committee on the Red, White and #BlueRoom at USA House to deliver social content, pushed through Team USA’s Twitter, Periscope and Vine accounts. “Fans will be treated to unique behind-the-scenes photos, interviews and more from the Red, White and #BlueRoom,” says Lisa Baird, CMO of USOC. Fans are also invited to add to the coverage via the @TeamUSA handle and links to live streaming of NBCUniversal’s Olympics coverage and support the social effort of @NBCOlympics. Twitter created a special emoji for fans using hashtag #TeamUSA and will provide support for Team USA and the USOC from its platforms—including TwitterSports—before, during and after the Rio Games. On the ad front, Twitter just launched a new format encouraging users to tweet more often when talking about an advertiser’s brand. An extension of its Conversational Ads, the new Instant Unlock Cards require a user-tweet to view promoted content such as a recipe from a favored brand, a movie trailer or an exclusive Q&A. Twitter is opening the new format to all advertisers after a successful test run: “People interacting with the conversational posts have netted an average of 34 views for every 100 of the actual ad—what it calls an earned media rate of 34 percent,” reports Mashable. AMC, Marvel and Coca-Cola were early participants. AMC used it at Comic-Con to maximize buzz for The Walking Dead with an exclusive trailer only available via Twitter’s Instant Unlock Card. Marvel used the new format on Super Bowl Sunday launching #TeamCap and #TeamIronMan emojis in a conversational ad unit that drove 1.5 million mentions—and in the week following the brand saw a 6.5X lift in conversation about the movie. Coca-Cola’s #TasteTheFeeling campaign in the US ran a conversational video ad featuring Niche creators and an auto-response to distribute Coca-Cola’s branded GIFs in-feed. “The result was 180K mentions of Coca-Cola’s and #TasteTheFeeling branded terms on the day of launch,” reports Twitter. “As a result of these efforts and their campaigns in other global markets, #TasteTheFeeling was a top organic global trend on launch day!” “These formats are exclusive to Twitter and make it even easier for consumers to engage with and spread a brand’s campaign message,” said Ilya Brown, Twitter’s Head of Product, Brand & Video Ads. “It’s a powerful way for advertisers to extend their presence across Twitter.” The move is already being called “a new way to bait users into spreading their message,” reports Mashable. “The hope is that advertisers will be able to expand their reach by enlisting loyal customers and fans to effectively do their work for them.” Drilling down into Twitter’s influence on shopping behavior in the retail path to purchase, the social network just released results from a Millward Brown and Crimson Hexagon study identifying the “purchase funnel hot spot” and “top sales driver” for each retail category: Big box retail Purchase funnel hot spot: Evaluation Top sales driver: Customer service Consumer electronics Purchase funnel hot spot: Post-purchase chatter Top sales driver: Advertisements Apparel Purchase funnel hot spot: Purchase intent Top sales driver: Price Home improvement Purchase funnel hot spot: Conversion Top sales driver: Seeking suggestions Grocery/pharmacy Purchase funnel hot spot: Interest/consideration Top sales driver: Recommendations
She has partnered with the US Olympic Committee to urge fans to get behind Team USA by creating a special page for users of # TeamUSA , as well as setting up social media content via the team 's Twitter , Facebook and Vine pages .