Why it pays to get in on the conversation

Immediacy, affordability and relevancy are only a few of the reasons Twitter advertising offers wide potential for advertisers. Its active user base is huge (300 million). It offers diverse targeting options. And, most important, tweeting is conversational. Users interact immediately, re-tweet what they like (or dislike), share offers and quickly disseminate information to your benefit.

Finally, Twitter advertising is inexpensive. It provides good tracking and analytics and offers decent targeting options. But it is important to remember that things move fast on Twitter. Old news is no-news on this platform. The relevancy of posts can be very ephemeral.

Your ad options with Twitter Advertising

There are three well-proven ad types that have stood the test of time. They are Promoted Accounts, Promoted Trends and Promoted Tweets. Let’s dive straight in to their usage scenarios and benefits.

Promoted Accounts. These are your brand builders. Promoted Accounts help promote your brand or company, in part by letting users know that you are active on Twitter. They can also make your tweets more effective moving forward. Also, they can appear at the top of the “Who to Follow” area when viewed on a desktop. Finally, they appear in line on mobile devices.

Twitter Promoted Account

Furthermore, promoted Accounts can be targeted to specific audiences, based on affinity groups. Or,specific users and those like them (for example followers of @baristabar). Targeting variables include:

• Interests
• Geography
• Gender
• Tailored Audiences
• TV Targeting
• Device Targeting
• Keywords
• Users like your current followers
• Languages
• Users who follow specific influencers

Promoted Trends. These are Twitter’s prime ad real estate. They’re expensive, averaging six figures per day. But they expose you to the widest audience possible as they are seen by millions of users. If you have a product whose promotional phase is top-of-sales-funnel, Promoted Trends are an excellent way to drive mass awareness.

Twitter Promoted Trend

Catching the moment, riding the wave

In Twitter advertising a trend can be anything you want. You create the hashtag. Then, pay to pepper it through other people’s conversations in a specific geographic or demographic target. Make them cool and interesting and people will pick up on them. Pass them around and all of a sudden you’re trending… and viral! Really great Promoted Trends capture the spirit of the moment, der zeitgeist.

True zeitgeist: The Trend people gobbled up

When the lights went off at the 2013 Super Bowl, Oreo had an ace in the hole. Their ad agency’s social marketing team. Literally within 5 minutes these guys conceived and promoted a Twitter trend. It had a cool visual and a simple headline: You can still dunk in the dark.

Oreo’s famous Super Bowl tweet

The Oreo team was monitoring the game looking for any excuse to tweet. Then a faulty electrical relay gave them a perfect opportunity. Half an hour of enforced quiet time shared by millions of people. And the results were tangible. A big spike in sales of Oreos.

Promoted tweets are ideal for engaging audiences beyond your followers.

Promoted Tweets. These are your scouts and infiltrators, sent to engage audiences beyond your followers. Additionally, you can broadcast them to current followers. Promoted tweets enable you to promote offers and include links to optimized landing pages. Typically one-shot promotions, they don’t have much staying power. But the right offers and call to action can make them measurable and monetizable.

Lead Generation Cards: Capturing Your Leads & Audience Interest

Twitter’s Lead Generation Cards make it simple for users to respond to your Promoted Tweets, Trends and Accounts. Here’s how they work:

1. You add Lead Generation Cards to your account
2. When a user hits your Tweet, it expands to show a description of your offer. In addition, a call to action PLUS a pre-filled form featuring their name and email address.
3. The user simply clicks a button to respond to your offer and send the above information to you.

Lead Generation Cards are excellent for promoting things like product clubs. However, if you’re going that route be sure to include a privacy policy. It’s not only best practice; it’s reassuring your user. You can choose between Cost Per Lead (CPL) or Cost Per Thousand (CPM). Note: The latter can get prohibitively expensive.

A Twitter Lead Generation Card

Analytics

Twitter advertising includes a dashboard providing good information on engagements, engagement rates, likes and link clicks. Some of the questions the Tweet Activity Dashboard can help answer include:

• First, how many impressions do my Tweets receive?
• Which of my Tweets resonates best with my target audience?
• How do my Tweet metrics break out by organic and promoted activity?
• How does my recent performance compare to past results?
• Lastly, do my engagement metrics break down by type?

Again, it’s not super comprehensive. But you can drill down far enough to see who’s interacting with your brand. And, how they’re interacting and what’s hitting their hot buttons.

Always remember that the power to target with pinpoint accuracy is the #1 advantage you enjoy with any social media advertising. Twitter may be conversational in nature – but precision targeting is key to profitable conversations.

Feel free to share this blog, Twitter Advertising – Social Media Advertising Series, Part 4. We only ask that when shared no changes are made, and credits are given to the authors.

John Thyfault

Laurie B. Beasley

The post Twitter Advertising – Social Media Advertising appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Social media has quickly grown to become a major part of online marketing. In fact, 84% of B2B marketers report using social media in some form during their campaigns. Currently, Facebook remains the most popular site among social media users according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. LinkedIn is reported as the second most used social media site. Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter following behind. Developing an effective social media posting strategy is essential to your campaign’s success.

