Twitter hatching up a new gameplan
new york — Twitter is turning its spotlight onto a new demographic in its bid to lure more advertising dollars to its social media platform: deep-pocketed business users.
The microblogging service has 330 million monthly active users but has struggled to turn its popularity into profit, losing out to rival Facebook for ad dollars.
Now it is going after a more niche business audience, taking on LinkedIn, Microsoft’s professional online network.
For several years, Twitter has had an employee whose job is to teach and encourage CEOs like Goldman Sachs Group’s Lloyd Blankfein and Walt Disney’s Bob Iger to tweet. They both do, sparingly.
Twitter launched a round-theclock streaming news network with Bloomberg Media this week, which is designed to appeal to business people as well as a general audience.
The 24/7 news service, called “TicToc by Bloomberg”, livestreamed coverage of British Prime Minister Theresa May discussing Brexit negotiations on Wednesday, its third day of operation, attracting about 4,000 viewers.
It also racked up 55,000 concurrent views on the US House of Representatives vote on the tax bill on Wednesday. Global news updates had total views in the hundreds of thousands. Twitter and Bloomberg have not publicised financial arrangements over TicToc, but such projects usually work on a share of ad or sponsorship revenue. Neither of the companies commented.
TicToc has seven initial sponsors including wireless carrier AT&T and derivatives marketplace firm CME Group. Bloomberg has said it will eventually open up to additional sponsors.
Twitter’s shares rose slightly on Wednesday. They are up 45 per cent over the last 12 months, outpacing the red-hot technology sector, even though ad revenue was down eight per cent in the third quarter from the previous year, the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines. The stock is still less than half its value in late 2013 after its initial public offering, when investors had high hopes Twitter would cash in on its fast-growing user base. TicToc launched on Twitter just a few months after LinkedIn introduced video ads on its service. —