How Twitter content powers your social media marketing strategy

By Krista Doyle
Business Insights
two content marketers at work
 

Why should you market your business on Twitter?

Because of our audience’s responsiveness and readiness to engage, brands have found Twitter to be an integral part of their marketing strategies. Twitter's audience is just different. Example? People on Twitter spend 26% more time viewing ads1 compared to ads viewed on other leading social media networks.

If you want to learn more about what makes our audience different, check out the video below and let Twitter product expert Walt Umanzor (@djFunFacts) explain the benefits of marketing on Twitter.

 

Benefits of using Twitter content for marketing:

  • Builds brand and product awareness
  • Helps you stand out to buyers considering their options
  • Drives purchases
  • Builds community and customer loyalty

Twitter provides two distinct avenues for marketing your business through content: Organic social media marketing and Paid social media marketing. We'll break down how to align content to each of them right after we talk about how to nail down your strategy.

 

How to create a Twitter content strategy

Having a Twitter content strategy in place helps to: make your content creation process more efficient and intentional, align your content with business goals, and more easily track your content’s performance.

Create your strategy:

  • Understand your audience
  • Set your goals
  • Balance your organic social and paid social content
  • Create a Twitter content calendar

Understand your audience

Before you decide what types of content to create or attempt to set realistic goals, you have to analyze your audience. This step is most important because it'll help you understand what type of content resonates with your audience and gets them to take action.

Believe it or not, very few brands actually take the time to truly understand their audience which can result in low engagement and wasted resources.

To get more insight into who follows you, head to the Twitter Analytics Followers dashboard. This tool gives you a peek into the interests, locations, and demographics of your Twitter followers.

Set your goals

Now that you have a better understanding of your audience, it’s time to set goals.

Any marketing strategy needs to be attached to measurable goals and Twitter is no different. You can and should make sure your Twitter goals tie back in to your team's overall plan to grow the business.

These goals might look different for organic content vs. paid content. Organic social media goals usually revolve around brand awareness or driving traffic through organic Tweets. Paid social media goals tend to be geared more toward driving conversions or leads since you're paying for faster results.

Organic social media goal example: Build brand awareness and grow your following by hosting a weekly series on Twitter Spaces

Paid social media goal example: Increase site visits through Carousel Ads

Once you’ve determined your goals, remember to check back in on them regularly. It's always best to check in and analyze what's working and what's not.

Balance your organic social and paid social content

Organic social content is likely what your business Tweets most regularly. These types of Tweets are a free way to build brand awareness and community on Twitter and can include text, images, videos, or gifs. Paid social content is shared through ad products to help brands reach wider audiences and potential new customers.

On Twitter, organic Tweets will show up on your followers' timelines first. The more your followers engage with your organic content, Twitter will start to serve that content to other people who may find it interesting.

Paid social content on Twitter will show up in the timelines of whatever group of people you've chosen to target with your ads. With Twitter's various ad products, you can target audiences based on demographics, location, interests, and more.

Ideally, organic and paid social content work together to help your brand reach its goals.

Learn more: Organic social best practices | Paid social best practices

 

Finding the balance between organic and paid content takes time, but it's essential for any brand on social media. When organic and paid work together and not against each other, that's when the audience wins!

Dani Trevino (@d_trev), Social Content Coordinator, Twitter Business (@TwitterBusiness)

 

Create a Twitter content calendar

Twitter moves so fast that knowing what and when to post can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. This is where content calendars come into play. Building a content calendar can help keep your content creation process consistent and organized.

Your content calendar should reflect what works personally for your team, but in case you need ideas, here are two widely used methods for deciding how to divvy up your calendar.

The rule of thirds
  • One-third of your Tweets promote your business or drive conversions.

  • One-third of your Tweets share curated content from industry thought leaders.

  • One-third of your Tweets involve personal interaction with your followers.

The 80-20 rule
  • 80 percent of your Tweets are designed to inform, educate, or entertain

  • 20 percent of your Tweets directly promote your business or drive conversions

Twitter content calendar tip: Holidays, sporting events, and cultural events are all regular opportunities for you to connect with your audience and reach new followers. Don’t worry, we round up all the important holidays and events for you every year in Twitter’s annual marketing calendar.

 

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    Twitter content types for organic social

     

    Twitter threads

    We’ve already established that Tweets are a great way to educate your audience and establish your business as an authority in its industry. But what about when you want to use more words and 280 characters aren’t enough? Twitter threads let you kick your Twitter storytelling up a notch. 

    A thread on Twitter is a series of connected Tweets from one person. With a thread you can provide additional context, an update, or an extended point by connecting multiple Tweets together.

    Threads are also really great for organic reach since they are longer and encourage more engagement. Franchise and small business expert, The Wolf of Franchises (@franchisewolf) recently wrote about a viral thread he penned that earned him over 5,000 followers.

     

     

    Video summaries

    It’s no secret that video increases your engagement. Don’t be afraid to get creative with how you use video in your organic social strategy. Here’s a great example of how email & SMS platform Klaviyo (@Klaviyo) Director of Content Strategy Tracey Wallace (@tracewall) used video to promote one of Klaviyo’s recent articles about SMS marketing.

     

    Twitter Spaces

    With the rise of podcasts and social audio, there’s never been a better time to incorporate Spaces into your Twitter content strategy. Brands use Spaces for everything from news updates to interviews with industry experts. Dolly Parton even held a reading of her newest book on Spaces to promote its launch.

