How auto brands are using Twitter for marketing

Twitter, which drives massive socio-political conversations across the world, has emerged as a key social media platform during the Covid pandemic for promotional activities and virtual launches of India’s leading brands. Automobile companies are among those leveraging the popularity of the microblogging site among active audiences for their campaigns.

The brands use hashtags and top trends among others ways to reach out to their target audience in an efficient manner. Citing the Brandwatch research report, the microblogging site claims that Twitter India witnessed a total of 2.9M auto conversations in 2021 that included branded content, new launches, and contests.

Hyundai, Tata Motors, Mahindra, Volkswagen, and Honda Car India emerged as some of the leading auto brands that drove a sizable volume of conversations on the service. Meanwhile, the top branded hashtags that engaged the audience were #hyundaialcazar, #tatamotors, #hyundai, and #marutisuzuki.

Contests and giveaways paired with notable, culturally relevant celebratory events, amplified the volume of chatter among auto brands, the social media giant revealed. 

Twitter Next, the in-house brand strategy team at Twitter, helps brands with a phase-wise launch strategy and packages it with various advertising formats such as live brand studio, top trends, hashtags, and contests. 

The three main ways that brands have leveraged Twitter is through the power of video, branded emojis and staying culturally relevant, Kanika Mittal, Large Client Solutions (LCS) Lead, Twitter India told e4m.

Citing the launch of Mahindra’s XUV 700 with #HelloXUV700 and Morris Garages India’s  Astor with #TheAIAffair, Mittal says, “Brands have tapped live content and participated in virtual events with Twitter Live Brand Studio to maximize impact. Whether they’re producing their own content or extending their sponsorships, leveraging live video is imperative to encourage audience participation and inspire word-of-mouth that would otherwise happen physically.” 

Explaining various promotional strategies used by the auto sector, Mittal explained, “Cultural relevance is a core factor in how consumers evaluate auto brands, and how automakers can build cultural relevance by connecting to what's happening on Twitter real-time. For instance, MG Motors feed was abuzz with MG Womentorship, an initiative around International Women’s Day (March 8th). They announced the 50000th Hector rollout in the market by thanking the #WomenofMG who were instrumental in driving this success.”

On the other hand, Mahindra launched its own exclusive Live Brand Studio Page to unveil the XUV 700 through a live events page, the first for the Auto Category on Twitter in India. The live event saw over 20K views in the first 20 mins. The page got more than 6.6 lakh views so far. Similarly, MG Astor debuted on MG Motor live events page that saw close to 16K views in the first 15 mins of the event going live. The page got more than 11 lakh views in its launch last August. 

“With respect to luxury automotive, BMW used Emoji Engine, a service that is unique to Twitter for their 2 Series Gran Coupé  launch to power unique auto-reply content and drive superlative engagement to the tune of ~ 50+% higher than industry benchmark”, Mittal says. 

Ad-on Products

Twitter also offers a range of customisable ad products such as First View and Promoted Trend Spotlight. Trend Takeover is a 24-hour premium property, which when added to campaigns, generates impact throughout the funnel with much more effective message association, increase in trend engagement, and effective favorability metrics.

Besides, conversation buttons, branded notifications, polls are some of the products from Twitter’s ad-suite that help brands start engaging conversations. 

ArtHouse

Brands also leverage the power of Creators. For Twitter, the differentiation comes through ArtHouse. 

“ArtHouse empowers and assists brands in creating and optimizing Twitter-first content. ArtHouse is all about the power of creatives in marketing communications, connecting brands to influencers, artists and producers to create content that moves people. The impact of creative assets in delivering successful campaigns has been proven time and again, and ArtHouse’s purpose is to enable brands to drive this impact with content that leaves an enduring impression,” Mittal says.