TV and Twitter have a special connection. Broadcasters are eager to provide new ways to drive viewer engagement. Twitter provides a forum for real-time context and commentary that turns watchers into participants.

Over the past few years, Twitter’s media team has worked with broadcasters on a new interactive experience. The video below showcases some of the on-air best practices broadcasters have embraced:



Last week, Twitter enjoyed its widest television integration to date via the live coverage of the royal wedding, as Chloe Sladden from our media team discusses on the Twitter Media blog. During the wedding, users interacted with ABC News’ coverage by using the hashtags #RoyalSuccess and #RoyalMess to voice their opinion about the events unfolding in London. They shared their thoughts with CNN by including the hashtag #CNNTV in their Tweets, causing #CNNTV to trend early in the event. And as audiences around the world watched the events live on TV, they posted millions of Tweets, peaking at 16,000 Tweets per minute between 5 and 6 a.m. EST.

The royal wedding is just one example of how real-time Twitter integration can enhance TV coverage and help drive viewership. In fact, we’ve found that across networks and genres, when TV shows bring Twitter elements into the broadcast, there’s a direct and immediate increase in engagement on Twitter: anywhere from two to ten times more Tweets created while the shows air. From live tweeting and on-screen hashtags to real-time visualizations of audience attention and the new 360-degree live events, incorporating Twitter into a television event simply and significantly increases audience engagement.

Starting today, you’ll be able to use Twitter in Russian and Turkish. We added these two languages to our Translation Center about two months ago. Thanks to the fast, high-quality work of our translators, both languages are now available on twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com.

You can change your language from the settings page on twitter.com. Once you set your language to Russian or Turkish, you will be able to browse your interests and find interesting Russian and Turkish accounts to follow. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

Russia

• @evgeniplushenko - Evgeny Plushenko, figure skater
• @VRSoloviev - Vladimir Soloviev, journalist
• @tina_kandelaki - Tina Kandelaki, journalist and TV host
• @MedvedevRussia - President of the Russian Federation
• @urgantcom - Ivan Urgant, TV host and comedian

Turkey

• @erdilyasaroglu - Erdil Yasaroglu, cartoonist
• @ezgibasaran - Ezgi Basaran, journalist
• @mabirand32gun - Mehmet Ali Birand, news anchor
• @sertaberener - Sertab Erener, singer
• @niltakipte - Nil Karaibrahimgil, singer

For those of you who have an Android device, Twitter for Android is available in Russian and Turkish. We’re working to support these languages in our other mobile applications in the future. We’ve also translated SMS commands and replies into Turkish; Twitter SMS is currently available with Vodafone in Turkey (shortcode is 2444).

The city where we have started and grown will remain our future home. Twitter is staying in San Francisco and has signed a lease to move our headquarters to Market Square, a historic building in San Francisco’s Central Market neighborhood that is being managed by our new partner and landlord, Shorenstein Properties.

We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Mayor Ed Lee; the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (in particular Supervisor Jane Kim and Supervisor David Chiu); Jennifer Matz and Amy Cohen from the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development; Charlie Malet from Shorenstein Properties; and, everyone who worked with them for their vision, effort and perseverance in spearheading legislation that will help revitalize an area of San Francisco where office space has sat vacant for decades.

We are proud that Twitter will be among the first companies moving into the Central Market area and will be playing a role in its renewal with the city and with other businesses, arts organizations, and the numerous community organizations that have been doing hard work in the neighborhood for many years.

San Francisco’s unique creativity and inventiveness is a part of Twitter’s DNA, and we feel like we are part of San Francisco. Three-quarters of our employees who live in San Francisco are involved in causes and charities in the city. Our employees are excited to be active members of our future neighborhood as volunteers, customers, diners and patrons of the arts.

We don’t yet have a timeline for our relocation, but we expect we will move into our new space in mid-2012. We can’t wait.

The @NHL is using Twitter to immerse fans in the journey to Lord Stanley’s Cup both on and off the ice throughout the playoffs. Indeed, following playoff hashtags on Twitter is like listening to a radio announcer while simultaneously hearing from passionate fans during the game.

The @NHL has built lists for the teams, players, and has even deemed some fans official by adding the most enthusiastic ones to a team fan list like this one, which follows nearly 70 Coyote devotees. As Tweets fly from the rink, you can sit back and watch the stream from wherever you happen to be, and get the scoop on important calls or moments as they happen.

Here are some resources to get you closer to the action:

Stanley Cup Hashtag guide
--Use the first three letters of each team’s city to track a specific game in the series. For example, to represent the Boston vs. Montreal dialogue, use the hashtag #BosMtl

NHL Quick Lists
--NHL Teams
--NHL Players
--NHL Media
--Here’s a useful timeline by Sulia that shows top news from over 600 accounts.

News and pundits
--@ESPN_NHL
--@wyshynski
--@TSNBobMcKenzie
--@Real_ESPNLeBrun
--@DarrenDreger
--@OnFrozenBlog

The NBA playoffs are approaching. It's time to prepare for your daily fix of hoops news and grab your seat. Players across the league, from Dwyane Wade (@dwadeofficial) to Dwight Howard (@dwighthoward), and even Shaq (@the_real_shaq) connect with the outside world in Tweets, and in return for fans’ loyalty, teams share exclusive Twitter promotions and off-the-cuff insights.

In other words: if you're not already following your favorite team and sports news source on Twitter, you should be. Below are great basketball resources to get you in on the action.

Pick your team:

— Find your team in this @NBA list and follow along for exclusive insight and free stuff.
— About 200 NBA players are on Twitter. Here’s an easy list to search through and follow.
—Wear your colors by applying one of these cool NBA themed profile backgrounds.

Follow the pundits for opinionated coverage of the playoffs:

Follow your old-school favorites to see what they’re up to now:

Join in the madness:

Hashtags are used in Tweets as tags to track a conversation (learn more here). Search, follow and interact with the ones that interest you. Try #GoLakers, #BeatTheLakers or #playoffs for a general conversation around each game.

We first launched Trends as a useful way for people to find out what topics are being talked about around the world, right now. Early last year, we added Local Trends to make it easier to find more locally relevant topics in specific countries and metropolitan locations. Today, we’re adding Trends for more than 70 new cities and countries - bringing the total number of locations to more than 100.

You can browse these new locations by clicking “change” in the Trends sidebar on twitter.com. You’ll see and be able to select among a wide array of cities and countries, including Santiago, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, South Africa, Japan and many more. And, of course, you still have the option to see worldwide Trends.

If you’ve got questions or would like help, please check out our support article on Trends.

We’ve made it easier to find and follow Twitter accounts based on your interests. When you search for a topic, you can now discover accounts that are relevant to that particular subject. (Previously, you would have seen accounts that have the specific term in their name or username. ) Just click on the “people” section of the search results page or search from the “Who to follow” page.

This new approach helps you find the Twitter users that will best help you follow your interests. For example, if you’re interested in hip hop, chances are that you’d like to follow hip hop artists. Searching for “hip hop” now surfaces accounts like @common and @questlove. (Previously, we typically showed accounts that have “hip hop” in the name.)

Whether you’re an aspiring cupcake baker, a crafty person looking for new DIY projects or someone who likes to keep an eye out for a great travel deal, you’ll be able to quickly find and connect with useful accounts. You can search for general topics, like funny or sports, or be more specific – try Manchester United, Nascar or Formula One.

One more thing! Now, when you search on Twitter.com, you’ll see a tip from Twitter. This tip points you to a set of search operators and our advanced search page, which help you more quickly find what you’re looking for.