Think of an effective social media tool for business and Facebook will likely spring to mind; however, Twitter has been playing catch up and could even become the social media platform of choice for savvy business marketers.
Facebook has become popular with businesses for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its user numbers. Other factors behind its success for marketing purposes include how it displays and shares content and the effectiveness of its advertising options. However, Twitter is making inroads as far as audience targeting is concerned, though it obviously lags behind Facebook in user numbers. Figures up to March 2015 show that Facebook boasts 1.44 billion monthly active users on average, compared to 288 million for Twitter.
Nonetheless, Twitter has been working hard to enhance its appeal to business marketers. A notable addition to Twitter’s suite of options has been Twitter Cards. Tweets with images have a higher engagement rate, but an issue for businesses has been that most of their investment has been wasted on people clicking to enlarge images. With Twitter Cards, the image is placed alongside the link, but wherever a user clicks on the image it follows the link. Twitter has also developed Cards for app installs, lead generations and video views, and is working on additional options.
Targeting is a critical factor in effective business marketing and Twitter does not disappoint. A particular strength of Twitter’s advertising platform is the ability to hone in on niche groups. A marketing strategy can target users on the basis of a particular handle or broader categories. Keyword targeting is another option, with ads targeted at users talking about a particular topic or product/service.
It helps that Twitter is approachable, for a company of its size and scale. Twitter regularly holds free webinars, ideal for small businesses that have just begun to use the platform. Businesses also have the option of various Twitter handles if they need to reach out for assistance – @TwitterAds being just one. Twitter rolled out Analytics in August 2014 and has beefed it up since, so reporting is becoming another of its strengths.
In online marketing, having effective tools is critical, and Twitter is becoming a must-have for savvy businesses.
