How to use Twitter: Twitter for Business Advertising

After much beta testing, Twitter has released an upgraded promoted Tweet service. Classically, promoted Tweets were used by businesses to exhibit special offers, new products, events or their brand across the world of Twitter. These were bought through an auction type process. Value was dependent on keyword competition, the same as with Google's Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising.

Now businesses can choose to have their keywords in specifically targeted categories. This allows for a much better return on investment as early results have shown that this more direct marketing increases engagement rate on average by 1-3%. This may only seem like a small change but millions of people use Twitter, making a single percentage change very valuable.

So how do targeted promoted Tweets work?

Businesses and marketers have a selection of 350 interest categories to choose from. These may be rock bands, ice skating, camping or pet dogs; the category range is extremely diverse. These categories are mainly user interests. Multiple selections can be made although the price of the promoted Tweet may then increase.

This interest selection then allows for specific targeting of Twitter users. Who a user follows as well as previous Tweets and other behaviour on the social network all play a part. This will hopefully result in a promoted Tweet reaching the target audience who are willing to engage with a marketer's message.

One can also custom target certain Twitter users by using @username tags. This does not direct your promoted Tweet at all of the @username's followers, rather your Tweet will be broadcast to those that share similar interests. A good example would be targeting many indie bands by using their @usernames. Those that have interests in a variety of indie bands will then be targeted by the promoted Tweet.

The promoted Tweet price drop

With the release of interest targeted promoted Tweets, Twitter have stated that all of their keyword auctions will have a starting minimum bid of one cent. They have also stated that good quality content will now win out over a higher priced bid with poor content in most cases; of course if the poor content owner is willing to pay a very high price they will still win the bid, the same as PPC.

Now with the ability for keywords to be bought by those with the best content and to be targeted to those with specific interests in the promotion, Twitter has become an even more powerful tool for social media advertising.

For more information see the Twitter advertising blog or the BBC news summary.

At WSS Media we offer advice and marketing campaigns for Twitter advertising.We have a previous post on other ways Twitter can help your business.

Source: http://wss-media.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-twitter-twitter-for-business.html

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