Why Should You Use Twitter Ads?
Twitter users send out 500 million Tweets everyday. The social media platform’s advertising tools is a great way to separate your brand from the noise.
Twitter ads are a great way to communicate with users other than your followers that may be interested in your brand, as well as getting your products in front of your target audience.
Data from Twitter suggests that the future of Twitter’s ad platform is very promising.
Ad engagementsare up 69% over the last year, coupled with a 28% decrease in cost per ad engagement.
Twitter has introduced a number of super-clean ad formats in hopes of drawing more users to operate on the ad platform.
In this article, we will deep dive into the particulars of why (and how) you can benefit from Twitter advertising.
Including a complete setup and launch of your first campaign. Now lets check out the different types of Twitter ads.
Promoted Tweets
Promoted Tweets are a pretty straight forward advertising tool for Twitter ad campaigns.
These tweets are particularly effective because they can be used to increase reach, engage with a wider audience and garner more attention for your overall marketing campaigns.
Promoted Tweets are regular tweets that can be shared, retweeted or liked by Twitter users. The only difference is that they’ll have the “Promoted” label at the bottom as highlighted below.
These tweets will show up on mobile and desktop — at the top of search results — and on targeted users timelines and profiles.
Promoted Accounts
These advertisements are also known as “Follower Campaigns”. They allow you to target Twitter users who might engage with your content by ‘suggesting’ your Twitter account for users to follow.
These accounts will be promoted in the “Who To Follow” section of Twitter, as well as search results and in targeted user’s timelines. The “Promoted Accounts” will clearly feature a ‘Follow’ button and will be clearly labeled “Promoted”.
Promoted Trends & Spotlight
Promoted Trends are advertisements that are promoted with the trending topics on Twitter. They will appear at the top with all the other trending topics and on the ‘Explore’ tab on the Twitter Desktop.
Your ‘Promoted Trend’ will appear at the top of the trending topics list. Recently Twitter introduced ‘Promoted Trend Spotlight’ which features static images, GIFs and 6-second video clips.
Trending topics has developed into a major feature on Twitter. Twitter users will click on the ‘Explore’ tab on desktop or the ‘magnifying glass’ icon on mobile to access trending topics.
When users make these selections they will see an organic list with your ‘Promoted’ tweet at the top of the list.
Your reach will increase as Twitter users start to use your hashtag. The hike in engagements will boost the total ad engagements of your campaign and give you additional organic traffic to your tweets.
‘Promoted Trends’ are more so for bigger brands that carry a heavier weight, so they are not accessible through Twitter’s self-serve advertisement platform.
If your are interested in learning more about your eligibility or what are the guidelines for starting a ‘Promoted Trends’ campaign, you can contact Twitter directly.
RELATED: Promoted Trends Guidelines
The majority of this article we will be focusing on setting up your own Twitter campaign based on your budget, business objectives and specific goals.
Before we continue, I want to discuss another option.
This option is ‘Twitter Promote Mode’, if you’re fairly new to advertising online and you want to gather data or you’re not sure of how much to spend on a campaign. You will want to consider this option.
The campaign charges a monthly fee of $99/month (USD), plus tax. Once you set up payment, you will have the option to turn on ‘Promote Mode’ and your first ten tweets of everyday are automatically promoted to your target audience.
These tweets will also have to make it past Twitter’s quality filter. Replies, Quote Tweets and Retweets will never be promoted. So before you begin, make sure that you have at least a week or two of Tweets planned out for promotion. This will also include a Promoted Account campaign.
If you do decide to use Twitter ‘Promote Mode’ you can expect to gain 30 or more followers per month. As well as reaching 30,000 or more Twitter users per month.
9 Twitter Advertising Tips To Maximize Your Budget
1. Introduce Yourself
When running a Twitter ads campaign you can’t expect people to know automatically what your business or brand is about.
To be effective — use some of the copy from your Tweet or an image to feature your exclusive selling points so that people who do engage with your tweets know whether to click (go to your website), follow you or complete another engagement.
Twitter users naturally have a habit of scrolling fairly quickly, so you will want to create CTAs that get straight to the point. You don’t have to use all 280 characters — short and sweet copy can be your best-friend when running a Twitter ads campaign.
