Fresh on the heels of an IPO, there’s plenty of speculation about the future value of Twitter and how it will sustain revenue over the next few years. Certainly, it’s been proven that Twitter is around to stay, with a sizable base of users who constantly check their feeds for more content. Plus, there’s significant buzz around the value of Twitter, given its decision to close off its API and keep tracking data internal.

Regardless of how investors feel about Twitter, there are real opportunities for businesses of all sizes to advertise on the social media platform. There are three different ways to advertise on Twitter: Promoted Hashtags, Promoted Accounts and Promoted Tweets.

The team at our Florida ad agency thought it would be helpful to break down Twitter ads to figure out the best ways to help businesses lever Twitter marking for their businesses.

Promoted Trends

Promoted trends are the true moneymakers for Twitter. Companies can purchase a Twitter hashtag for 24 hours, starting at about $200,000, for the exclusive right to be featured prominently as a trending hashtag throughout the course of the day. Obviously, this requires a huge marketing budget, but large businesses that can afford a promoted trend can typically expect to see a massive return on investment. Sponsored hashtags appear in the trends section of the desktop site and have featured placement on Twitter mobile.

On a recent Tuesday, the evening’s promoted trend was #TuesdayNightFootball. The hashtag appeared in a sidebar for every person who used Twitter on his or her computer for that entire day. The success of that marketing effort wasn’t just massive Twitter appeal; much of it was in the fact that people were consistently using that hashtag in their own Tweets, creating a network of posts and retweets to help create awareness of Tuesday Night Football. It also became a cross-promotional effort, with TV viewers being encouraged to tweet with that hashtag and attracting new viewers to their televisions to watch Tuesday Night Football.

Companies who opt to go with this type of advertising often do so through agencies, and do it in order to promote events or product launches. Only one promoted hashtag will run at a given time, so it is given a premium spot at a premium rate.

Promoted Accounts

Business owners can promote their accounts for much cheaper than they can purchase promoted hashtags. A promoted account features the advertiser’s account prominently on the desktop under “Who to Follow,” and reach only people who fit a particular profile, as determined by the advertiser.

Promoted accounts works best for people looking to grow their user base over time by cultivating user engagement. These seem to be a longer-term strategy. Also, advertisers only pay for users who follow their accounts as a result of the promoted account.

Promoted Tweets

[quote]Most small business Twitter success stories come from promoted Tweets.[/quote]These are easy to implement and geotarget, or, small businesses can choose to relay such tweets to niche populations who are interested in specific subject matter (which is based on the accounts a person follows and tweet topics).  These are best to use to drive immediate traffic.

Recently, a friend of mine who had a recently published book decided to take a shot at Twitter advertising. Her efforts garnered more than 2,000 impressions and hundreds of new followers. And, this all cost her a mere $5. With careful planning, this tactic can be an effective strategy for engaging with potential customers.

Increasingly, businesses are learning to leverage Twitter to help grow their user base and engage with them more. People who are not getting the results they want from simply tweeting may wish to investigate Twitter advertising as an additional source of awareness. Business owners who have yet to experiment with Twitter advertising can contact our Florida marketing agency for help with creating the perfect Twitter ad campaign.