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When you think about social media ads for business-to-business marketing (B2B), Twitter is not the standard choice. Twitter often serves as an afterthought that only a few companies leverage their campaigns and invest their efforts in. LinkedIn is still the titan for finding leads for B2B marketing. After all, it’s the melting pot of all things business – from tech leaders, emerging startups and solution seekers to networking with industry giants.
Twitter is an entirely different beast. For one, it displayed a significant growth plateau in 2014, leading to analyst downgrades and stock drops. Plus, the steadfast growth of Facebook, Google and LinkedIn made Twitter secondary for B2B marketing. That being said, it’s no stranger to redemption. In fact, 2022 research shows that advertisers could reach up to 486 million active Twitter users — a 4.5% increase in just three months before July.
Effective leaders understand the goldmine behind this platform. While you need to have LinkedIn for qualified leads and finding people hungry for solutions, a multi-channel distribution strategy is the difference-maker. Remember that social media is all about engagement and connection, and optimizing your ads on many platforms is critical.
What’s paramount is knowing how to efficiently navigate the Twitter ad space, including the type of ads to use, learning your customization options and the quality of your content. This will not only help you reach your target audience effectively, but it will also drive bottom-of-the-funnel clicks to apps, landing pages and websites successfully.
Related: You are Missing Out if You Don’t Use Twitter. Here’s 3 Reasons Why.
1. Promoted ads
Like boosted posts on Facebook, Twitter’s Promoted Ads are some of the most common features marketers use to reach a target demographic. They look like regular tweets and come with a promoted tag at the bottom-left corner – relatively simple yet yield a high ROI.
Promoted Ads are flexible. Whether you want to include images, links, or videos, the multitude of content you can use for brand awareness amplification is abundant. This allows marketers to showcase products, solutions and company culture in a straightforward yet nuanced manner.
Related: 10 Marketing Strategies to Fuel Your Business Growth
2. Follower ads
A proven way to gain a broader reach on Twitter is through Follower Ads. This enables your account to be at the front and center of suggested Twitter users in the Who to Follow section. Not only does this put your brand on a pedestal, but it can also help curate your circle of who’s interested in what you offer, ensuring a junk-free network through a condensed base of followers. As with Promoted Ads, Follower Ads come with a promoted tag that serves as a distinction from other account recommendations. According to Business Twitter, users who follow you through Follower Ads are more likely to convert into advocates or fans, producing not just one-time customers but long-lasting relationships.
3. Trend and timeline takeovers
Trend Takeovers are premium ads designed explicitly for massive accounts to occupy the top spot of their targeted users’ trending section on mobile apps and web browsers. This is ideal for enterprise brands with optimal resources, a solid following and an established identity, as self-managed accounts don’t have access to this. If you want to take it a step further, Trend Takeover+ adds a video to your message, creating an immersive story that’s not only eye-catching but is also a proven conversation starter.
On the other hand, Timeline Takeover puts your brand on top of your targeted user’s feed, giving you instant visibility as soon as they open their app. Twitter’s mass awareness ad package is exclusive and lasts for a day. And just like Trend, Timeline also comes with an auto-play video that instantly gives users a visual narrative of your campaign.
Related: Fake Accounts and Bots: Is Marketing on Twitter Worth It?
4. Twitter live
There’s a common misconception that Twitter Live is strictly for business-to-consumer marketing (B2C). Forward-thinking leaders and marketers know that this feature is also essential for B2B brands for selling products and solutions and providing off-the-cuff nuances that hyper-personalize and humanize brands. For example, companies can use this feature to broadcast business events and seminars that instantly drive conversations with their followers.
Other Twitter ad features
Other Twitter Ad features that help brands increase the functionality of their campaign include polls, conversation buttons or CTAs, app buttons, website buttons, branded notifications and branded hashtags. These amplify your chosen ads that trigger click-throughs, engagement and retweets.
Ultimately, the goal is to have a bulletproof set of tactics and strategies for exploring the targeting capabilities of social media. With Twitter, the key is not to confine your brand to outdated practices for B2B. While it targets business folks, it’s important to remember that humans are susceptible to creativity, humor, out-of-the-box thinking and engaging storytelling.
Learn what ad type fits the brand best, back it up with high-quality content, and maneuver your campaign with smarts and wits.
