In this episode of Character Count we talk with Jay Maldonado, a Senior Marketing Manager at @Mailchimp. Tune in as we discuss "lean in" and "lean back" content, the power of GIFs, and the ways Mailchimp uses Twitter to connect with customers and raise awareness.

Here are some helpful links while you listen:
Mailchimp Presents homepage
"Second Act" series
Mailchimp GIPHY library
GIF Tweet example

For more inspiration on varying your Tweet formats:
4 engaging Twitter Poll ideas for businesses
How to use Twitter Lists

For more, visit business.twitter.com (we especially recommend the Twitter Business blog) and follow us at @TwitterBusiness.

In this episode of Character Count, we sit down with Phil McEleney, Paid Marketing Manager for @TideBusiness, to hear how the B2B FinTech company learned to thrive on Twitter. 

As you listen, here are some links that may be helpful:

For more on A/B testing:
How and why to A/B test your Twitter Ads

For additional B2B inspiration:
5 creative ways B2B brands connect with audiences on Twitter

Phil’s “must follow” FinTech accounts:
@t_blom
@AnneBoden
@GeorgeBevis

For more from Tide:
Tide official website
Follow @Phil_McEleney on Twitter

This episode’s hot take: how do you make B2B compelling or interesting? Which B2B businesses are doing it right? Chime in here!

For more, visit business.twitter.com (we especially recommend the Twitter Business blog) and follow us at @TwitterBusiness.

Tune in as Heidi Browning, the CMO of the NHL, describes how she evolved the @NHL social strategy, created a network of content creators, and is bringing the game to new fans (with a little help from Snoop Dogg and Chance the Rapper).

As you listen along, here are some helpful links:

Chance the Rapper SNL skit
Chance the Rapper reprise
Snoop Dogg explains hockey slang
Snoop Dogg explains the Stanley Cup
@NHLGIFs account
The creator behind @NHLGIFs
Black Girl Hockey Club #BGHC
#LetsDoThatHockey
Follow Heidi on Twitter!

For more on Twitter moments, check out these links:

Everything you need to know about Twitter Moments
How to create a Twitter Moment

This episode’s hot take: What is the #1 metric that you look for in a Tweet? Impressions? Clicks? Likes? Retweets? Chime in here!

For more, visit business.twitter.com (we especially recommend the Twitter Business blog) and follow us at @TwitterBusiness.

In this episode, we learn about the ways Wizards of the Coast (the company behind Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: the Gathering) uses Twitter to add a digital layer to their classic games. 

Listen as Greg Tito, Senior Communications Manager for Dungeons and Dragons, shares the exciting ways the company uses things like automation, localized ads, and an authentic voice to evolve their legacy brand on Twitter.

As you listen, here are some helpful links ––

Twitter accounts mentioned:

@Wizards_DnD
@Wizards_magic
@MTG_Arena

Referenced Tweets:

Blame the gnomes!
Madam Eva reads your fortune
Character generator     

The listening tool Bianca references:

TweetDeck official site

In case you missed it! Hear more from this episode’s guest, Bianca Posterli:

Mini episode: Q&A with Bianca (Apple Podcasts)
Mini episode: Q&A with Bianca (Google Play)

For more, visit business.twitter.com (we especially recommend the Twitter Business Blog)  and follow us at @TwitterBusiness

In this episode, we sit down with Bianca Posterli, Head of Social Marketing and Campaigns at Twitter. As a strategist for many of Twitter’s own Twitter accounts, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who knows more about what ‘works’ on the platform (and what it means for brands).

Tune in as we discuss popular questions like “how spicy can a brand be on Twitter?” and “what should you do if a Tweet flops?” while getting practical tips for everyday Tweeting.

As you listen, here are some links to help you follow along:

"Hamburger Twitter" example 1
"Hamburger Twitter" example 2
Tweetdeck site
@TwitterMusic announcing Taylor Swift's new album
@TwitterTV teams up with GOT

This episode’s hot take: What brands would you nominate as being the BEST of the best on Twitter? 

For more, visit business.twitter.com (we especially recommend the Twitter Business Blog)  and follow us at @TwitterBusiness

What’s your favorite broadway show? There’s a good chance @SpotNYC is or was the ad agency behind it. (We even found this Tweet from Lin Manuel Miranda crediting them with designing the iconic Hamilton logo. What?!)

In this episode of Character Count, we sit down with Kyle Fox, SpotCo’s Associate Director of Media, to hear how the full-service ad agency brings Broadway’s biggest shows to life on Twitter.

As you listen, here are some links to follow along:

Behind-the-scenes content (Hamilton)
Meme content (Mean Girls)
That GoPro video of a quick wardrobe change
The "Ring of Keys" fan video

To learn more about what we covered with our Twitter Ads expert, Sam Hawks, visit:

Promoted Tweets
Website Cards
Promoted-only (Dark) Tweets
Tips for effective Tweet copy
Tips for video on Twitter

This episode’s hot take: What piece of jargon makes you immediately scroll past? Reply with your answer here.

Recent years have bare witness to the uprising of cause marketing — that is, brands aligning themselves with a cause or mission to give back. If you’ve seen phrases like “20% of all proceeds go to X” or “For every dollar spent, we donate a dollar to Y” then you’re already familiar.

But how, as a brand, do you know what cause to align with? And how do you position your efforts in a way that respects the communities you aim to serve?

In this episode of Character Count, we sit down with Jessica McGlory, Director of Paid Social Media Marketing @BOMBAS, to learn how the company has become recognized as a best-in-class example of cause marketing.

As you listen, tap on these links to follow along:

@BOMBAS “Giving Directory”
The 10 million video
Twitter Ad from @BOMBAS Pride campaign
#GlossierIRL example

This episode's "hot take", reply to this Tweet from @TwitterBusiness.