If your Twitter ad includes a link, make sure that you’re clear about what it links to: may it be a product, a download or an article. This is a great way to avoid paying for clicks from users who are not included in your target market.
Your introduction will include static items, such as your profile and Twitter bio. This helps when users click on your Twitter profile image and want to make a decision on whether to follow you.
Take this time to reinforce a consistent brand personality, this includes your profile page, landing pages and your brand message throughout your tweets.
2. Include A Clear Call To Action
Twitter advertisements need a clear call to action, this can determine the effectiveness of your overall campaign. Be clear and concise, so that your target audience knows exactly what you want them to do.
A few examples that work great on Twitter are: “Read more,” “Download our FREE eBook,” “Follow Us,” or “Register Now.”
This is an area where short and sweet works best. Be clear about what you want your target audience to do and don’t distract from your overall message. You will want to limit your hashtags, links and if your goal is to get people to click the follow button, avoid links altogether.
3. Running A Sale? Highlight The Percentage Discount
Research from Twitter shows that users are more likely to engage with an advertisement that has a percentage discount versus an ad that includes a specific dollar amount.
4. Include Website Cards
Twitter Website Cards provide an extra level of engagement for your users, they include features like app installs, website previews and other twitter comments involving your promoted tweets.
Twitter cards are powerful when utilized properly, keep in mind they should be tested with your audience to measure effectiveness.
5. Test Everything (Experimentation)
Running Twitter Ad Campaigns are a great way to determine what works for your audience — this includes tone of voice, how far to stretch your copy and ad format.
Experimenting with Twitter ads should be an essential objective for your campaigns.
6. Choose A ‘Custom Fit’ Over A ‘One-Size-Fits All’ Approach
Your campaigns should differ based on your different goals and objectives. This will require different creative as well. Your campaigns may have the same goals but the specific offers or ideas that you are pushing may require different variations.
When you are targeting different audiences be sure to adjust accordingly, depending on the group of users you may likely need different creative or copy to speak to the different groups. This will include geography as well, what converts in one city may differ from the other.
Overall, Twitter does a great job of providing targeting options that will only be engage by people who will find it relevant and valuable.
7. Use High-Quality Images And Videos
Visual is a very important aspect to consider when beginning your campaign. Avoid grainy or pixelated photos. Key in on copy as well, your words should match up with what your presenting to users.
You will want to grab the users attention and drive action for the best results. You can use free stock photo websites to help you gather content that is high-quality. If you are advertising a product, be sure to include people benefiting from your product or show it being put to use in a visual context.
Your odds of producing an effective ad decrease if its just your product alone in an advertisement. If you’re promoting a video ad to tell your story, make it sharp and compelling that will drive interests in your business or brand.
8. Pay Attention To Big Events
Twitter is big on creating conversations around events. Whether it be a season finale for a TV show, the World Cup or the Super Bowl.
Television events and Twitter are one in the same when it comes to advertising.
According to Twitter, nearly 85% of internet users surf the web while watching TV.
9. Learn From Your Organic Tweets
You will want to include what’s already working for you on Twitter into your Twitter ads campaign. Executing best practices can increase your overall exposure and reach a bigger audience.
Experimentation is key when it comes to advertising on Twitter. Analyzing your organic Tweets can give insight into what content you should promote or present to a wider audience.
For artists, musicians and content creators your brand is the first encounter that you will have with potential followers. Before they make the decision to follow you or engage with your content they will ultimately be judging you based off of your Twitter profile.
This fact alone is why your personal brand should take the lead when developing a social media strategy for Twitter advertising.
A strong brand is crucial when building your network and creating rapport with other artists, labels and industry regulars. The ultimate goal is to have your brand resonate with your target audience, no matter it be fans, label executives or concert promoters.
If branding yourself online is one of your goals, Twitter is the perfect platform to get started. Although, there is a lot of noise when it comes to Twitter’s nonstop timeline.
There is a wealth of creatives, artists and music professionals to connect with through the sharing of blog posts, websites, news, videos, photos and podcasts.
The convenience at play is that there are millions of people using Twitter as a marketing platform. So there are plenty of examples to take note of, as well connecting and engaging with content creators from around the World with similar mindsets.
If you’re interested in learning more or joining the conversation feel free to sign up for our monthly Newsletter, join our Facebook group. You can also follow me on Twitter!
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