Every month, there are 310 million active users on Twitter who tweet more than a billion times. As a source of marketing demographics, this is huge. Twitter has an ad platform that allows business owners to tap into this market.

Of course, Twitter, like its brethren at Facebook and Pinterest, is a social network, so the way that these ads are used is different than traditional paper advertisements. To truly use them to their best potential, you need to understand some concepts of big data analysis and social psychology.

Know Your Target

Twitter’s user statistics may seem high but Facebook has five times those active numbers and most people use both platforms. When looking at numbers in the multibillions, it is important to identify your target demographic. According to Pew Research, the majority of Twitter users are under the age of 50, with most being under the age of 29. They have an income over $50,000 annually. It is split about equally between races and genders. Facebook, as an example of other social networks, skews higher in age and income.

These demographics show that you need to choose the right platform for your target audience before putting money into advertising.

Twitter as a Microblogging Network

Smartphones have become a disruptive technology, one that is so cutting-edge that it has generated its own new market. Smartphones like the HTC One M9 has 42 Mbps connectivity, making them more than capable enough to drive your marketing campaign. The difficulty is finding a message network that will deliver your marketing communication. Research has found that the smartphones are holding up their end of the deal with computing power and location-based communication, but the infrastructure is often missing. Twitter is coming in as the microblogging network that allows the power of the smartphone to push your marketing communication from any location.

Create Near Similar Subsets

In the same vein as clustering are subsets that are close but not identical. Think of them like keywords. The word “happy” may be seen by one group of people. Add to that the words “joy,” “content” and “bliss,” all synonyms for happy, and you have extended your marketing reach through keywords that do not change your marketing message.

As you create your ads, develop a non-ad text campaign that has the same near-similar words and link it to your paid ads. This will give you greater impact on your market demographic.

Ads vs. News

Twitter users make a definite distinction between advertisements and news pieces. Unless the ad is very specific to a need as identified by the user, it is often ignored. Your targets would need to say to themselves that some specific person really needs your coupon in order to be willing to share it. On the other hand, news items are shared very readily.

To get the most from your Twitter ads, make them newsworthy. In general, link them to a news piece on your e-commerce or business information website.

Need to Trend

Breaking Twitter is the goal of every marketer. You want your tweets to trend whenever possible. This means that there are a lot of references to your business, via a label called hashtags, all in a short amount of time. The television industry has become quite good at getting hashtags to trend, but putting out an announcement at a convention or an event can also have the desired effect.

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This article is published by Will Sherwood | The Sherwood Group |Website Design | Graphic Design | Marketing Communications: The Sherwood Group has over 30 years of experience working with all sorts of companies, small and large. Our clients range from entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 firms, in nearly every business sector, from across the street to around the world (and yes, even Europe, China, and South America). Our goal is to create advertising,  graphic design, website design, and marketing communication that still looks fresh and relevant 10-15 years later. Our mission is to stir your imagination and leave your competition shaken and wondering,  Now what do we do?”  We are located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

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