Twitter advertising - a hidden gem for the sharp marketer

Twitter advertisingBUSINESS POTENTIAL AND BENEFITS

Considering the fact, that Twitter has only expanded its advertising reach across majority of Europe in the second half of 2014, it should be much easier to differentiate yourself with a good ad copy, than it would be on Adwords or Facebook, where your competitors have already established firm ground.

Less competition does not neccessarily mean bigger profits, but let`s look at a couple of facts that go a long way in proving that advertising on Twitter might be the thing you are looking for to go into the untapped portion of your target market:

• 310 million ACTIVE users each month• 1 billion monthly visits• 83% Twitter users are mobile• 79% Twitter user accounts are outside the US

Facebook vs. Twitter

Conversations on Twitter is much more constructive and meaningfulUnlike the Facebook, Twitter encourages conversations (primarily through the use of hashtags) and connects an audience that doesn`t have to have any other social or family connection. This alone brings the quality of conversation on Twitter to a whole different level than on Facebook. 

User friendly advertising interfaceIt is well worth noting that the UX is quite easy to use and much simpler than that of Facebook.  make it possible for virtually anyone to start an advertising campaign on their platform.Unlike Facebook, Twitter even lets you advertise your regular user profile.

Twitter event target ingE v e n t t a r g e t i n g a l l o w s y o u t o t i m e a n d d i s p l a y y o u r a d s t o g e t h e r w i t h t h e h a p p e n i n g o f a c e r t a i n e v e n t i n t h e w o r l d , f o r e x a m p l e , s u c h a n e v e n t w o u l d b e t h i s y e a r ` s E u r o p e a n f o o t b a l c h a m p i o n s h i p .T h e n a t u r e o f Tw i t t e r i t s e l f i s s u c h t h a t i t h a s b e c o m e a v e r y i m p o r t a n t l i v e n e w s s o u r c e f o r t h e e n t i r e w o r l d . E n o r m o u s a m o u n t s o f t w e e t s t h a t h a p p e n e a c h s e c o n d ( 5 0 0 m i l l i o n t w e e t s p u b l i s h e d e a c h d a y ) a n d t h e i m m e d i a t e n a t u r e o f t h o s e t w e e t s a r e j u s t n o t c o m p a r a b l e t o a n y o t h e r d i g i t a l ( o r o ffl i n e ) p l a t f o r m .

Twitter Lead Generation CardsO n e o f t h e m o r e i n t e r e s t i n g a d v e r t i s i n g p o s s i b i l i t i e s o n Tw i t t e r i s t h e “ L e a d g e n e r a t i o n ” c a m p a i g n . I t g i v e s y o u t h e a b i l i t y t o c o l l e c t c o n t a c t i n f o r m a t i o n ( p r i m a r i l y e - m a i l s a n d n a m e s ) o f Tw i t t e r u s e r s w h o a r e e x p o s e d t o y o u r a d .

F r o m a m a r k e t i n g p e r s p e c t i v e , t h e r e ` s s o m e b r i l l i a n c e t o t h i s – u n l i k e s i m i l a r e - m a i l c o l l e c t i o n s t r a t e g i e s ( f o r e x a m p l e , v i a a L i k e Ta b o n Fa c e b o o k , o r t h r o u g h a w e b s i t e ) , i n t h e “ L e a d g e n e r a t i o n ” a d , t h e v i s i t o r ’ s i n f o r m a t i o n i s a l r e a d y p r e - fi l l e d i n t h e o p t - i n f o r m w i t h i n t h e a d i t s e l f . T h e o n l y t h i n g t h e Tw i t t e r u s e r h a s t o d o , i s c l i c k t h e b u t t o n – a n d t h e e - m a i l i s y o u r s .

Other advertising options on Twitter

FollowersThe goal of th is campaign is to bui ld a base of fo l lowers for your Twitter user profile. Bui ld ing your Twitter fo l lower base shou ld be done through quali ty content and construct ive conversation – pay ing for fo l lowers is not in l ine with that. Organic fol lower base makes much more sense, even though i t ’s much more difficult and takes more t ime. But, in the long run, there’s real ly no alternative, because to get qual ity conversat ions , you real ly need a fo l lower base that expresses interest in what you say.

