13 Mar Watching the Clock With Twitter Insights

If you’re frustrated with organic reach (or lack thereof) on social networks, a new tool on Twitter wants to ease the pain a little bit.  Whether or not it’ll actually be a difference maker for you? Welllllll…..

Tick Tock

Twitter’s newly released Timing is Everything is the latest addition to Media Studio.  In short, it’s a graph that shows when your followers are watching the most video on twitter – not necessarily yours, but video in general.  In theory, this information should help you determine the best times to post your own video content for maximum engagement.

Here’s the thing – plenty of third party tools show you when followers are online or even active.  This type of insight is helpful to a degree, but it’s not a game-changer in itself.  You still need to make the right kind of content for your audience and present it to them in the best possible way.

Twitter’s Pivot to Video?

The interesting part of this isn’t necessarily the new timing graph.   The part that should make you sit up and take notice is Twitter’s specific commitment to video.  This graph isn’t about when your followers are active generally – it’s about when they’re actively watching video.

In a post titled “Video is reshaping digital advertising,” Twitter highlights the reasons they think you should use more video in your ads.  “Video is our fastest-growing advertising tool. There are around 1.2 billion video views on Twitter each day, which is 2x growth in 12 months according to Twitter internal data.  Simply put, using video in your advertising campaigns can make them more affordable and increases audience engagement.”

Another Check Mark for Video

Twitter is just the latest social media platform to show a renewed focus on video and have the numbers to back it up.  When LinkedIn rolled out native video, the company noted that people were 20 times more likely to share a post with video in it.

As Social Media Today notes, “Stats like these also counter concerns that Facebook had, in some ways, over-inflated its video stats in order to boost video ad spend…The fact that other platforms have seen similar increases in video views somewhat lessens the impact of this revelation.”

Every audience is different, and every channel is different.  But as long as video continues to be a priority for platforms like Twitter – and the data shows that it works – you should continue to find ways to get it done.