Maximize Twitter Advertising ROI

Learn how to increase website clicks and conversions by tweeting during live events and by tapping into followers of thought leaders for a particular genre that resonates with your target audience. In this episode, Mical Johnson of Omen Interactive, a Navy and nearly two decade digital marketing veteran shares best practices to maximize the return on your Twitter advertising investment including geo-targeting, use of Twitter Cards, automatic bids and more.

SCORE is proud to partner with Sarasota County Libraries and Historical Resources and the speaker to offer this program.

View Dennis Zink’s Herald-Tribune article on this subject here.

Should you be tweeting?

Published: Monday, June 19, 2017

Created in 2006, Twitter is an online news and social networking service. It offers the ability to have multi-directional conversations in real time restricted to 140 characters. It may be the president tweeting at 3 a.m. or a live tweet with videos from space.

More than 500 million tweets are sent daily.

Should you be tweeting?

Tips for tweeting:

1. Understand what you hope to accomplish: Know why you are tweeting and what your objective is. Your tweets should be in sync with your goals.

2. Include a call-to-action in your tweets.

3. Keep tweets short (65 to 95 characters). This leaves room for retweeting as tweets can’t exceed 140 characters. Use short links like Bit.ly. Include relevant hashtags. If your tweet is shared thank the retweeter.

4. Retweet popular trends and interesting content.

5. Set up schedules to tweet automatically.

6. Use the most popular words for retweets.

7. Be professional, don’t attack others.

8. Learn what works best and adjust.

The Twitter ad platform

I spoke with Mical Johnson, who is an expert on Twitter.

Mical is with @OmenInteractive,and he commented on the Twitter ad platform as not being as mature as Facebook. “Twitter excels as a platform for live events or news focus. Website clicks and conversions matter.”

On Facebook, you target the followers of users. If you have a brand ambassador, or a thoughtleader in your space, you target their users. That’s very powerful when you are trying to grow your business.

If someone is interested in following a person on Twitter, they are going to be interested in a specific subject.

Build a story, have a reason that people are going to become engaged. For example, target a TV show that you know your audience is going to have an affinity for, and then tie the TV show to your ad in an interesting way.

Often at large events and conference, there will be a lot of live tweeting. It’s the in-thing. Instead of a reporter, have someone doing live tweeting at the event. This is a great way to get the word out. Twitter advertising is the exact opposite of Facebook advertising. If you want to target someone who is in the health and fitness space, then find every health and fitness guru in that space.

If they have published a book, and they have a Twitter account, use it.

If they’re on a TV show, find and engage them.

Build your list as large as possible and then advertise to it. Twitter is live; it’s a livestream that enables you to report up to the minute, as things happen.

The way Twitter works

When you tweet, the only people who will see your tweet are the people that follow you. (Unless you have directed your tweet to a specific person.) But this doesn’t apply with advertising. You choose the audience that you’re going to tweet because you’re going to pay for it. Within a week of opening a Twitter advertising account, you can start advertising. You may have only a few followers but you can advertise to them.

People will follow you if you’re advertising and targeting larger users, gurus, influencers or celebrities who are in the space. If you’re advertising regularly to an audience, your Twitter follower count will increase. Be sure to tweet on a regular basis. Add people you want to follow. If your audience is global then you need to be aware of time zone differences. Companies with a marketing message should use Hootsuite to schedule tweets up to three times per day.

Twitter handles: Your ads can target specific Twitter handles. A Twitter handle is a user name, published by the user because they want to build a following. Check Amazon for the top 10 bestsellers and thought leaders on a specific topic. These authors will publish their Twitter handles. You can use those handles in you advertising, thus, targeting those followers.

A Twitter handle is a username with an @ symbol, and whatever follow such as @ zinkdennis. You can communicate with a specific person using their Twitter handle. A Twitter handle allows you to target and build your profile. Publish content regularly. The challenge is finding people who will engage with you. Use the Twitter search functionality, which is search.twitter.com and type in the box “See what’s happening right now.” Note that the “Trends” are listed below. This will enable you to find people who are having relevant topical conversations.

According to Mical Johnson: “Think of Twitter as walking into a party, and you don’t know anyone. Chances are that you will overhear discussions about different subjects, some of which may be of interest to you. You might introduce yourself to the conversation to add value. With Twitter, it’s similar but with less formality. If you want to comment just chime in. The way to find these conversations is by using the search function. The reason people use hashtags (#) is to group similar conversations together. If you know the hashtag, you can search for that hashtag, find people that may want your service, and reach out to them with tweets.”

Use their Twitter handle so that person will know you are talking to them and send them a message.

Livestream: There are different areas in which you can interact on Twitter. You have your ‘stream,’ which includes everyone that you follow. It consists of their tweets as they occur, often at a fast pace. Hashtags also function to have a conversation. If you’re doing a search on a hashtag, the only visible conversation revolves around that hashtag.

Mentions: A mention is a different inbox. Direct Twitter messaging comes in your inbox.

Mentions happen when somebody references you. You can click on the mention just like you would a Facebook post, and you will only see that post.

Bids: Bids determine how much you are willing to spend in an ad campaign and is similar to other platforms. If your budget does not get spent, then you didn’t target enough people. Your ads should always point back to your website where you will have a call-to-action. Plan this beforehand, know what you want to accomplish and geotarget your audience. If your business is in a geographic area, target that area.

Start small with your targeting: perhaps just the thought-leaders in your space, maybe one subject. Build that audience. If you have a live event, you can run though your budget quickly.

Twitter cards: With Twitter cards you can attach photos, videos and other multimedia.

This will help capture people’s attention and drive more traffic.

Take your best shot: If your business is getting started, find out and go where the people are.

Many are going to be on Facebook. Start there as Twitter tends to be more of a niche audience.

Advertise your best product or service and keep your messaging simple.

Target those within your delivery area.

Keep it short and sweet, and tweet.