Fast Twitch Media is exactly what it sounds like: media that is reactive, quick and available in bite-size chunks. The problem with Fast Twitch Media (and the opportunity) is with the twitch. A twitch often results in a transfer from one media moment or type to another. When I’m reading an article on All Things D about Shazam, and click on the link in the middle of the article it takes me to a demo on YouTube, drawing me away from the article itself. A twitch. As the publisher of All Things D, I may have lost the reader because the YouTube demo might twitch me elsewhere.
A key goal in marketing and advertising is reducing the space between consumer and a transaction. Temporally, spatially, emotionally. Not soft metric stuff, hard metric stuff. Take the air out of the space between the consumer and the purchase and you win.
What’s exciting about today is that there are many ways to do this, thanks to mobile and the web. What’s scary about today is that there are many ways to do this, thanks to mobile and the web. Enter Twitch Point Planning — the ability to map and manipulate fast twitch media and behavior to your product’s advantage. Many are already doing it, but not by design.
Shazam, the app that lets your phone listen to an unknown song and identify it for you, is very cool. And useful. The ability then for Shazam to sell you that song in a click or two is an example of reducing the space between consumer and transaction. A Twitch Point gone right.
Go forth and Twitch my people. Peace.
PS. Thanks to Chris Kramer and Netx for the Shazam article.