I have been a fan forever – even before Romeo and Juliet. Think the very typical 10-year old, starry eyed description…. So, imagine what happened when Leonardo DiCaprio was awarded Best Actor for ‘The Revenant’, making it his first Oscar ever. Not very different from what happened to Twitter. While there was frenzy on social media platforms all across, Twitter said that it had recorded 440K tweets per minute when the Leonardo was given the award, and during the award speech. The rage on Twitter continued until much after but this made it the most-tweeted minute in Oscar’s and Twitter’s history, breaking all records.
I was not on Twitter at all until a few days ago. Every report on the bleak future of the platform would make sense to me, not because I was not on Twitter but because I could relate to the world that was not micro-blogging at all times. The Oscars, and live events of this kind, makes me rethink.
When Jack Dorsey said in the recent earnings call that the one word to describe Twitter was ‘Live’, he truly captured the role the medium plays. Given instances such as the Oscars, ‘Live’ is clearly a positioning that none of its peers can occupy just yet (just like irrespective of the many Chris’ that will take over the big screens and make people swoon, there will always be one Leo). For many years, Twitter has been talking about the way in which it complements TV. Twitter’s inability of using this to make any advertising revenues in some of the key markets in the region dilutes the fact at times, but the truth remains that what we see on TV, we discuss on other platforms, and Twitter is well in the lead in that.
In the cover report of this issue, du’s EVP Brand and Communications makes a comment of utilizing different social media platforms for different purposes, in differentiated ways versus stretching and repurposing the very same creatives. The point is critical in many aspects – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, SnapChat, Instagram, Pinterest are all platforms available when utilizing social media as a marketing medium. The smart marketer can either use only a few of these or all but will use it with sensible differentiation, at different times of the day, for different kinds of audiences and give it the deserved detailing.
Taking another advice from DiCaprio’s award-winning speech, social media platforms, including the ones that we think are losing ground, should not be taken for granted.
