LOS ANGELES — At a time when publishers’ spoils from relying on social platforms for distribution are coming under scrutiny, the man responsible for brokering Twitter’s deals with news organizations says the busy current news environment makes the platform perfect for publishers and advertisers alike,
In its last-published quarter, Q4 2016, Twitter made $638mn from advertising, slightly less than the same quarter a year earlier, as ad sales in its native USA dipped slightly, pushing it to a quarterly net loss of $167mn. Meanwhile, publishers are reportedly turning bearish toward rival Facebook Instant Articles.
But, with news from the White House and overseas proving a big hit, Twitter’s global news content partnerships director Peter Greenberger says his platform can prove valuable.
“Twitter has never been more influential or more relevant,” Greenberger tells Beet.TV in this video interview.
“Every day, the story of the day that leads in the newspaper, online and television is very often based on what the president tweeted or how people responded to that tweet. Only on Twitter are you able to instantly find out what’s going on in the world. The world turns to Twitter first to see what’s going on.”
Asked whether bad news stories might dissuade brands from buying ads in Twitter, Greenberger, who succeeded former Twitter news head Adam Sharp, said: “This isn’t new. Monetising straight news and breaking news and controversial or uncertain news has always been difficult, long before Twitter – that’s why the newspaper has a travel section and a lifestyle section.
“Similarly on Twitter, there are opportunities to monetise other types of news, whether that is tech news or financial news, entertainment news, sports news. There are many types of news content that are more acceptable to advertisers. In some cases, brands are happy to be associated with any type of content, whether that’s political or breaking news.”
Greenberger has Bloomberg airing three hours a day of its live TV channel on Twitter.
This video is part of series produced in Los Angeles at the 4A’s Transformation ’17. The series is sponsored by Extreme Reach. For more videos from the conference, please visit this page.
