Twitter Cards enable you to attach rich photos, videos and media experience to Tweets. Creating them is as easy as adding a few lines of HTML to your webpage. Users who Tweet links to your content will have a “Card” added to the Tweet that’s visible to all of their followers.
One of the attractions of Twitter Cards is that they provide control of how content is displayed with Tweets. This can be used to:
- Drive traffic to a website or online community
- Increase the number of people following a Twitter account through content attribution
- Promote E-commerce
Below is a great before and after from Harveys Furniture in the UK:
Twitter Cards come in eight formats so that you can match their capability and visuals to your business needs:
- Summary Card: Default Card, including a title, description, thumbnail, and Twitter account attribution.
- Summary Card with Large Image: Similar to a Summary Card, but with a prominently featured image.
- Photo Card: A Card with a photo only.
- Gallery Card: A Card highlighting a collection of four photos.
- App Card: A Card to detail a mobile app with direct download.
- Player Card: A Card to provide video/audio/media.
- Product Card: A Card optimized for product information.
In addition to displaying your content in a more engaging way, Cards also drive downloads and even link directly to your mobile applications. Twitter has also launched Analytics for Twitter Cards to help users determine how well their media rich tweets are performing on the network.
Twitter Cards are a first step towards facilitating purchases directly on Twitter – which opens a new sales channel for B2C brands. Twitter Cards have launched campaigns with: Delectable, Etsy, Flickr, Foursquare, Gumroad, Jawbone, Path, Rovio‘s Angry Birds, SoundCloud, Storenvy, Wine Library and Vine.
Only time and metrics will tell if Twitter Cards deliver on their promise and can unseat Facebook’s mobile app install ads, which already allow users to buy directly from Facebook via the ad.
Principal
Engaging your customers is at the heart of successful marketing programs. For more than 20 years, Cheryl has been building and executing content and thought leadership strategies designed to do just that. She is excited to be applying that well-honed skill to a help companies like Microsoft, Cisco, 3M, Intel, Capital One and Barclaycard tap into their stakeholder communities and build sophisticated content strategies.
Her experience base spans a range of industries – from technology and financial services to retail, travel, consumer products and healthcare. Cheryl has served as an integral member of her clients’ marketing teams, providing counsel on marketing and brand strategy, thought leadership, media relations, product introductions, and event management.
Prior to joining ComBlu, Cheryl spent 10 years leading corporate marketing for large, complex organizations.