Sunday, November 24, 2013

Targeted coupons and promotions for Twitter users

With Twitter comes an eco-system of apps designed to help companies analyze their customer engagement and target their customers better. One of them, HipLogiq, a data-mining startup, announced this week that it has raised 7 million in funding.  HipLogiq allows companies to send coupons or promotional discounts to Twitter users that have been targeted by keywords and location.

By purchasing raw Twitter data, and then analyzing it to see which users have just tweeted that they are in need of some caffeine, HipLogiq can allow companies like Dunkin Donuts to tweet these users a coupon for coffee in their stores. While the majority of HipLogiq’s customers are small to medium sized businesses, it also has some 15 big brands, including Dunkin Donuts, 7-Eleven and Papa John’s. 


While this could be a useful service for Twitter users, since Twitter is often used to express immediate needs and wants, one wonders how intrusive and crowded it might become as more advertisers use services like HopLogiq to target their customers.  Still, given that Twitter users are more likely than other social media users to want to learn about products and services, HipLogiq is poised to grow for a while.

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