Day 8: 9 January 2020
App: Twitter
Ad: Various
Targeted: No?
I took a day off yesterday but I'm back and ready to see what Twitter has to offer. I see sponsored tweets mixed in with my timeline and I've interacted with them only to vote if there's a poll, but I don't think I've ever clicked on a Twitter ad.
The first sponsored tweet on my timeline always comes immediately after the most recent tweet (i.e. it's the second tweet on my feed) and right now it's for HSBC UK. Their tweet is a video ad about inclusiveness and home - obviously trying to show themselves as being pro-immigration and togetherness with the slogan "we are not an island". It's bold to be advertising that on Twitter where people have so many arguments about Brexit but I admire it. The replies are mostly people insulting the bank and being pro-Brexit, mixed with some pro-Brexit parody and a few people calling out racism. A mixed response, then. Even though I liked the ad, switching my bank account to a company who don't have a branch nearby just for the purposes of a personal experiment seems like a big effort, so lets move on.
The next tweet on my timeline isn't an ad but it is promotional. It's from Buzzfeed Quiz, who I'm a little ashamed to say I follow. Buzzfeed quizzes are another of my guilty pleasures - even though the results are meaningless, I like answering the questions. My favourites are the ones where you 'build a playlist' from the list of songs they offer in the questions, but sometimes I do the polls and the 'would you rathers' and the general knowledge and star sign ones if I'm bored.
The one they've just tweeted about is called "Which member of these K-Pop groups has the best vocals?". I do not listen to K-Pop at all and while I could name a handful of groups, I couldn't name a single member of a K-Pop group. I considered listening to some K-Pop and making an informed judgement so I could take part in these polls but you guys, there are 12 questions and so many members in most K-Pop bands that it would take me days to listen to them all and come to a conclusion. If you're a K-Pop fan the quiz can be found here but I simply cannot commit the time to this on a work day!
I don't feel great about looking at 2 different promotional tweets and not actually trying either of them but I'm going to consider this to be a bit of an education about Twitter content. When I register sponsored tweets as being such it's usually because they're surreal (not as surreal as Tumblr though, more on those when I do a Tumblr day), so it was interesting to see a real trusted company putting themselves on everyone's timelines and opening themselves up to abuse like that. I don't think the HSBC ad was targeted; I tweet about being left-wing and in favour of as much unity between nations as possible, so they've mirrored my political opinion, but the replies to the tweet suggest that it was also seen by people who do not share my views.
The Buzzfeed Quiz tweet, by its nature, can't be targeted, aside from the fact it tweets the content I followed it for. It's a shame that in this case it was promoting a quiz that I'm not qualified to take part in, but I'm sure I'll get to indulge in my Buzzfeed Quiz pleasure with my readers sometime!
R x
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