Despite the increasing doubts about the social media sector in the wake of Facebook’s shaky IPO, more companies are turning towards using Twitter’s hashtag in their marketing campaigns to make advertisements more “personal” to viewers. For example, one short NASCAR ad showed driver Brad Keselowski in his car taking a photo of something with a tagline “see what he sees”, encouraging the viewers find out for themselves by visiting Twitter.com/#Nascar. Using hashtags in advertisements allows the public to get involved and discover people who share the same idea about the product.
This merging of television and social media has left us wondering about the next hybrid form of advertisement. Using only one form of communication to grab the attention of the audience is no longer the norm. Integration of traditional and instant media? It’s something that we can look forward to.
Twitter, officially, is “a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news.” Even the name itself is self-explanatory; “twitter” is defined as short burst of information or birds chirping. Once a small social-networking site in San Francisco, Twitter has become one of the largest competitors in the media industry. Launched in 2006, Twitter currently has 140 million active users that collectively push 400 million Tweets a day.
