So, what is Twitter?
according to (Twitter, 2012) … Well
“Twitter is an information network. Millions of people, organizations, and businesses use it to discover and share new information.
On Twitter, anyone can read, write and share messages of up to 140 characters. These messages, or Tweets, are public and available to anyone interested in them. Twitter users subscribe to your messages by following your account. Followers receive every one of your messages in their timeline, a feed of all the accounts they have subscribed to. When you combine messages that are quick to write, easy to read, public, opt-‐in, and accessible anywhere, you have a powerful, real-‐time way of communicating.” (Twitter, 2012)
What does Twitter do for businesses?
As a business, you can use Twitter to quickly share information, gather market intelligence and insights, and build relationships with people who care about your company. Often, there is already a conversation usiness happening on Twitter. (Twitter, 2012) about your b
What advertising opportunities are there? Promoted Tweets
Promoted tweets use a good segmenting tool, being able to target the right person, in the right place, at the right time. Promoted tweets can be targeted to two additional features, user timelines and to search results. Promoted Tweets in search: Using this feature you are able to target users as they are searching twitter for their interests. The promoted tweet will appear at the top of the search results. Promoted Tweets in Timelines: By using this feature the promoted tweet will be amplified to all followers, or like followers. The promoted tweet will appear towards or at the top of their page when logging in, or when the page is refreshed. Targeting followers means the campaign and brand reach will be extended, these users will be more receptive to your message. Geographic targeting: By using geographic targeting the message delivered can be more relevant as it is projected within the right region. This feature is only at country level/U.S. regional level. Promoted tweets are rated on a Cost-‐Per-‐Engagement (CPE) level, this meaning payment is made only when someone either; re-‐tweets, replies, clicks or favourites the promoted tweet. Impressions or re-‐tweets are free; these can extend the reach as well as the cost-‐efficiency of the campaign. Much like organic Tweets, to make a campaign effective, Tweets must be interesting and relevant. Tweets that engage with users appear far more frequently. (Twitter, 2012) Here is an example of a Promoted tweet:
(Twitter, 2012)
Promoted Accounts Promoted accounts are a good way to quickly increase follower base of ‘brand advocates’ or influencers of your brand. (Brand Advocate -‐ A customer who has favorable perceptions of a brand who will talk favorably about a brand to their acquaintances to help generate awareness of the brand or influence purchase intent. (Chaffey, 2007))
Promoted Trends Promoted trends drive conversation and interest around a subject (Brand/product) by capturing a users attention on Twitter. Everyday, every minute, every second, twitter hosts viral conversations. These conversations are the hottest topics at the time. These trends can be seen featured prominently next to a users timeline. Because of this placement Promoted Trends give immense exposure as well as it being perfectly placed to give a bump start to a conversation on Twitter and beyond. A successful Promoted Trend will give users something new and Interesting to share, participate in and discover. (Twitter, 2012)
Promoted Trends Continued… Being followed on twitter is a great indication of interest as they have actively shown they wish to hear from you. You Twitter followers are the prefect base to launch any campaign, whether it be a new product launch or enhance online presence, they will share and amplify any
message, helping it kick off. When on twitter, promoted accounts can be found when selecting ‘Who to Follow’ section. This is a section twitter has set up to connect like minded brands, people and interests. So if you use this method, Twitters generator will place the Promoted Account in relevant search results as to ensure maximum efficiency. (Twitter, 2012)
Enhanced Pages This is a brand new Feature. Using the enhanced profile page ensures an increase in engagement and drive to business goals. This feature enables you to visually brand your page, unlike all other pages. Also the content as well as how it is shown is up to you so you can create a page that will stand out and engage with users like no other.
