Twitter introduced Cards this summer,
enabling media publishers to include quick synopses and article photos in
tweets, and allowing the rest of us to view linked pictures and videos without
leaving Twitter at all.
But that experience just gained a lot more
potential on Monday with the added ability to include interactive images
powered by ThingLink in tweets.
If you’re not familiar, ThingLink enables
users — you, me, big national brands — to spruce up images with several links
to other pieces of digital content. Icons pop up when users hover over the
image then, with a click, open up YouTube channels, audio clips, Facebook or
Pinterest profiles, home pages, contact forms or anything else you would
normally be able to link to the old-fashioned way. Check out this tweet by
country music artist Joy Collins for a hands-on example.
That ability to include one jumping off
point for a range of online destinations from Twitter itself has the potential
to be pretty huge, especially for brands and marketers.
Let’s use an NBA team, for example. Teams
frequently share photos on Twitter. But imagine if a rich, stunning image from
last night’s game included a link to a box score from the game and another to a
YouTube video of top plays. Then imagine that it also included links to social
accounts on Facebook, Pinterest and other networks. Finally, imagine that same
photo including links to the team’s apparel store and a page to buy tickets for
the next home game.
That single photo, in essence, just became
a platform of its own.
Traditional images, video and other content
certainly won’t fade away, but don’t be surprised to see ThingLink images
become a mainstay on Twitter as brands begin to experiment and get more
comfortable with the options it provides.
What kind of potential (or lack thereof) do
you think ThingLink has with Twitter? Give us your take in the comments.
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