If you've been on Twitter in the last eight months, you've probably seen the "Promoted Tweet" badge come through your timeline. For these eight months, Promoted Tweets, Accounts, and Trends were available to select advertisers. Good news for the rest of us- Twitter announced this week that it will soon open its advertising platform to more businesses. Not quite all, but on its way.
How Twitter Advertising Works
There are three types of mediums you can use: Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts, and Promoted Trends.
Promoted Trends
Trending topics are usually keywords with hashtags attached that users Tweet to find other users who are interested in the same topic. Promoted Trends get placed on the top of the trending topics list. When a user clicks on the hashtag to see the conversation related to it, the Promoted Trend will appear at the top of the conversation.
Promoted Tweets
Promoted Tweets "enable you to speak to users that don't currently follow your account." They appear in timelines as opposed to next to the content. Currently, promoted tweets appear in search on Twitter and Hootsuite. The image below occurs when the Promoted Trend is clicked.
Promoted Accounts
These are for companies looking to build a Twitter following and expand their online presence. Promoted Accounts also will appear in Twitter's Who to Follow section on a user's homepage. Twitter "looks at your account and followers to identify similar accounts and similar followers" when deciding to place a Promoted Account on this page.
Twitter Advertising v. Facebook Advertising
Audience
Both operate using social targeting, or targeting friends of a brand's existing customers/fans/followers.
Twitter
- 175 million users
- Promoted Tweets appear in users' timelines, so people are more apt to see them
- Majority age 26-44
- 7% in high school
Facebook
- Target users based on interests
- Users don't have to be a fan of a business to see its ad
- 500 million users
- Majority age 18-34
- 21% in high school
(source: DigitalTrends)
Pricing
It's not yet been revealed how much a Promoted Tweet/Account will cost. We do know from our account management experience that an average cost per click on Facebook is about $0.85-$0.95.
Twitter
- Promoted Tweets have a cost per engagement (CPE) pricing model. Advertisers pay when their Promoted Tweets get favorited, clicked on, or a user replies to the tweet.
- Retweet impressions are free
Facebook
- Choose from cost per impressions (CPM) or cost per click (CPC) models
- Competitive bidding
- CPC from $0.05 (typically about $0.85)
Ad Format
Twitter
- Promoted Tweets- appear in users' timelines
- Promoted Accounts
- Promoted Trends
Facebook
- Text ad with images
- Appear on right side of content, away from major navigation links
Analytics
The analytics dashboards of each platform are fairly similar in that they both show impressions and clicks.
Twitter
- Monitor your paid and unpaid activity on Twitter
- Results can be supported by campaign
- See which tweets caused unfollows, retweets, and most influential users
Facebook
- Run reports on conversion time, responder profiles and demographics
- Results can be sorted by ad or campaign
- Less sophisticated than Twitter - cannot see who marked ads "uninteresting" or "misleading"
So, which is right for you?
It comes down to finding out where your audience is, your advertising goals and how much time your company has available to interact with consumers. Facebook works fine as a set-it-and-forget-it campaign, while Twitter works best if someone in the company is dedicated to engaging with users. Twitter is good for building a brand presence while Facebook benefits companies that
For more information, check out our Is Twitter Advertising Right For You? video presentation. Still not sure which to platform to use? Contact Adam Howitt Consulting, Inc. to find out which platform will better serve your advertising needs.
