Twitter has hired former Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard as its Chief Commerce Officer. What does this mean for your social ticket sales?
Many were surprised earlier this week when it was announced that social media platform Twitter hired Nathan Hubbard, the former president of Ticketmaster. Hubbard, who had only recently left his post at the ticketing giant, will be Twitter's first ever "CEO of Commerce." Selling and purchasing physical goods is a new avenue for Twitter, known mostly for its paid advertising. But hiring Hubbard as its head of commerce is a move in the right direction if Twitter wants to be more like Amazon.com.
In an interview, Hubbard said that one of the hallmarks of Twitter’s entire approach has been partnering. Far more importantly for venue owners in the business of selling tickets, was this Hubbard statement:
We’re going to take the same approach with owners of physical and digital goods [because] tweets lead to purchases at brick-and-mortar stores.
Event venues fall into the category of "brick-and-mortar."
The road ahead for Twitter being a place to sell physical goods and services would be a bumpy one if it did not incorporate the incredible amount of consumer attention of its 400 million users. Add to its user base of 400 million, the untold millions of people watching TV at home where the ubiquitous hashtag is on the screen. Amazon has spent the past 15 years carefully building up its customer base. Twitter may be able to leap in as a direct competitor virtually overnight.
The video above did not include another Twitter related news item from earlier in August - that being Twitter rumored "near-by event notification" service.
Keeping in mind that the event notification news broke before Hubbard was hired by Twitter, it is easy to speculate of a tweet-powered ticket sales referral service. In fact it was Hubbard, while at Ticketmaster, who originally invented the idea of social media ticket sales in 2010
Hubbard struck a deal to integrate Ticketmaster and Facebook. The first-of-its-kind interactive seat map allows customers to see where their Facebook friends are sitting at a concert or game. After buying tickets, fans can share their purchase on Facebook, an alert that Hubbard told me led to an additional $5.30 in ticket revenue..
By hiring Hubbard, along with their purported experiments in controlling what near-by (ticketed) events are presented to consumers, Twitter has its sights squarely on the event market. In the short term, Twitter's actions validate the time you already spend using social media to increase event awareness. In the long term, all venue owners and event managers may be faced with having Twitter (with its multiple billion dollar budget) as a direct competitor in any given market.
Before the speculation runs amok, it is important to not put the cart in front of the horse. Social ticket sales should be part of your business - but those social sales are in addition to the standard practices for generating revenue you already have in place.
ThunderTix has numerous social media features, including the ability to sell tickets directly on your Facebook Page. Social ticket sales are just one part of signing-up for a ThunderTix account. Our technology powers traditional ticket sales at the box office and online sales too. Display your events on any website with our event calendar HTML, events listing, or events date search. See for yourself, or give us a call to learn more.