Benefits: image on page, providing instant engagement, also if there is any Promoted tweets from the Header business it will feature towards the top to show the most relevant content from your brand. Any with a link to a video will expand and play automatically, no other page does this. tweet Tips: Provide exclusives, maybe exclusive content regarding a new product launch. Update regularly, change header image, promoted tweets to keep the page looking new and fresh. (Twitter, 2012)
(Twitter, 2012)
Effectiveness of advertising on Twitter
After/during the running of any campaign it is important to evaluate and measure the effectiveness. Within Twitter itself there are stats given to you, on both paid and un-‐paid activity. Within Advertiser Analytics on Twitter, Promoted tweets, Trends, and accounts are all measured and analysed to show you the important information gathered. This information includes, Impressions, retweets, clicks, replied as well as followers (relative to promoted accounts), this all live as it happens. Also twitter offers insight into how a tweet performs, as in how far a reach it got, how many followers gain as a result and much more. As well as this Twitter let’s you gain insight into who your followers are, how you gained them, where they are and their engagement level. (Twitter, 2012)
(Twitter, 2012)
Optimising results
Even if you just want a version of our logo to make your own link, or a Tweet button so visitors to your site can share content, we've got you covered. There are ways in which to enhance the reach of your twitter not on their website. You can incorporate a ‘Follow us on twitter’ button or a tweet button onto your own website or any other website. Twitter provides the necessary coding for you to do so. (Twitter, 2012)
Case Study with examples
Good Example
MTV Incorporates Twitter into Video Music Awards and uses a Promoted Trend to amplify the conversation — gets over 10 million Tweets The Challenge MTV is known for involving each generation of viewers by bringing them programs that is inspired by a relevant to their lives. Most cable networks know its audience multi-‐tasks and consume content across many platforms. Its audience is also highly social and values interactivity: MTV's Twitter account has well over 2 million followers. MTV has pioneered the use of Twitter at the VMAs and in 2010, ratings soared as the network integrated social tactics more fully to drive engagement and buzz through Twitter. Leading up to the 2012 a wards, M TV wanted to take its social TV approach one step further. The solution worked with Twitter's content and programming team to develop an interactive experience that MTV allowed viewers to engage with and actually influence the live broadcast. The cable network hosted a custom mobile and online "Twitter Tracker" site and used a Promoted Trend on Twitter with the hashtag #VMA to help amplify the conversation. #VMA was also shown on-‐air, on MTV.com and on the "Twitter Tracker" to maintain a consistent cadence and experience for the audience. Verizon partnered with MTV to sponsor the integration, which had three major components: (Twitter, 2012)
The Buzz Encouragement to ‘tweet’ about celebs, the more tweets the better rating and then shows on-‐air with pictures that grew or shrank depending on volume of tweets. The Paparazzi Use twitter to distribute real time pictures of celebs, encourage viewers to re-‐tweet pictures. The re-‐tweeted pictures were shown live on show. most The Hot Seat A new feature not used before, allowed viewers to click on a virtual representation of the seat layout at the awards. By clicking on a seat, viewers could see the live tweets from that celebrity. Also show live on show. As pictured bellow:
(Twitter, 2012)
The results 2012 VMCs saw its largest viewings to date, 12.4 million (9% increase on last year). MTV saw its mobile site views hitting 2.7 million on a single day (50% increase on previous year). This was due to its cross-‐platform strategy. Trendrr TV notes that of the millions of social mentions it captured for the event, only about 1% came from Facebook while 98% came from Twitter. MTV saw over 10 million VMA tweets.
(Twitter, 2012) MTVs promoted trend had a 16% engagement rating (27 times the average mentions on the MTV Twitter account), 3.37 million #VMA mentions, as well as helping to drive 128,000 people to follow MTV’s Twitter on the day of the event. "The combination of Twitter and television is powerful," says Thomas Fishman, Social Media Manager at MTV. Case study adapted from: https://business.twitter.com/en/optimize/case-‐studies/mtv/
Bad Example @HabbitUK
is a trendy furniture store set up by Terence Conran in the 1970s. Habbit is known for being a Habbit more upmarket version of IKEA. In June 2009 Habbit made their first appearance on Twitter. To get noticed Habbit decided to use #hashtags at the start of every tweet. Habbit decided to use #hashtags that had no relation to furniture, retail or even shopping. Habbit used #hashtags which, were that top trending topics, such as #iPhone #mms #Apple and even Australia’s Masterchef contestant days #Poh. HabbitUK used a hashtag spam to get noticed. But to make things worse they carried on, using shows they know a lot of people watch such as #True Blood as well as an Iranian election. which
transparency and twitters immediacy enables spamming behavior to be quickly picked up. The Public community quickly picked up on @HabbitUKs spamming behavior, and made their twitter disappointments clear. The following are comments made to @HabbitUK regarding their behavior:
So, w hat did @HabbitUK do in response? They deleted all offending tweets, replaced them a couple hours later with generic sales/product orientated tweets with links to various web pages. Even though the tweets were deleted, there was enough time for the damage to the brand to be made. The response tweets and the re-‐tweets will live on long after. Case study adapted from: http://socialmediatoday.com/index.php?q=SMC/103334