    You can get even more creative with Spaces, as shown by productivity platform ClickUp (@ClickUp) who has been using the social audio tool to audition industry creators for the company's new brand creator campaign.

     

    Twitter chats

    Hosting a Twitter chat is always a great way to engage with your followers. #PopChat, a weekly Twitter chat series from brand marketing consultant Brianne Fleming (@brianne2k), is a great example of how effective chats can be as a community builder for your target audience. In this case, Brianne uses #PopChat to connect with other marketing professionals.

     

    "I started #PopChat on a whim, but it has evolved into such a tight-knit community! It’s a chance to network with marketing professionals, but beyond that, we get to bond over music, movies, sports and pop culture topics too." Brianne says.

    Brianne's #PopChat hashtag gets approximately two million impressions every week. Her audience comprises 90% marketing professionals and has been sponsored by Attentive, Pexels, Alaska Airlines, and more. 

     

    Twitter content types for paid social

     Text
     Images
     Video

    Some people may not consider ads "content", but just because ads have spend behind them doesn't make the content any less important. In fact, according to Ipsos, 75% of your ad's impact is determined by the quality of its creative.

    Whether you’re trying to build brand awareness, get more followers, or drive conversions, Twitter’s paid social media products can make sure your content reaches the right people.

    Twitter ads come in several different formats, so you'll want to make sure you align your content with the right ad type. Here are the different Twitter ads you should use based on your preferred content type.

     

    Text

    Twitter text ad
    Pictured: Twitter text ad
    Text Ads

    Text ads have all the elements of a standard Tweet, including likes, replies, favorites and Retweets.

    Benefits of using a Text Ad: They still have the feel of the regular Twitter content your followers appreciate, but they also help you reach new audiences and potential customers.

    Trend Takeover

    A Trend Takeover puts your brand alongside every other topic trending on Twitter that day in the Explore tab. 

    Benefit of using Trend Takeover Ads: Trend Takeovers allows your brand the option to be seen outside of the traditional timeline to tap into users wanting to discover new stories and products via the Explore tab. You can even spice things up a bit with Trend Takeover+, which allows you to add video creative.

     

     

    Images

    Twitter image ad
    Pictured: Twitter image ad
    Image Ads

    Highlight your best creative and drive people to your site, app, or take an action in the moment. Image Ads allow you to showcase your brand, product, or service with a single photo.

    Benefit of using Image Ads: They’re easy to create and can support multiple objectives. They can be Retweeted, replied to, and liked, and they’re clearly marked as “Promoted”.

    Carousel Ads

    Twitter’s Carousel Ads are a Tweet featuring six horizontally-swipeable images (or videos) to showcase multiple products or promotions.

    Benefit of using Carousel Ads with images: Carousel ads are interactive, which lets your audience engage with your ad more than other formats. They’re also easy to create since they follow the same creative specs as other Image ads.

     

    Video

    Twitter Amplify Pre-Roll ad
    Pictured: Twitter Amplify Pre-Roll ad
    Video Ads

    If you really want to bring your brand and products to life, video is a great way to do that. Just like image ads, they’re easy to create and can be used to drive people to a website, app, or just help increase engagement

    Benefit of using Video Ads: Similar to organic video content, video creative in ads increase engagement like crazy. In fact, recent internal Twitter data showed an 84% year-over-year increase in time spent watching video on the platform.2

    Twitter Amplify

    Twitter Amplify places your ads in premium video content from publishers relevant to your brand and target audience. There are two Amplify products to choose from:

    Twitter Amplify products:
    • Amplify Pre-Roll: Choose where your video ad gets seen from 15+ categories, including select Curated Categories in markets where they're available.

    • Amplify Sponsorships: Sponsorships let you pair yourself with a leading publisher via an exclusive one-to-one Amplify Sponsorship package. Choose to sponsor events, Moments, or shows on Twitter and we work with our publishing partners to create the best deal for you.

    1. Benefits of using Twitter Amplify: Nearly half of people who come to Twitter daily follow our Amplify pre-roll publishers3, and using Twitter Amplify to connect with what’s happening drives +68% campaign awareness and +24% message association4.

    Quick Promote

    If you’re looking for something quick and simple, Twitter’s Quick Promote tool can be used across text, image, and video content and can be created from your already-existing Tweets.

    Benefits of using Quick Promote: Simple, affordable, and effective. Need we say more?

     

    How to measure the success of your Twitter content

    As much fun as it can be to create content for Twitter, you still need to measure the success of your content, whether paid or organic.

    The process for tracking metrics and measuring success will differ based on several factors, like whether you’re a business owner or an agency or what your campaign goals are. 

    At the very least, you can use your Twitter Activity Dashboard (TAD) to track performance for organic Tweets, Promoted Tweets, and Video content.

    For paid ad campaigns, you can use the Campaign Dashboard to track metrics like:

    • Impressions

    • Results

    • Engagement rate

    • Cost-per-result

    Note: Your “results” metric will differ based on which campaign objective you selected.

    Learn more about how to track performance with Twitter analytics.

     

     

    1Source: OMG + Twitter, 2018, US/BR/JP.

    2Source: Internal Twitter data, 2019.

    3Source: Twitter internal data, 2019. Based on global monetizable daily active users.

    4Source: Nielsen Brand Effect 2018, US/UK/JP/CA.