5 top tips for trying out #Twitter Ads. And a Merry #Christmas Bonus.

twitter-christmas-iconI have been honing my Twitter advertising skills for a while, both with clients who had apps to promote and clients with businesses and websites they want more traffic for.

I can safely say (and so can many of my clients) that Twitter is THE most cost effective way to get more leads and traffic in digital marketing that I know of right now.

And even though I can’t tell you the figures or CPA’s for clients I can give you a Merry Christmas with these top tips. Here they are:

My 5 top tips for Twitter Advertising 

1) Target the followers of specific accounts

This is MUCH better than just aiming at people’s interests (which is like what you can do with Facebook advertising). Going for the follower of accounts gives you much more rich data from a psychological POV. i.e. If they like 10 or so of the right accounts – you can tell a lot about the person’s thoughts and potential desires.

2) Target by device

This one is not as psychologically exciting but it is vital for conversion rates i.e. if you are wanting people to fill in a signup form and this form is not as mobile-friendly as it ought to be (a serious challenge when using Twitter ads), you’ll want to target users who can easily sign up, i.e. those on non-mobile devices.

However, do remember that Twitter is more mobile than anything else – especially in the UK i.e. around 78% are mobile users.

3) Don’t pre-empt yourself

When you start using Twitter ads you can do lots of different things – but two of the main ones are:

Promoted Tweets or Promoted Accounts.

The assumption is that the former will get you engagement while the latter attracts followers. This is not always the case. You should play around with Promoted Tweets to get more followers as well, as this works.

4) Use conversation pieces:

Normally advertising is statement led or to increase the desire for something. But in Twitter as such a social platform try to use social actions to engage with people so use promoted tweets that have questions in there. You will be amazed at the results.

5) Don’t follow Twitter’s recommended bid price

When you create your campaign Twitter will suggest a max. bid price that you should offer. This is a ‘per engagement’ fee that you’ll pay for clicks, RTs, replies and follows. You will pay a LOT less – and you should. So go low. Then if you aren’t getting anything, gently up the price and check, check, check.

Christmas bonus tip: Play around and test, test, test.

Have fun playing with Twitter ads. The platform being self-service really is an amazing opportunity. You can turn it on and off as much as you like, tweek something and try again.

This is what we did over the weekend, for KeyRingMe an app which transforms your iPhone pics into a key ring. We changed the campaign 5 times over the weekend to get the CPA right for our client. From clicks, to downloads, to followers, to lead generation.

Enjoy:

There is so much you can do with Twitter. From using pictures to making statements, we were even going to play around with videos as well.

In 2015, as promised we will be doing some live twitter training courses, for a mixture of businesses, so at a lower price point to our 1-2-1 twitter training which is more personal.

And…

If you are feeling festive and giving – answer this question on what is holding you back from getting the success you want with Twitter.

Twitter-Header-Christmas-Holidays-042

And if you like some #Christmas stats on the power of #Twitter – click here. 

Mobile spending expected to be up almost 40% this year

Worldwide mobile spending is expected to hit $18.0 billion this year, up from $13.1 billion last year, according to research firm Gartner Inc. By 2017, the market will reach $41.9 billion.

While video shows the most growth because of widespread adoption of tablets, display will rake in the most mobile revenue.

However, even though advertisers’ enthusiasm for the medium will continue to skyrocket, mobile growth will start to slow down in the coming years.

“Over the next few years, growth in mobile advertising spending will slow due to ad space inventory supply growing faster than demand, as the number of mobile websites and applications increases faster than brands request ad space on mobile device screens,” said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner, in a statement. “However, from 2015 to 2017, growth will be fueled by improved market conditions, such as provider consolidation, measurement standardization and new targeting technologies, along with a sustained interest in the mobile medium from advertisers.”

The growing popularity of the mobile Web will cause the market to shift from in-app display to Web display. However, this shift is happening slower than Gartner predicted because the use of HTML5 tools in mobile website development is “taking longer to impact the market.” In addition, increased use of location data gathered from mobile users will boost the search and mapping categories.

Which is rather good news for the new company I am working for as JusTaxi is a geo location using mobile app that helps people get the best price for the taxi they book.

Well I did say it would be around 30%.Facebook smashes it with mobile.

Am loving the fact I was right…. but heck you don’t make money from being right.

You make money from taking action.

And action in the mobile space is what Facebook has taken…. and it looks like their mobile plans are coming to fruition as the company’s first-quarter earnings exceeded expectations—mainly because of strong mobile advertising performance. Read on…

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Coursera makes first foray into K-12 education with online courses for teachers

Am on a great course from Penn Uni on Gaming – totally for free – amazing …. all thanks to MOOC and this wonderful site.

Gigaom

Coursera, one of the driving forces behind the MOOC (massive open online course) movement reshaping higher education, is bringing its disruption to K-12 schools. But its target audience isn’t the students; it’s the teachers.

On Wednesday, the startup said it had partnered with several schools of education and other institutions and museums, including schools of education at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Virginia, the American Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Modern Art, to bring free professional development courses to teachers via the web.

“We looked at our technology and realized that for 7-year-old kids, streaming university content for them wasn’t going [to be effective]. But the lever for that 7-year-old kid may be to help them get a better teacher,” said Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng.

Most school districts don’t have the resources to offer quality professional development programs that match the interests and needs of individual…

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Ring, ring! Skype video calls arrive in the browser … with Outlook.com

Gigaom

People pining for Skype(s msft) video calls directly in the browser have something to look forward to today, provided they use Outlook.com for their email. On Tuesday, Skype announced a preview of web support for its audio, video and instant messaging services in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome(s goog). The service is integrated directly with Outlook.com, making it easier to make and receive Skype calls directly from your inbox.

Skype is rolling out the new service Tuesday in the U.K., with the U.S. and Germany to follow in the coming weeks. Worldwide availability is expected over the next four to five months.

Being based in the U.S., I can’t test Skype over the web just yet, although I’d like to since I use a browser-based Chromebook Pixel as my full time computer. In the meantime then, I’ll have to be satisfied with this Skype demonstration video:

Note that in…

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Online budgets increasing – and right so :) – according to new report from Nielsen’s Vizu

Despite marketers’ continued struggle with measurement of brand advertising, more than half (63 percent) will increase their online brand advertising budgets, according to a report from Nielsen’s Vizu. In addition, 20 percent of respondents said that those budgets would grow by 20 percent or more.

Looks like we were right to start advising our clients last year to be doing the same.

Thanks to Visu and FierceCMO’s for the report below.

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Let’s all celebrate the power of Twitter – hip hip horray – hip hip fridays!

As twitter changed the way it allows us marketing folk to theoretically advertise on it’s platform yesterday, I say theoretically as at the moment it is not for us in the UK but only for USA big boys until later on …. boo boo

Anyhoo, I thought I would celebrate with some great twitter stats found on http://expandedramblings.com a marketing site which I love and I know you will too.

Some great marketing twitter stats….

Here is More DMR Twitter Coverage

and if that wasn’t enough to keep your thirst for Twitter stats quenched, here is a handy infographic from LinchpinSEO that gives us a bunch more Twitter usage data.

Twitter stats
Twitter Cheat Sheet , an infographic by Linchpin Infographic Design

Here are a few amazing Facebook stats

Here are a few amazing Facebook stats that illustrate just how vast their empire is.

And the nice thing is you can show off to peeps with them with one click and tweet them to your masses – thanks to http://expandedramblings.com