• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 19, 2014

As part of a broader effort to help users, brands and publishers to connect more closely, Twitter has agreed to buy SnappyTV, which powers a popular platform for the live-clipping, editing and distribution of video across the Web.

The service is already a go-to for many of Twitter’s brand and media partners via its Amplify ad program, according to Baljeet Singh, director of product management at Twitter.

“Together, we’ve worked with the biggest content partners ... to inject ... video content into Twitter’s real-time conversation, straight from the TV to your mobile device,” Singh noted in a blog post published on Thursday.

Twitter plans to invest in SnappyTV as a stand-alone product, as well as further integrate the service into its own platform, Singh said.

Among other partners, the investment ties into Twitter's efforts to drive TV viewership -- an area in which the microblogging leader claims to specialize.

Adding to its ad offerings, Twitter recently agreed to buy Namo Media and pair their respective native advertising technology. The addition of Namo followed Twitter’s acquisiton of MoPub, last October. Soon after, the mobile ad exchange debuted a native ad product for mobile app publishers, which is intended to match the look and feel of an app’s surrounding content -- except for a “Sponsored” label.

Stateside, social media advertising revenues will grow from $5.1 billion in 2013 to $15 billion in 2018 -- representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24%, according to a recent forecast from BIA/Kelsey.

From 2013 through 2018, social display ad revenues are expected to grow from $3.3 billion to $5.6 billion, representing a more modest CAGR of 11.3%. During the same period, however, U.S. native social advertising will surge from $1.8 billion to $9.4 billion, representing a CAGR of 38.6%. As such, the research firm expects native social advertising to eclipse social display for the first time by 2015.

Most of the credit goes to Facebook’s News Feed ads and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, according to BIA/Kelsey. Driven by Facebook and Twitter, U.S. social mobile ad revenues eclipsed $1.5 billion in 2013. U.S. social mobile ad revenues will reach $7.6 billion by 2018, representing a CAGR of 38.3%.

Bigger picture, Twitter is exploring a number of ways to increase market share and give users more reason to hang around. The social giant recently considering a bid for SoundCloud -- the popular Berlin-based sound-sharing community -- but backed out over what were reported to be pricing concerns.