Top Tips for Success with Twitter Ads

Twitter doesn’t get nearly as much attention as Facebook when it comes to social media advertising or even social media marketing, for that matter.

However, Twitter remains one of the largest social media platforms available, and it has 320 million active daily users. Twitter also has a truly global audience, and it supports 35 languages.

Buying Twitter ads will help you stand out on the platform and reach more of the diverse users found there. Since there is not as much competition for ads on Twitter, you may even be able to spend less money and get more exposure than you would on Facebook.

Here are some top tips for finding success with Twitter ads:

Know What People Like to Share

There are two types of ads you can buy on Twitter: Ones that promote your profile to follow and ones that promote specific tweets that you have posted.

Most people find that the ads showing specific tweets get the most engagement. However, you have to be sure that you are sharing tweets that include the type of content that people like to share. Otherwise, they will likely just look at your ad and move on.

Tweets that include images or videos often get the most attention and are shared the most frequently. Though Twitter is primarily a text medium, you should think creatively about how images or videos can enhance your tweets to help them get more attention.

Other things you can do to help your tweets get more attention include:

• Write tweets that are shorter than 100 characters (don’t go to the 140-character limit)
  
• Use a conversational tone
  
• Include trivia
  
• Talk about recent events, particularly controversial ones
  
• Use action words

Your tweets need to grab users’ attention and make them feel compelled to act. These are just some of the things you can do to make that happen.

The better you are able to do that, the more people will respond to your ad and will likely share it. The more people who share your ad, the more exposure you will get and the greater ROI.

Create a Posting Calendar

It is important that you know the best times to post to connect with your audience and to create an appropriate content and advertising schedule that reflects those times.

Generally, the best time to post anything on Twitter is between noon and 3 p.m. These are the times that most people are stopping for lunch and browsing through social media. They are looking for interesting and fun information to pass the time, and they are unengaged, so they are more likely to comment, re-tweet or favorite your post.

If your brand is trying to connect directly with consumers, it is best to post on Wednesdays or on the weekends. People are otherwise mostly occupied with their work demands.

If your brand is trying to connect with other businesses, it is best to post throughout the week. Obviously, your customers are going to be home on the weekends and are unlikely to want to do anything related to work during those times.

Wednesdays have also shown to have the highest click-through rates for Twitter ads since it is the overlap of when consumers and brands are both on the platform.

Keep these things in mind when you are scheduling your ads to ensure that you get the most engagement and the highest ROI.

Test, Test, Test

Advertising is an art more than a science. You never know what is going to land with audiences.

You may follow all the rules when creating your content and posting it, but you may not get the level of engagement that you want.

Instead of going through months or years of trial and error and wasting a lot of money in the process, you need to implement a strategic testing system. Change small aspects of your ad and run two versions at the same time to see which gets the most engagement. If your numbers still aren’t where they need to be, make another tweak and so on and so on until you are where you want to be.

You can gauge the success of your ads by the number of followers you are getting, how engaged your followers are, your click-through rates, your overall reach, and your product purchases or leads.

It is important that you have a specific goal in mind for your ads before you begin so that you can choose the right metrics to measure their success. Run your ads for a predetermined amount of time and then split test for each consecutive run until you are getting the metrics you want.

Twitter may not have the numbers that Facebook does, but it offers a unique way to reach audiences, and it has an immediate, global reach. Follow these tips to help you get more out of your Twitter ads and to reach more of your target audience.

(59)