• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, April 2, 2012

Briabe Mobile is putting a new twist on the use of Twitter in advertising to boost interaction. The company’s “Tweet-Off” platform allows end users to engage in campaign-themed trivia contests, games and surveys via the microblogging service within a customized mobile site.

The software utilizes Twitter’s open API (application programming interface) to create a branded “Tweet Wall” that aggregates tweets related to a given campaign. The idea is to harness the popularity of Twitter on mobile devices but within an environment that gives advertisers more control over promoted content than in a typical Twitter timeline.

“This allows the advertiser to think about Twitter in a different way. Now, it's part of an overall experience that’s unique to a brand,” said James Briggs, CEO of Briabe Mobile, which specializes in mobile marketing to African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American audiences.

Pew Research Center findings suggest that blacks and Hispanics are overrepresented on Twitter. For example, 25% of adult African-Americans who use the Internet are on Twitter, as well as 19% of Hispanic Americans, compared with only 9% of whites.

In that vein, Home Depot recently leveraged the Tweet-Off tool to help reach African-American students as part of a campaign for its “Retool Your School” program providing grants to the nation’s historically black colleges and universities for campus and facility upgrades.

Using the Tweet-Off platform, the chain created a branded mobile site that enables college students to vote for their favorite schools to receive grants, get more information about the program, and take part in a Tweet-Off. The competing messages in support of participating schools are posted to the Tweet Wall framed by Home Depot branding. (Tweets also appear in a user's own account timeline.)

The Twitter-based tool allows the retailer and other marketers to track data including the number of tweets sent and viewed, the number of visitors, engagement times, page views and actions taken on a page, and device and browser types used. A built-in monitoring system also allows companies to eliminate foul language and abusive tweets.

In addition to Home Depot, other Briabe clients that have tested the Tweet-Off system include Paramount Pictures, to help promote “The Devil Inside” to Hispanic audiences earlier this year. Briggs said he could not yet provide specific results from either of the campaigns, but suggested that the tool has helped to increase engagement among the target audiences.

Twitter itself has been expanding its mobile ad options lately. Most recently, the company began allowing advertisers to target campaigns specifically to iOS and Android users. In February, it announced that Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts would start appearing in the timelines, searches and suggested follows of its mobile apps.