During Kirstine Stewart‘s keynote at Tuesday’s Digital Day 3D in Toronto, the head of Twitter Canada addressed everything from the notion of Twitter “disrupting” the TV space (she says it’s not) to how Canadian celebrities are kicking butt on the platform (hello, Justin Bieber, with your 46 million followers). She also discussed how brands are—and could be—using Twitter to further connect with consumers through conversation.
We know you’re already well-acquainted with the basics about the platform that’s known as the digital water cooler, so here are a few things from Stewart’s presentation that you may not know about the platform—or Stewart herself:
• In light of media coverage that speculated the broader demise of traditional TV when Stewart left CBC for Twitter, she set the record straight: she joined Twitter because it’s “a complement to television,” not the disruptor many say it is.
• She is a big-time NFL fan. Forget Oprah or gardening shows—when she watches TV on a Sunday afternoon (and Monday and Thursday evenings) it’s football. Unlike the demographic tools she had to work with while in broadcasting that would show things like “18-34 males like sports,” Twitter was appealing to her because it can tell she likes NHL based on her tweets. “Twitter knew something about me that traditional media didn’t know.”
• For a long time the excitement around a music album’s release had fizzled out. Now Twitter is helping them garner buzz again, as it did with the Target and Justin Timberlake partnership around the release of his newest album, which included a pre-order button within tweets.
• She believes the mark of a successful campaign is public interaction. And Stewart cleared up something many marketers don’t realize: you only pay for the interactions that get served on your campaign. “The one fail-safe is that you don’t pay for it unless it works,” she said.
• When asked about the three-year plan for Twitter, Stewart said it’s about figuring out how to better reach people (and increase its user base even more).
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