Twitter is everywhere. It’s how the world’s population communicates their ideas, problems, thoughts, feelings and lifestyles to the masses. Sure, there are still the traditional forms of media, but Twitter has revolutionized communication. It’s a never-ending conversation on all of the globe’s topics and it is displayed across all forms of media. There are 500 million Tweets sent each day!
Yet, Twitter is an underused channel when it comes to growing SMBs through social media channels.
How Should You Shape Your Social Strategy?
When using Twitter for your business, ward off the stereotypical millennial temptation to tweet about anything and everything. Your customers may not care what your employees are having for lunch (unless it’s pizza… mmmmm pizza!). Rather, focus on the topics that matter most to your customers while positioning yourself as the expert to solve their problems.
- Schedule Time To Be On Twitter: You have to be involved to be part of the conversation. Make sure to structure this into your daily routine to not miss out on any opportunities.
- Follow The People and Businesses You Admire: Thought leaders, keynote speakers, authors and colleagues – anyone that inspires you. This will help you get a good sense of their topics and conversations and what their followers engage in most. It is also a good idea to follow your customers and competitors to keep an eye on them.
- Listen First: As a guest at a social gathering, you wouldn’t barge into a room you’ve never been in and start chattering updates at people you’ve never met, would you? The same goes for Twitter. Listen to what conversations are happening and strategically seek out where you can join the conversation and show your expertise and add value.
- Be True: Sometimes, in an effort to emulate or understand those who are already at the forefront, we follow their path. That’s not going to work. Ask your favorite local cover band. The only way to be successful on Twitter is to be genuine and true to yourself and your brand.
- Don’t Overshare: (Unless it’s pizza!)
- Keep the Focus on Growing Your Business: Spending time on Twitter isn’t enough. You need to resonate with your target audience and become a resource for your expertise. If you are tweeting about things that aren’t applicable to your business, you are probably having fun (and posting a lot of cat videos), but you aren’t building your professional reputation or becoming a trusted resource.
What Are Twitter Ads?
Twitter is where hundreds of millions of people go to discover what’s happening in the world right now. Twitter Ads are designed to help you connect with this audience, and to get results that drive action and add value to your business.
Twitter Ads are paid, promoted tweets that appear in a targeted users timeline, profile and/or tweet details page with the goal of increasing followers, website clicks or conversions, tweet engagement, app installs or re-engagement, leads on twitter or video views.
How Do Twitter Ads Work?
Types of Campaigns/Business Goals to Accomplish:
- Followers: Grow your community on Twitter
- Website clicks or conversions: Send people to your site (to purchase, sign up, etc.)
- Tweet engagements: Reach more people and drive conversation
- App installs or re-engagements: Get people to install or re-engage with your mobile app
- Leads on Twitter: Collect emails from people who express interest in your business
- Video views: Get people to watch your videos using Twitter’s native video player
- Custom campaigns: Create a custom campaign using the old Promoted Tweets form
Forms of Targeting:
- Platform or Carrier
- TV Targeting – Target users who engage with television programs in a specific market. Some shows and ads will be available in multiple markets
- Event Targeting – Event targeting reaches people interested in global or regional events.
Using Twitter to Achieve ROI
Has a client ever told you that they don’t see the value in advertising on Twitter – or ask you how Twitter can help them make more money?
Here is an integrated approach at how to use Twitter with your website content to show ROI without paying for any ads.
- People want content that informs, inspires or entertains – Twitter is the perfect platform for that.
- Content can work together in multiple forms. In this case, a tweet or series of tweets can work with a blog to achieve ROI.
- Blogging can help build authority ROI and be the landing pages for the Twitter ads. This method is known as native advertising.
- Rather than driving traffic to sales pages (a direct pitch), drive traffic to informative articles (blogs) and weave in calls to action to the relevant offer within the content.
- If any promoted posts or tweets are used, start with a small budget per day. If the engagement, clicks or conversions begin to come in from any individual posts or tweets, you will then be able to capitalize with additional budget to achieve additional engagement, clicks or conversions.
- Posts that link to landing pages are more likely to be shared than a direct sales pitch.
- The goal is to make the Tweets look native, so they look just like any other Tweet. There does not need to be a mention of a product and there does not need to be any selling. You simply need to provide your users with a good headline and link to the informative content.
Twitter Introduces Longer Pre-Roll Video Ads
In late January 2016, Twitter began offering pre-roll video ads of 30-seconds in length and longer. The 30-second time frame is five times longer than Twitter’s previous six-second maximum for pre-roll ads. The new, longer ad format comes with a skippable option which allows users to immediately skip the ad, if desired.
As 30 seconds is the traditional running time for broadcast media ads, advertisers are more likely to have video content already prepared for use in other mediums, which could then be easily incorporated into a video ad campaign on Twitter.
What Are You Waiting For?
Now, it’s time to get inspired by all the possibilities that advertising on Twitter can offer! Check out Twitter’s Success Stories to see how other businesses have grown using the Twitter platform.