For businesses, using Twitter Ads is one of the most simple yet effective ways to launch marketing campaigns or boost organic Twitter activity. Whether you’re looking to promote a product, generate leads or grow followers, Twitter Ads can help you reach new audiences beyond your existing followers – at a fraction of the cost of other channels.
Twitter Ads also have powerful targeting options that allow you to customize your audience precisely, so you put your ads in front of those who are the most relevant to your product, brand or industry.
Why Promoted Tweets?
There are three main Twitter Ad products: Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts, and Promoted Trends. Over 80% of US marketers have used Promoted Tweets this year, making it the most used out of the three. At Hootsuite, we focus on Promoted Tweets because our main objective with Twitter Ads is lead generation. Promoted Tweets allow us to gain leads by driving audiences directly to landing pages where they are prompted to take the call to action, such as downloading a white paper or registering for a webinar. For brand awareness campaigns, we use Promoted Tweets to promote video plays or contest signups.
You can learn more about the different types of Promoted Products and how to set up your first Twitter Ad here.
What Should A Promoted Tweet Do?
Tweets in general should be interesting, concise and consistent with your brand’s tone. But when you start putting money behind Tweets, it’s even more important they achieve your campaign goals. Promoted Tweets should convey your message clearly, be on brand, resonate with your audience and most of all -prompt them to take the call to action.
How can you accomplish all of this in 140 characters? Here are 5 tips on how to write effective Promoted Tweets:
5 Tips for Writing Promoted Tweets That Drive Conversions
Tip #1: Include a Clear Call to Action
Your call to action is the most important part of your Promoted Tweet, so we recommend writing it first. Whether you want your audience to go to your website, download your content or enter your contest—be clear about the CTA and the incentive.
Having a clear call to action is especially important if you’re a B2B company targeting an enterprise audience who may spend less time on social media. You’ll want to formulate your copy so they know exactly what to expect when they click on your Tweet. If your campaign objective is to drive content downloads or form fills, make sure any links or landing pages are visible and working properly.
Tip #2: Keep Them Short and Interesting
According to a study by Twitter, Tweets under 100 characters get 18% more engagement. So keep them short but concise. Using punchy, headline-like copy can grab your audience’s attention in the few seconds that they engage with your Tweet. Try piquing their curiosity by using an interesting stat or asking a question. Steer clear of using too much technical jargon or buzzwords that may confuse your audience or detract from the call to action.
Tip #3: Know Your Audience and Speak Their Language
Are you advertising to millennials, mommy bloggers, or CEOs? Different segments of audiences speak differently, so use language that will resonate with your target audience. We recommend researching influencers, bloggers and trends for each segment to pick up on relevant terminology and language.
For our Game of Thrones Promoted Tweets campaign, we included familiar phrases from the show GOT fans would recognize. As a result, fans were delighted to share our content with their followers.
Tip #4: Testing is Key
When writing the Tweets for your paid campaign, we recommend writing 3 – 4 Tweets for each campaign, with slight variations in copy. Use a small portion of your budget to then test and see which Tweets your audiences engaged with the most. Then place the rest of your budget behind the higher performing Tweets.
Successful organic Tweets are also great places to start when creating Tweets for your paid campaign. If you’re unsure of which organic Tweets to use, Twitter has an algorithm that identifies these better performing Tweets, helping you take out some of guesswork.
If you’re getting a lot of engagement on your Promoted Tweets but you’re not getting conversions, you may want to assess if there is anything preventing potential customers to convert. Is the form too long? Or the call to action unclear? Be sure to also monitor the replies to your Promoted Tweets for any feedback or opportunities from the audience.
Tip #5: Use Images, Video or Twitter Cards to Drive Higher Engagement
According to Twitter internal data, Promoted Tweets with images or videos attached on average gain over 300% more engagement and 52% more Retweets than text-only Tweets. So, don’t be afraid to experiment with different images and videos within your paid campaign.
Take advantage of additional tools such as Twitter Cards which allow you to drive even more engagement to your Promoted Tweets. You can easily highlight content such as a video or an offer directly within a Tweet using Cards so users can preview the content without having to click through.
If you’re using Twitter Cards to promote content such as a landing page, e-book or white paper, have your design team create images specifically for that piece of content instead of using stock photography or images from the internet.
Once you’re ready to launch your campaign, use this Promoted Tweets checklist to ensure you have everything you need:
- Campaign Objective & Measurement: What do you want to achieve with this campaign? Clearly define your objectives and a way to measure your success.
- Design: Do you have the content, landing page or link you want to promote? Don’t forget the images, videos or other supporting design assets.
- Target Audience: Have you compiled a list of Twitter handles you want to target?
- Drafted Tweets: Have you drafted a number of different Tweets you want to promote?
- Budget and Dates: Do you have an approved budget and the set dates to run your campaign?
Using Twitter Ads effectively comes down to understanding your audience, so experiment and learn about them through testing – this will become a huge part of your Twitter Ad success.
For more tips on Twitter Advertising, check out the Twitter Advertising Blog.