It’s Time To Get Conversational With Twitter Advertising
Understand Twitter’s newest advertising format, which allows brands to create adverts that users can’t help but share and engage with…
It’s no secret that many brands seem to prefer paid Facebook advertising to the paid offerings of Twitter. But with a new advertising format that looks to increase ROI at the same time as organic reach and shareable content, Twitter may see more brands flocking back to the social platform with media spend. Here’s what you need to know.
Say hello to Twitter’s new conversational ads
Twitter’s new ‘conversational ads’ allow a brand to tell a story with the help of their followers (or soon-to-be followers).
- Users that are targeted by the ads see a promoted Twitter card that shows branded content along with a question and two possible answers.
- The user clicks one of the options and is taken to an auto-filled tweet from their own account.
- By tweeting this to their own followers, they then receive a triggered tweet from the brand which provides another step in the journey.
Depending on how the ads have been set up, this could lead to another question to further engage the user, show off more branded content, or contain a call-to-action to convert (e.g. pre-order, book, sign up).
Here’s how it works
A good and relatively simple example of this new feature was Marvel’s Twitter advertising for Captain America: Civil War. Fans were invited to pledge allegiance to either Team Cap or Team Iron Man, as per the concept of the film, via a promoted ad. Once they’d picked a side, they could tweet their choice immediately to show their followers which team they were on before being sent a thank you message from the brand.
In one fell swoop, this ad engaged fans at the same time as getting them to share the content with their own followers and widen the reach of the campaign.
Instant unlock cards
On top of the new conversational ads, Twitter has also introduced instant unlock cards. In exchange for sending out a related tweet, users can unlock exclusive content from their favourite brands, such as a video or an offer.
This gives users a real incentive to not only engage with branded content, but also share it with their own followers, resulting in increased (and technically ‘free’) reach for brands from each paid advert.
In light of recent Q2 reports from Twitter stating that they’re “seeing a continuation of the trends discussed last quarter with less overall advertiser demand than expected,” this couldn’t be coming at a better time.
It’s a two-way street…
The best thing about conversational ads is that they give brands an engaging way to draw followers into what they’re all about without ever needing to hard-sell.
In fact, the longer you can avoid that obvious sales pitch in favour creating content that people want to see, the more likely they are to actually make a conversion further down the line. Remember, people want stories that engage with them on a deeper, more personal level, rather than the in-your-face adverts that they’re already trying to avoid by tweeting during the Coronation Street ad breaks.
Of course, if you don’t feel like waltzing into the somewhat disorientating maze that is Twitter’s advertising, let us do it for you. We’ve got a socially-savvy team on standby to get people chirping about your brand.
Original Article by Ryan Noble at Connecting Element