(http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/social-media-update-2014/)

With all these different social media sites competing for your potential client’s attention, it can be hard to plan an effective social media posting strategy. You, as a social media marketer should ask the following questions. When is the best time to post on each of the social media sites? Is there a ‘compromise time’ where one can optimally post on all the sites? If each site has a different optimal posting time, then how can a social media manager manage effectively manage their social media campaigns?

Your Social Media Posting Strategy: Optimal Posting Times

Facebook

Facebook is the largest social media site with over 936 million daily users worldwide. Surprisingly though, the number of user visits decrease significantly during the work week. Facebook get the largest amount of its user traffic during the weekend, with Sunday receiving the highest number of user visits. Facebook traffic is at its highest each day between 8 a.m.-9 a.m. and 5 p.m.-1 a.m. Posting on Facebook should be avoided between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. when user traffic is at its lowest. Timing is an important part of your social media posting strategy for Facebook and other social sites.

LinkedIn

Unlike most other social media sites, LinkedIn is geared toward the working professional rather than a personal profile. Because of this, most users log into the site and view content during business hours. The best days to post on LinkedIn are Tuesday through Thursday during the work hours of 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Tuesday between 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. is the absolute best time to post out of the entire week, with the highest level of clicks and shares. Posting on LinkedIn should be avoided between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.. That is when the lowest amount of users are logged in.

Pinterest

From recipes and crafts to home décor and health tips, Pinterest is every millennial mother’s best friend. In fact, 65% of Pinterest users are women who have at least one child. Unsurprisingly, the best times to pin new content on Pinterest are either between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. or 8 p.m. and 1 a.m. during the week. This is when a majority of Pinterest users are more likely to not be preoccupied with work or with taking care of their family. During the weekends, however, this changes with Saturday morning having the highest level of traffic. This is most likely due to users having more time to browse and try out ideas found on the site.

(https://www.business2community.com/pinterest/best-time-days-pin-pinterest-01152667)

It is important to note that Pinterest users have a different viewing trend than found on other sites. According to user statistics, 52% of Pinterest users visit the site less than once per week. So it is most important that social media managers post often during prime viewing times throughout the week to better their chances of catching their audience while they are logged in.

Instagram

Instagram focuses more on image and video sharing than on worded posts, as Facebook and Twitter do. Businesses can post pictures of their products or snapshots of company events,and followers can leave comments under the images. According to a survey run by Latergramme, the best times to post on Instagram is 2 a.m. and 5 p.m. The 2 a.m. slot catches the late night teen and young adult crowd who may be up late with school assignments, while the 5 p.m. slot grabs the working users who may be finishing up or done with their work day.

(https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/25/get-instagram-likes_n_6751614.html)

Most Instagram users view content pretty regularly throughout the week with Wednesday being the most popular day, and Monday being the least popular day, by a small margin.

Twitter

Most Twitter users visit the site and engage with content before and during work or school hours. Usage drops off after the school and work day are over, at about 6pm. The best time to post and increase the likelihood of receiving retweets is between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, with 5 p.m. having the highest number of active users and retweets.

(https://neilpatel.com/blog/science-of-social-timing/)

It is important to remember that a Tweet has an average shelf life of eight hours. Therefore it would be wise to plan to post more than one tweet, the recommend amount would be at least four, and stagger them throughout the day’s optimal posting times.

Google+

Google+ has been rapidly growing as a social media platform for the past few years. With the addition of communities and interactive posts, Google+ has become a site that is greatly focused on people who wish to communicate with like minded groups. Most of the users who visit Google+ log on during the work week between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. Posts made on Wednesdays at 9 a.m. are found to receive the largest amount of traffic out of the entire week.

Effective Social Media Management

As demonstrated by the above data, there is no one perfect ‘compromise time’ to post on all social media sites. Each site caters to a different demographic who will log on at different times depending on the content these sites offer. So how is an online marketer supposed to manage an effective social media posting strategy calendar? There are several tools available that do just that.

Some social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, have features built into the site that allow you to schedule your post. When you post from your profile page on Facebook, a small clock icon can be found on the bottom of your post window. This opens up tabs that allow you to set a date and time for your content to post. Twitter, on the other hand, allows marketers using their Twitter’s Ad Products to schedule their organic and promoted tweets from the blue tweet button.

Another option available to online marketers is to use online social media management programs. Such as Hootsuite, Latergramme, Followerwonk, or any others to manage and schedule all of their social media content. These programs can greatly complement your social media posting strategy.

* * The Author * *

This post was authored by Elizabeth A. Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.

Elizabeth Beasley serves as a social media manager at Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc www.BeasleyDirect.com.  Elizabeth manages new client on-boarding and accounts, social media, corporate presentations, corporate website, and database maintenance. She also serves as an account manager for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California www.DMAnc.org, managing event logistics, registration and promotion. She holds a B.A. in Communications from National University.

The post How to Optimize Your Social Media Posting Strategy appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.