Website clicks / conversionsThe goal of this campaign is to increase traffic to your website. This means that the ads take Twitter users directly to your website. This type of campaign is displayed in the Twitter t imel ine and in between the search results on Twitter. Payment is pay-per-cl ick.

Tweet engagementsThe goal of th is campaign is to encourage conversation, which can revolve around a promoted or organic tweet that is a lready present in your t imel ine. This type of campaign is d isp layed in the Twitter t imel ine and in between the search results on Twitter. This type of campaign is quite useful i f you want to encourage a conversat ion around a certain topic and inc lude a broader audience, or you just want to increase the exposure of your profile into a part icular theme segment.

App installsThe goal of th is campaign is to promote your mobi le app. The users are displayed an ad with a button ( inside the t imel ine) that either opens your app (i f i t is already instal led in the user’s phone) or instal l your app on the phone ( i f i t is not already instal led). The ad is d isplayed in the Twitter t imel ine only on mobi le devices. Payment is based per app open or instal lat ion.

Video viewsA new type of campaign (st i l l in beta vers ion) where users can watch your v ideo within the t imel ine through a nat ive Twitter v ideo player. The user exper ience of watching such a v ideo is quite good, which makes i t more practical to, wel l , watch i t . This in turn increases your chances of someone actual ly v iewing your v ideo and shar ing it with their Twitter fo l lowers. This campaign is d isplayed in the Twitter t imel ine and in between the search results on Twitter. Payment is per v ideo views.

Leads on Twitter As I’ve mentioned earlier, this type of campaign gives you the possibility to collect contact information from Twitter users directly inside the Twitter timeline and search results.

Promoted-only tweetsCreating tweets that are only promotional in nature (therefore, they are not visible in your t imel ine) and are used only for advertising campaigns. In essence, this is a textual ad in the form of a tweet with a possibi l ity to add image – even though Twitter does not recommend adding images and notes that text-only ads bring better results.

Scheduled TweetSame pr inc ip le as the aforementioned promoted tweets, with the poss ib i l i ty of t iming the publishing of the tweet ins ide the campaign. This is pretty useful i f you want to run the campaign for an extens ive per iod of t ime, without the need to manage i t on a dai ly bas is . This a lso keeps your campaign fresh (by publ ishing new tweets / ads regular ly) in the eyes of your audience, so that you don’t annoy anyone with the same ol ’ ad.

Organic TweetsDisplaying organic-only tweets in your ads, which means you are publishing ads based on the tweets that are already present in your t imel ine – we can draw a paral lel here with Facebook – the boosted posts is a similar strategy where you promote already publ ished posts on the Facebook page.

Each of the above campaign types provides the same targeting possibilities, which is done through the following:• Audience targeting through selecting a particular (or multiple) country,

Language, Sex and Devices and platform (iOS, Android, Blackberry, desktop and other devices....).

• Targeting new Twitter users – you can choose to display ads only to those users that have begun using Twitter for a predetermined period of time (for example, one month ago on the current device).

• Mobile carriers – for about 20 countries worldwide, Twitter gives the ability to chose only those Twitter accounts that connect to internet through a particular mobile carrier

• Interests – this is the ability to target certain interests present with your audience through the usage of given keywords, followers (you can even enter followers by using the @ symbol), targeting of TV audiences that follow certain TV shows and programs. You can also target Twitter profiles that follow certain events and are involved in the conversation around that event live on Twitter.

Through numerous audience targeting options that are simply not available

on similar platforms, Twitter advertising deserves our attention as a very promising

promotional platform.

Not just in terms of technical availability of a certain targeting feature, but through the possibilities that are

derived from the fact that conversations on Twitter are much more topic oriented and easy to

target with the high amount of Twitter profiles weighing in on the conversation than would be

case on Facebook.

Thank you for your time!

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