ABC is the last of the major U.S. broadcast networks to get into the Twitter Amplify program, with the Alphabet net teed up to launch its first sponsored-tweet campaign Sunday with the Oscars.
The partnership will kick off on Sunday, March 2, in conjunction with ABC’s telecast of the Academy Awards. The package will include 10 “Twitter mirror” photos from celebs in the green room at the Oscars, to capture behind-the-scenes moments before, during and after the Oscars.
The tweets, sponsored by Samsung Electronics, will originate from @TheAcademy — the official handle of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Those will be retweeted from ABC accounts and more broadly through the Twitter Amplify program. AMPAS staff will select the pics that are distributed.
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“These things take off on Twitter anyway — and here is a way to throw fuel on the fire with an advertiser attached,” said Karin Gilford, ABC’s senior VP of digital media.
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With ABC, Twitter Amplify now covers the big four broadcasters, after the social-media company inked pacts with NBC, CBS and Fox. Other media partners for the social-media program include ESPN, Turner Sports and the NBA, Viacom, BBC America, The Weather Channel, A+E Networks, Discovery Communications and Major League Baseball.
The Oscars is “one of the biggest social days of the year,” said Glenn Brown, senior director of Twitter Amplify. “It’s right in the sweet spot of Twitter: It combines a live event, interaction with top personalities and a major sponsor.”
The Grammy Awards also featured a Twitter mirror through which celeb snaps were tweeted. However, that was “organic,” according to Brown — in other words, there wasn’t a sponsor attached to it.
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As for why ABC and Samsung settled on 10 tweets — as opposed to more — Gilford said the focus was on “quality, not quantity.”
Gilford said that ABC expects to conduct more Twitter Amplify campaigns in the near future. “We think this is really the first step,” she said. “We are looking at other big events, and we have season finales coming,” she said, calling out primetime hit “Scandal,” which performs well on social media.
