SOCIAL networking service Twitter already has more than two million Australian users. However, compared to the 140 million users worldwide, and 10 million active users in the UK, it is a small drop in the ocean.
This week Twitter will unveil its first Australian headquarters in Sydney, in a move intended to grow its pool of Australian users and increase advertising revenue. Twitter has been steadily increasing their presence in Australia since late 2012 with high-profile partnerships with several sporting codes and media organisations.
It recently started offering its “promoted products” facility to businesses in Australia. Advertisers pay to have promoted tweets pushed into users’ timelines, promoted accounts included in “who to follow” recommendations and “promoted trends” appearing on the popular topics list.
“We think there’s growth opportunities across every aspect of what we do across Australia,” said Shailesh Rao, Twitter’s vice-president of Asia-Pacific, Latin America and emerging markets told The Australian.
“We’re … focused on trying to spur deeper engagement and more usage on the user side as well as on working with agencies and brands to help them get the most value out of Twitter as a platform where their brands can participate in those conversations.”
Former Google Asia-Pacific executive Karen Stocks has been appointed as managing director. Staff have been working from the Sydney CDB headquarters for several weeks ahead of its formal launch.
It follows in the wake of several other high profile social media tech companies, including Google and Facebook, who have recently increased their Australian presence. Facebook opened local offices in 2011, and Google has corporate offices in Sydney.