EP28 - Twitter is the Conversation Layer of the Internet with Paul Burns

Paul Burns is the Managing Director of Twitter Canada. Did you know that 1 in 5 North Americans use Twitter and 500 Million tweets are sent every single day? It is a platform with scale and is designed to generate conversation. As Paul states, "Twitter is look at THIS platform. It's pointing to a thing, an event, something that's happening in the world and people are talking about that thing rather than themselves." Other social platforms are designed as look at me, but not Twitter.

As brands try to figure out how to engage in the platform, the first step is for them to identify the conversations that they want to be made aware of before engaging. It is important to know that the conversational intelligence within Twitter exists on a few different dimensions, one at a brand level, one at an industry level and one at a more macro economic level. If done right, Twitter is a platform where a brand can actually become a conversational brand. 

Listen in as Paul and I discuss this opportunity to become a conversation brand, along with some other key topics, including;

• Can purpose and profit co-exist, can Twitter be a platform that actually improves the quality of public conversation in the world and generate revenue and profit?
• How can a brand become a conversational brand authentically?
• Do we honestly believe that conversation is the way to solve many of the world's problems?

Oh, and if you want to take over Twitter for a day, they have some pretty cool advertising products that allow you to essentially become the most talked about brand in the country for a day.