Want to do your own research and social listening? Try Tweetdeck (it’s free!)
https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/

Follow @TwitterBusiness and visit business.twitter.com for more.

Tune in as we chat with @LindsaykBruce, the Social Media Coordinator for @TwitterBusiness.

We talk about:

Social listening:
"[I use] Twitter and Tweetdeck. Every morning I just, within Twitter, natively, read all of our notifications and then I'll go into Tweetdeck to monitor conversations around us when people aren't necessarily mentioning us, and just larger industry conversations."

The perfect length to run a Twitter Poll:
"Two days, and after the first day re-share it again and remind people there's time left."

...and a time she had to (cringe) Tweet-and-delete.
"One time I Tweeted an image and I noticed immediately that there was like a typo on it, and that's when I learned: when you're creating images with text, take all the text copy and put it in any sort of word doc — something with spell check —and make sure that everything is correct, because some of the image programs won't do it."

Tune in to the full episode for more, including discussions on scheduled vs. live Tweets, tools for creating video content, and the phrase of marketing jargon Lindsay will never Tweet from @TwitterBusiness.  

Curious about the Tweets mentioned? Check out:

The Tweet that was “criminally under-faved”

The Tweet that went surprisingly well

The Tweet with the pun

That first, terrifying Periscope

When it comes to ad targeting and testing, @TeamKano's ingenuity is best in class. The London-based company targets different audiences, with different messaging, at different times, to optimize sales of their DIY computer kits. And because those techniques are so valuable — we had to have Chiara Radini, Performance Marketing Manager at Kano, on our newest episode of Character Count.

Launched in 2013, @TeamKano aims to empower the next generation of coders and makers by “demystifying what's inside these boxes that we carry in our pockets and we type on the whole day.” The first step: reaching the next generation.

Here are six pro-tips we learned from @TeamKano about connecting with your target audiences. (Yes, plural.)

Segment, then segment again
In the case of the above wand, one might be tempted to target fans of the franchise and leave it at that. Simple, right? @TeamKano takes it a step (or five) further:

“There are so many different layers of it…people who have only watched the movies and people that only love the books and people [who] love Snape and would like to definitely belong to a Slytherin house…. It's a hard balance to strike – granularity versus like reach – but we try to be as efficient as possible by breaking down and testing and learning how each sub-community responds.”

One discount, many ways
Let’s say you’re giving customers $20 off a $100 item. Does “$20 off” or “20% off” sound better? What about timing? Does urgent language like “this week only!” affect conversions? These are the kinds of things Kano explores:

“We've been testing percentages. We've been testing currency amounts. We tested the language of VIP discounts. For example, there was an amazing campaign...one of our best-performing Twitter ads... appealing to our core loyalty audiences, and we were rewarding them with a very, very specific discount code.”

Test, test
“You can't test a different image, a different copy, and a different call to action, all in the same space. So we would try and test a percentage off versus an amount. Or a free delivery message against an urgency message.... We gather the learnings and then we apply one and we iterate it and our new variables just to find the sweet spot."

KPIs vary
There is no shortage of metrics available in digital marketing, and it can be hard to know which ones – or really, which one – is most important.

One helpful thing to keep in mind: KPIs vary. Your team may have one central KPI, but your campaigns may have different ones, supporting different stages of the buyer's journey:

“For a convert, for a direct response ad, [the KPI] could be conversion or purchase. For a top of the funnel ad, it could be click-through rate and engagement rate with the art without necessarily resulting in an immediate purchase."

Keep things fresh
Twitter is all about being in the moment. You can leverage this by jumping into real-time conversations with new, topical content:

“It’s the most immediate and effective way to bring fresh content. And to drive big volumes of conversations, which are relevant, highly-engaged, and rich in terms of point-of-view and diversity of its content.”

Tune in to the full episode for more talk on finding your audience, your messaging, and (because we really do want that wand) your appropriate house of wizardry.

To keep up with future episodes, follow [@TwitterBusiness](http://) and be sure to hit "subscribe" on your platform of choice.

In an age of influencer marketing — a strategy of showcasing your most loyal fans — popular queer dating app @Grindr defied the norm and did the opposite. They selected real users from the communities most discriminated against on their app and gave them a soapbox. Literally.

Join us as we talk with Matt Brooks, the Social Media Manager who worked on @Grindr’s Kindr campaign, about how their small, scrappy team created such an impactful campaign.

Follow along with the moments mentioned in the episode with these links:

• “thank u, next” from Grindr
• What is Kindr?
• Kindr campaign Tweet

Also, learn more from Elaine Jones, a Customer Success Specialist at Twitter. Use these helpful links to dive deeper into the topics she talks about:
Website Cards
Video Website Cards
Promoted Tweets
Website clicks or conversions campaign

Tune in to the full episode for more on the power of letting your users speak, what it means for a brand to take risks, and why video can be a brand’s best friend.

@SimonBooks was literally founded before the internet — before computers even — which is why it’s particularly impressive that the legacy brand has been able to seamlessly find its audience (hello, book Twitter) in the digital world.

In this episode of Character Count, we sit down with Stephen Bedford, the Director of Marketing for @SimonBooks, to talk about how the company found their place.

As you listen, here are some links to help you follow along:

• Example of visual promotional Tweets
• That #GrittyABook meme
• Podcast born from a Direct Message

We’ll also sit down with Twitter Ads expert Giselle Diaz, to get her top Twitter tips. To learn more about the topics we cover, check out these resources:

• Website Cards
• Twitter Video
• Promoted-only Tweets
• Mobile App Promotion
• Promoted Accounts

Listen to the full episode for tips on finding your corner of Twitter (and the Direct Message etiquette to use when you do).