Implementing a successful social media advertising program is an art form. There are many opportunities for success and failure, which is why it’s imperative that you follow a set of best practices to increase your chances for success.
Defining what you want to achieve with your Twitter advertising program is a key piece to the puzzle and should not be skipped. Do you want to attract new customers to your company through education, engage current followers with exciting content, or convert fans into customers? This post shares 4 basic tips for using Twitter advertising as part of your ongoing social strategy.
Tip 1: Pin To the Top of Your Timeline
If you are using a brand profile or enhanced page you may choose to pin a Promoted tweet to the top of your timeline. Promoted tweets and promoted pages will typically show up in the left sidebar of your page, unless you specify that you would like to pin the tweet to the top of your timeline. In the example above you’ll notice that the two promoted profiles and trending topics are clearly identified next to the organic results.
Tip 2: Utilize Hashtags
Proper use of Twitter hashtags can make your tweets more searchable and live on in the Twittersphere. There are a few options for utilizing Twitter hashtags as part of promoted tweets:
- Create your own unique hashtag to stand out from others
- Jump on an existing trending hashtag to increase exposure
Tip 3: Promote Good Content
If you were to run a traditional advertising program you would do your due diligence to test and refine your messaging before releasing it to the public. The same applies to your Twitter advertising strategy. The default selection under “How do you want to select tweets?” will be “Automatically refresh to include your newest most engaging tweets”. For maximum impact make sure that you select “Manually select your tweets” so that you will have full control over what is seen by your target audience.
Tip 4: Using Geographic Targeting For Improved Results
Lets assume for a moment that TopRank Online Marketing is hosting a content and social media event in California. One of the channels that will be used to promote that event is Twitter. In order to get the most “bang for your buck” it would make sense to target your promoted tweets at users in a particular geographic location. Above is an example of how you would target metro specific locations. Keep in mind that “Metro Areas” will override “Country” because it is a more granular target.
To get the maximum value out of any advertising program you must have attention to detail. The information within this post is only a portion of what businesses can do to target customers using promoted tweets and paid advertising on Twitter. Social media advertising should be used to augment your existing social business strategy and not viewed as a stand alone solution for generating buzz or interacting with prospects and customers. Have you used paid advertising on Twitter in the past? What did you learn?
Great tips, Ashley. I especially like #3 and it’s so true…sometimes the option that seems easier isn’t best for your budget and won’t show the greatest results. It’s better to keep that control over the content you’re paying to promote.
Thank you for this post . I have not used these ads before but now I am looking not it. Very good article
By “jumping on hashtags” you use your unique hashtag but also put in a trending hashtag. This way when users look at trending topics your tweet will come up along with your custom hashtag. Always remember that social media is meant for that reason to be social. So if someone retweets you be sure to reply back. This way the message will show up on both timelines and the user may be more willing to follow you due to engagement.