A new tool, offered through Twitter’s API, allows marketers to send targeted tweets to specific geographic locations. For example, a brand could send a tweet to followers in the United States and a separate tweet to users in Japan from the same account. The tweets will not show up to followers in the brand’s Twitter timeline unless those followers reside in the country targeted.

This capability makes it possible for brands to consolidate their Twitter accounts, eliminating the need for different accounts for various countries or languages. It also lets brand target messages more directly to consumers by sending offers or promotions to followers in a specific region or create customized content for a specific country.

With roughly 77% of Twitter’s monthly active users located outside of the U.S., the ability for brands to connect with international users will be key to helping Twitter continually grow its advertising revenue moving forward.

The ability to geo-target messages is available to partners with access to Twitter’s Ads API, which was updated a few weeks ago. London-based TBG, a social media ad management company, first rolled out a country-specific tweeting tool on Oct. 4, although its customers aren’t utilizing the feature yet, according to a spokesperson.

Last week, Austin-based Spredfast, which offers tools that allow clients to better manage multiple social media accounts, became the first U.S.-based company to offer geo-targeted tweets.

“We think this is just the start,” said Jim Rudden, CMO of Spredfast. “The whole focus is on, ‘How do we get relevance in the news feed?’ The more targeted you can get, the better.”

For brands, the benefit is minimizing the number of social accounts to manage, creating a more direct funnel for consumer feedback. Brands would no longer need to manage or monitor regional Twitter handles; all messaging would come from the same account, so all feedback, comments or complaints would be directed to the same place.

However, compacting a brand’s Twitter handles also means consolidating a brand’s current followers and convincing users to follow a different Twitter handle (the brand’s main one).

TBG hopes brands will be willing to look past this issue, even if the process of shifting to a single account takes six months to a year.

“[One handle] is more efficient and it makes it easier for users to find you,” said Ian Cassidy, TBG’s executive creative director, in a statement to Mashable. “It also means that brands that have a global Twitter account can test localized, more specific messaging in different countries, which should increase engagement.”

As brands start to test out this new technology in the coming months, we’ll find out exactly how specific those messages can get.

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Image: Mashable composite; Flickr, Kevin M. Gill

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Airtel Digital TV, an arm of Indian telecommunications company Bharti Airtel, revealed Monday that it has integrated Twitter with its digital TV offerings for the first time. With this new form of convergence, users can actually tweet while watching TV and can view tweets related to their TV shows as well. It launches Tuesday at no extra charge to subscribers.

Jana Messerschmidt, Twitter’s VP of business development and platforms, said, “We are excited to see partners like Airtel innovating with our platform and helping their audience connect with the TV programs they love.”

Airtel’s Twitter know-how actually comes from Bangalore-based startup Brizz TV, which works in the areas of TV technology and is powering this new service for Airtel Digital TV. To start watching-and-tweeting, subscribers just have to click their remote’s green button. Initially, the service will be available on select TV channels, but more will be added.

Airtel Digital TV has 373 channels including 17 high definition and five interactive channels. It claimed to have 8.5 million subscribers at the end of June 2013.

Although Airtel hasn’t disclosed the business model of this partnership with Twitter, it’s fairly safe to assume that the telco will stream targeted Twitter ads and marketing promotions to its TV subscribers. Airtel could also use this to better promote its other Internet services. Since the voice and SMS business is no longer the prime revenue generator in India, it is forcing telcos to innovate and develop new ways to get income.

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Image: Scott Beale

The post Twitter Arrives on TV in India appeared first on Digitrock.