It is now official, Twitter Canada is open for business, and last night Kirstine Stewart and her “flock” (that’s what Twitter employees are called) hosted the launch event where they invited advertisers, marketers and various media outlets. We first broke the story that Twitter was looking to set up an office in Canada back in March, and then a few weeks later hired Kirstine Stewart to head up Canada, and since then has made a few hires such as Ivan Pehar, Vicki Laszlo, and a few other folks will be announced shortly.
Kirstine kicked off the event by showing how Twitter has evolved as a product since its inception and talking to the audience about some of the bigger deals that Twitter has done mainly in the US. She also touched on the two recent Canadian deals that the Twitter team as signed with Shaw Media and the Twitter Amplify program, as well the deal with Bell Media for research.
Next up was a moderated panel withBruce Neve, CEO Starcom MediaVest Canada + Jamie Edwards, CEO at Mediacom Canada sitting in to share some points on the opportunity they see from Twitter Canada:
- “Twitter is social glue”
- “Twitter helps amplify conversations”
- You have to create equity and value for consumers
- People create content around things such as events
- “If I get another LCB burger invite I’m turning off my Facebook”
Overall the room was excited to see Twitter arrive in Canada with a physical presence, of course by that we mean someone actually located in Canada to run Canada.