Who among us hasn’t felt overwhelmed while searching through Twitter for something – news of an event, maybe, or views on a certain topic? By the time you scroll through the first 20 tweets on your screen, 10 “New Tweets” appear. It’s truly neverending.
Twitter’s content overload isn’t going away. Around 9,000 tweets are sent every single second, which means there are about 58 million tweets, on average, each day.
So how does your brand break through the noise? There are a few ways – Promoted Tweets, Pinned Tweets, Twitter ads, partnerships with influencers – but in this post, we’re going to focus on Twitter Moments.
What are Twitter Moments?
Even if you’re an avid Twitter user, you may not be that familiar with Twitter Moments.
A Twitter Moment is a selection of tweets, curated by a particular user, on a single topic or event. You can find them by clicking on “Moments” in the top left-hand side of Twitter’s menu bar, right next to Home.
Click on that lightning bolt, and you’ll see the Moments posted today. There are various categories, too, for Sports, Entertainment, News, and Fun.
Once you click on a particular Moment, you’ll see a collection of tweets relating to the topic – like this one on Bon Appetit’s bizarrely-named hand salad “recipe.”
As you can see, Twitter Moments are a good way to bring together some of the best tweets on one topic, whether you’re talking about hand salad or the latest news out of the White House – like this Moment that Zen Media was a part of, when our client Dippin’ Dots asked for our help in responding to Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s tweets about their brand. (To read more about the insane amount of publicity we brought Dippin’ Dots with our response, check out this infographic!)
Twitter Moments also solve the problem with curating on Twitter. Sure, users can create Twitter Lists to curate a collection of other users who focus on particular topics or industries, but there wasn’t much you could do to curate particular tweets before Moments.
And since content curation is becoming just as important as content creation, you could argue that Twitter simply had to jump on the curation bandwagon at some point.
Creating a Twitter Moment
When Twitter Moments first rolled out back in 2015, only select editorial partners – BuzzFeed, the New York Times, and others – were able to create Moments.
In 2016, however, the social media platform decided to give every user the ability to create Moments – and it’s really easy to do.
After you click the Moments tab, you’ll see “Create New Moment” on the righthand side.
After you click on it, you’ll be taken to a page where you title your Moment and select the tweets to include. You can search tweets, sort them in different ways, select ones you’ve recently tweeted, liked, or retweeted, etc.
Once you’ve added them, select either “Finish Later” to save it as a draft, or “Publish” to publish to Twitter now.
How can brands use Twitter Moments?
So what about brands? How can brands use Twitter Moments to better connect with their followers and amplify their message?
There are a few great uses for Twitter Moments.
Cover an event.
Brands that regularly host live or even online events know that Twitter can be an excellent way to provide up-to-the-minute coverage.
The same is true of Twitter Moments. Before your event begins, you can create a Moment pulling together the best buzz about it from people who are attending as well as those who want to attend. Use your own tweets with pictures of the event space being set up, shots of speakers or celebrity guests, sneak peeks of the menu – the sky’s the limit.
After your event is over, you can create a different Moment showcasing the best tweets from the event itself. Make sure you include plenty from attendees, and not just from your brand account and/or employee accounts. Images and videos, of course, will really improve engagement.
Showcase influencer relationships – subtly.
Nobody likes a show-off, but you can certainly emphasize your brand’s influencer relationships with a Twitter Moment – as long as you do so in a natural, authentic manner.
One way to do so is to include a prominent influencer tweet about your brand in a Moment. Make sure that the influencer’s tweet is on-topic and relevant, and don’t go too crazy. One or two influencer tweets will be plenty.
Showcase a tweetstorm more effectively.
Tweetstorms, or a series of related tweets that are published in quick succession, are perfect candidates for a Twitter Moment.
If you’ve got a campaign that involves a tweetstorm, you can increase its reach by not only tweeting but collecting all of those tweets into one Twitter Moment.
For example, you could tell your brand’s story in a Moment, or disseminate important information about an event, product, service, or new company development.
Repurpose old content.
We’re huge proponents of getting the most mileage out of the content you produce. After all, it takes a lot of time and effort to write solid blog posts, create informative webinars, and produce awesome videos.
You can increase your content’s reach by creating a Twitter Moment around the topic of your blog post, webinar, video, or infographic is about.
For example, if we were going to create a Moment around our blog post on virtual reality in marketing, we’d include this tweet, where we shared the original post:
Then we could curate several of the best tweets about using virtual reality in marketing. We’d include ones from peer agencies we admire, marketing industry influencers, virtual reality enthusiasts, and brands that are using VR effectively.
After publishing our Moment, we’d tweet it (obvi), and share the link across our other social media profiles.
This also works for old tweets, not just old content. Timing can be your best friend or your worst enemy on Twitter. You could spend hours crafting the perfect tweet to announce a new product, and Twitter could suddenly erupt with breaking news that eclipses it completely.
What better way to recycle that worthy but unappreciated tweet than with a Twitter Moment? If your product launched a while ago, create a Moment showcasing its history as seen on Twitter. Or you could curate the best tweets surrounding your product, including one by an influencer or two.
Twitter Moments are underutilized by many brands, which means that yours may have a better chance of standing out. For more on making the most out of Twitter, read our post “3 Twitter Marketing Secrets the Pros Know.”
