While alcohol brands have been busy on Facebook, with Diageo among others last year striking a multi million dollar deal for its brands including Smirnoff and Guinness, they have been slower to get to grips to Twitter.

In part this has been down to how they tackle the age requirement that followers should be over 18 in the UK  or 21 in the US. But a new age checking tool is currently being tested in the US that could change all of that.

The Twitter age-checking tool is currently being tested by several big brands including  Coors Light. With a single click confirming their age Twitter users will be able to follow any alcohol brand they so choose.

Unlike Facebook or web pages where many alcohol brands simply ask users to type in their date of birth before entering Twitter has had a  hotchpotch or assorted methods used by brand to verify the age of a user.

These have included clicking on a link in a Twitter direct message , asking users to direct-message their DoB, while others have carried a message simply saying that followers are confirming their age by following the brand.

Now Twitter is partnering with social media firm Buddy Media, which  yesterday signed a definitive agreement to sell to Salesforce.com, to create a definite new way of checking the age of users on Twitter:

 

Twitter is partnering with social-media-management company Buddy Media on a new tool to bring uniformity to the process. “For now, we are testing this solution with a small group of advertisers. We will determine next steps after the conclusion of these tests,” Twitter told Ad Age in a statement.

Here’s how it works: When a fan clicks to follow a brand, he is sent a direct message with a link to a site that asks for date of birth. The user must fill out the form within 24 hours if he wants to follow the brand. Once a user is age-checked once, he does not have to repeat the process when following other booze brands.

MillerCoors recently began testing the tool with a new Coors Light handle and will soon debut Miller Lite on Twitter. The brewer is also paying for promoted tweets and trends, and to be featured in Twitter’s “Who to follow” section. While MillerCoors uses Facebook to build communities, Twitter is better at “tapping into what people are interested in,” said Steve Mura, the brewer’s director of digital marketing. “You don’t just follow your friends on Twitter. You follow things you are passionate about… and beer is a part of a lot of those great passion points,” he told Ad Age.

What’s interesting for booze brands is that they are finding that a lot more conversations are happening about their brands on Twitter than they are on Facebook. This prompted spirits marketer Beam to promote Courvoisier on Twitter in a  partnership with Shaquille O’Neal.

While Heineken in the US has recently run Twitter ads for Dos Equis tied to Cinco de Mayo as well as several efforts for Heineken lager itself.

In December Heineken also followed Diageo and signed a global ad partnership with Facebook. The two are planning to collaborate on digital campaigns for Heineken brands around the world.

At the time Alexis Nasard, chief commercial officer at Heineken, said:  “As our adult consumers are increasingly spending more time on digital space and social media, it is important that our brands are active in this environment. Our partnership with Facebook is another significant development in our communication strategy as we continue to look for innovative ways for our brands to ignite the digital conversation and connect with our consumers.”