After much anticipation, Brazil came to life this morning, as did Twitter. With over 2 million tweets globally within 24 hours using the hashtag #WorldCup, soccer fever is in full force.

And to capitalise on this, those smart bods at Twitter have introduced a smart update to their platform for the World Cup period that benefits both fans and Twitter alike.

Introducing the Twitter World Cup ‘starter pack’.

The tool allows you to get patriotic and customise your profile picture and cover image to your nation’s colours. Despite living in Sydney, I’m afraid I had to stick with the English homeland. The starter pack then uses this information to serve you accounts you may want to follow and engage with.

Finally, the tool then produces a bespoke tweet based on your profile and preferences:

While the ‘starter pack’ is a nice, cool and lightweight way to engage with the World Cup on Twitter, it’s a very smart move by the platform to encourage new followers, tweet volumes and activity across the period. Twitter is monetising the World Cup heavily with advertisers and brand activity – the starter pack is another string to this bow.

So, what are 3 things brands can learn from this?

1. Utility; how do you make life easy for users? If a brand can automate something that a person is planning (ie show support for their team), not only are they doing them a favour, but are getting the credit for doing so

2. Smart visuals; always think ‘would I share this’? If the answer’s no, then don’t expect people to be engaging with you

3. Build in shareability; make it as easy and appealing as possible for people to share to their networks

#GoEngland