https://twitterflightschool.com
Twitter Flight School? What is it? Twitter launched Twitter Flight School, a free online education program, in 2014 “to help agencies learn how to build buzz, launch products, drive sales, and instantly connect with a highly engaged audience on Twitter.” In 2016, Flight School is now available to advertisers around the world in 16 languages despite their affiliation with an agency.
Eager to see what it was all about, I decided to enroll in classes. The first step was to choose a flight path: Buying & Execution, Account Leadership, Executive Leadership or Planning & Strategy. For my first set of lessons, I chose the “Planning & Strategy” flight path.
Lesson 1: Twitter 101
Twitter Connects You to the World: The motivationally moving look into what can be achieved through using Twitter is set up in a continuous scrolling lesson format. The “lesson” depicts a community of people tweeting about like interests and includes a high-energy video compilation of tweets during the World Cup. Finally, Twitter 101 explains what Twitter is, how the timeline works and the mechanics and anatomy of a tweet. The fundamental understanding of the way Twitter works segues into how people use Twitter to connect to brands.
People Connect to Brands on Twitter: The social media platform uses tweets and videos from brands like General Electric and Paige Denim to emphasize the idea that brands can connect to their audiences through Twitter by making their messages engaging and novel. One way that this is highlighted is through the use of video, specifically native to Twitter itself. Finally, Twitter breaks down the importance of online research for marketers on twitter into a sleek and simple bar graph that indicates stronger customer intent to buy based on their emotional response to brand messaging.
Twitter Drives Business Results: Research has shown that people want to find out about new products and brands on Twitter, showing that 64 percent of people on Twitter report having purchased a product, and 57 percent of people report having used Twitter to choose what stores to visit. This section of the Twitter 101 lesson features various case study snippets in which Twitter drove higher business results for brands, including Samsung, Audi and Budweiser. These results were shown to strengthen message association, expose brand favorability and lift, produce direct action and show advocacy of followers for the brands the love.
Tweets from the Top: To wrap up the first lesson, Twitter Flight School includes a section of tweets from large brands that talk about why using Twitter for brand promotion has been key for their company’s success. (Hooray!)
Flight Check: Finally, the part of the lesson where Twitter sees just how much I was paying attention to the lesson. Three hypothetical questions are asked about how you would respond to people saying certain assumptions about a brand’s proper use of Twitter. My result: I passed, of course, by picking the most positively worded and jargon-filled options.
I passed Twitter 101 and it was a breeze, but then again I’ve been using the platform since its inception in 2006. So, perhaps this section of Flight School is better formulated for the Twitter novice. I guess we’ll see next time as I fly through the next lesson: “Ultimate Guide to Content Planning”.
Goodbye little league, here I come MLB.