SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter as reflex action
Two months ago, Twitter hired Danny Keens to head up its sports department as the company’s North American head of sports partnerships. In his first public comments since taking the job, Keens spoke to me this month about the social media company’s plans. Here is an edited transcript from part of our talk:
■
Why is video so important to Twitter?
KEENS:
I want Twitter to be the reflex action for all youth today. When LeBron hits the buzzer beater over the weekend, and people want to see it again, they should be thinking Twitter first. We need to constantly think of ways that we can enable our partners to do that first on Twitter.
■ How does that affect Twitter’s network relationships?
KEENS: Twitter has to continue to be a complement to the sports business, not a disrupter. The future of sport is all about who creates the best opportunities to utilize real fan engagement and scale. That’s what we do. But we can’t ever be in a position where we’re competing with partners. We need to always be side-by-side with them, showing them how we can get them more distribution, how we can find them untapped revenue streams and how we can find them untapped audiences.
■ How would you describe Twitter’s video push?
KEENS: I rarely hear people compare Twitter to YouTube. It frustrates me a little bit because one of the things that is incredible about the YouTube platform is that you can consume YouTube content without a YouTube account. When you think about Twitter, it’s exactly the same. The distribution of the content the partners are publishing on the platform is syndicated. You’re not necessarily logged in like a core Twitter user. But you’re consuming that content. There are ways to continue to innovate in that space to find better ways to get content off Twitter and into other parts of the digital space — and even the old media.
