Dive Brief:

• Twitter-owned data platform Gnip is opening up access to its Audience API, according to Marketing Land.

• By having access to the data, marketers will be able to use analytics to obtain interest and demographic data on Twitter users who view their tweets or visit their website.

• The data is anonymized and aggregated to groups of no less than 500 Twitter accounts.

Dive Insight:

Twitter's move to unlock its data for brands should make it easier for marketers to learn more about users who view their tweets or visit their site. 

The Gnip Audience API was first made available in October 2015, but only on a limited basis for brands that had individual Twitter IDs. The change means brands don’t need to have users' Twitter IDs before getting data on those users.

Twitter collects a wide variety of data points that could be valuable to brands, including gender, language, interests, TV, location, device type and wireless network. All these data points can be used by marketers to understand who is engaging with the brand on Twitter and for targeting campaigns designed to reach those engaged users.

Twitter's move to open up its Audience API comes at a time when it is struggling to remain relevant in the social media sphere. Twitter has been plagued by stagnant user growth and lagging ad revenue. But the platform has found new strength recently by bolstering its live streaming offering — through deals with CBS News to live stream the upcoming presidential conventions and with the NFL to broadcast 10 Thursday Night Football games — that should make the platform more interesting for advertisers as users increasingly move online to view TV.