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Want to Restrict the Age of Your Twitter Followers? This New Service Can Help [EXCLUSIVE]
A social marketing platform is launching a new feature for alcohol brands on Twitter to help them make sure their tweets are reaching an age-appropriate audience.
Vitrue — a
platform that helps companies such as American Express and McDonald’s
manage their social-media presences across sites such as Facebook,
Twitter and Google+ — will introduce “Twitter Gate” to screen and
control who has access to their promotional content. The move will also
restrict interactions and engagement on Twitter with age-appropriate
audiences.
Vitrue said it is currently in talks with several brands and expects
the feature to officially roll out for in the near future. In the
meantime, Vitrue set up a demo Twitter site for a fictional alcohol
brand called Brookstrut Brewery.
Here’s how it works. After attempting to follow the brand, Twitter
Gate sends a direct message to Twitter users: “We only allow people who
are of legal drinking age to follow us. Please click this link to
verify your age: pub.vitrue.com/val,” @BrookstrutAle said.
The experience is customizable and could include specific questions
such as “What is the date of your birth?” This method would check the
age of Twitter users before they are able to subscribe to its stream.
Designed for wine, beer and spirits brands that embrace a socially
responsible digital presence, the feature could be rolled out to other
industries in the future, the company said.
“Brands have a responsibility to make sure they take appropriate
measures to ensure the right age group and demographic is looking at
their content,” John Nolt, director of product management at Vitrue,
told Mashable. “This will allow brands to demonstrate their commitment to that effort.”
Should alcohol brands restrict underage Twitter users from following them on the site? Let us know in the comments.
Reference: http://mashable.com/2012/03/02/twitter-gate/
Reviewed by Anonymous
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Friday, March 02, 2012
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