Twitter Removes Barriers for Advertisers

Twitter has opened up its advertising offering to small businesses and the man on the street.  Up until a few weeks ago, if you wanted to advertise on Twitter, you were expected to invest a minimum spend of R150, 000.

Twitter is first choice when it comes to generating instant traffic and user engagement which is pivotal for any online strategy.  The traditional way of promoting your brand through Twitter (without selling the farm) was to organically build your follower base through vigilant monitoring and nurturing of your community, this meant tracking and following the correct influencers, engaging with your followers and groups on a daily basis, this included, but not limited to:

  • Introducing yourself to new followers
  • Engage with and thank new follows
  • Listen to what your community is saying
  • Listen to the broader community/industry
  • Engage with and participate in conversations
  • Post and monitor content
  • Ensure your brand is positioned correctly
  • Offer and measure utility to your community

This list is pretty generic and requires a lot of time, effort, attention and commitment if you are going to achieve anything noteworthy on this social platform.   Twitter bridges the advertising gap by competing with the likes of Facebook and Google with their self-service products.

But Just Yesterday
I received an email from Twitter to tell me their new ad service is now available, so I took the first opportunity I had to test it out.  I decided to run an acquisition campaign to gain more followers for my craft beer community (@LangleysBeer) and see just how effective Twitter ads can be.

Setting up a campaign is very simple, once you are logged into your account the option ‘Twitter Ads’ is listed in the drop down menu on settings icon (where you sign out).  A separate dashboard opens up and askes you for credit card details, once entered the initial validation process took a few hours to verify my account.

I created a campaign with a small test budget of R100 and set the maximum bid to R10 per new follower Twitter suggested my minimum bid should be R30, however you are free to set it to whatever amount you like, bearing in mind that as with any other bidding model, the higher you bid, the better  the results.  I targeted both male & female in South Africa with broad interests in food & drink and set the campaign to run for 6 hours.

I was impressed with the results; I had received 15 new followers at an average cost of R6.67 each.  This was achieved through only 5,682 Impressions with an engagement rate of 1.39%  Twitter is now an affordable option for brands and advertisers, but be warned, Twitter is not a place for spam or product promotions, create a solid communication & acquisition strategy before investing in Twitter Ads.

For more information on Twitter advertising, visit https://business.twitter.com/ad-products