Digital Marketers, Don’t Delete Your Twitter Just Yet

Believe it or Not, Even with Mass Migrations to Bluesky and Meta’s Threads, Twitter Advertising and Marketing Still Offer Lucrative Opportunities (Part 4 in a 9-Part Social Media Marketing Series)

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Philip Mandelbaum
07/07/2023

A 3D-rendered collection of flower shaped gold emblems with a cut-out check in the middle, representing the new Twitter verification for organizations

Twitter is not having a good week, month, or year. Following an expert ethical hacker’s disclosure of severe security lapses and the now-infamous verification fiasco, Twitter CEO Elon Musk kicked off the July 1, 2023, holiday weekend by imposing rate limits on active accounts, tweeting that paying subscribers would be limited to “reading” 6,000 tweets while “unverified” accounts would only be allowed to see 300 to 600 tweets before being locked out. (I logged on and was unable to view anything within about five minutes.) And yet, as Molly White, a fellow at the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard University, “skeeted” on Bluesky on July 7, “Everyone wondering if it will be Threads or Bluesky or Post or whichever else that will be the Twitter killer… Twitter will be the Twitter killer.” Or not.

Twitter isn’t dead, yet. Threads, Mark Zuckerberg’s latest move in his war with Musk, has, after only one day, tens of millions of subscribers — and “all the things you’d expect in a Meta product designed to hook you without offering much of a high-quality experience.” Plus, Threads is lacking what made Twitter popular in the first place: a simple feed with posts from the people you follow, in the order they were posted. Not to mention that the simplicity of the signup process (one click with your Instagram account) is the biggest reason so many social media users have signed up. Meanwhile, Bluesky, the invite-only social media platform that most closely emulates the Twitter experience, has finally reached a million downloads but still claims fewer total members than Mr. Beast alone has followers on Threads.

A vertical wooden organizer with dozens of spools of variously colored thread

When it comes to microblogging, Twitter is still the go-to app; the fifth most visited website in the world still has 350 million users, 89% of whom use the platform to find new products. Which means Twitter remains a lucrative opportunity for digital businesses and online advertisers. In fact, even with its total user numbers dropping from 2022 to 2023:

Twitter ad reach actually grew 12% quarter over quarter last year
Twitter US ad sales shrunk 59%
Twitter ad costs remained lowest of all major social media platforms

And that’s not all:

Twitter use by Gen Z is growing 30% faster than the generation’s use of Instagram — and Twitter is even more popular with Millennials than Gen Zers
More than 3/4 of Twitter users have made a purchase based on a Twitter conversation
Less than half of marketers are currently promoting their brand on Twitter
Social media users spend 26% more time viewing ads on Twitter than any other social media platform

Point blank: Social media is the best place for brands to connect with their target audiences, build brand awareness, boost online engagement and generate leads — and Twitter continues to represent a significant opportunity, particularly for B2C brands.

What is Twitter?

Launched in 2006 by former Google execs, the creator of Blogger and NYU dropout (and future CEO) Jack Dorsey — who proposed the idea of an SMS (short message service) for sharing small, blog-like updates to friends — Twitter became the preferred platform for mainstream, independent and citizen journalists, “changed our lives,” and is today the leading microblogging site on earth. The primary reason people use Twitter is to keep up to date with news and current events; of course, it also provides an easy way for businesses to communicate publicly and privately with customers and prospects.

What is Twitter Marketing?

Twitter is the number-one social media platform for discovery; nearly nine in 10 Twitter users use Twitter to find products (among other things). That, alone, is reason enough to consider investing a chunk of your social media marketing budget to Twitter marketing and advertising. And then there’s the 76% of Twitter users who have actually bought something simply based on a Twitter conversation.

Twitter marketing is another term for Twitter for Business; it includes all the social media marketing strategies and tactics your brand employs specifically on Twitter to connect with your target audiences, build brand awareness, boost online engagement and generate leads.

Marketing on Twitter can (and usually should) include:

Organic content (i.e., single-tweet posts and threads)
Paid ads, including Promoted Ads, Follower Ads, Twitter Amplify, Twitter Takeover, Twitter Live, Dynamic Product Ads, Collection Ads, with polls, conversation buttons, app buttons, website buttons, branded hashtags and branded notifications
Media Studio, including Producer (for videos), Library (for media management), Monetization (via the Amplify Publisher Program), and Analytics
Shopping, with Twitter Shops and the Shop Spotlight, Product Drops, Live Shopping and Dynamic Product Ads
Spaces, for going live with your community
Circles, Communities and DM groups for invite-only conversation with customers
Lists, for organizing and/or promoting your employees, influencers, high-value customers and business partners
Influencer marketing and user-generated content

If you’re wondering how to optimize your marketing and advertising on Twitter, follow my top tips.

Someone on an airplane engaging with a tweet from a legacy verified Twitter account, with only part of the hands, smartphone, preceding seat and window visible

What is a Twitter marketing strategy?

A Twitter marketing strategy includes your target audience(s), goals, KPIs, editorial plan, content calendar and content development and distribution processes and procedures, as well as the campaigns you’ll run and the AI and other martech you’ll use to achieve your goals. There are seven steps to developing and optimizing a Twitter marketing strategy that works.

7 Steps to Developing Your Twitter Marketing Strategy

1. Define Your Audience(s)

Here’s how to find yours:

Use your zero-, first- and third-party data to learn as much as you can about your existing customers, subscribers, website users and Twitter followers
Use any feedback your Twitter marketing managers and coordinators may have logged to identify gaps and opportunities
Use surveys and focus groups to learn more about what customers, prospects and the general public think of your brand, products/services, and Twitter presence
Develop user personas, including personal background, professional background, user environment, preferred content types, preferred devices, preferred communication methods, attitudes, interests, motivations, needs, goals and pain points, buying motivation(s), and buying scenarios
Map out the customer journey, identifying all the different paths a Twitter user might take toward making a purchase; the thoughts, feelings and actions of your prospects and customers at each stage of the customer lifecycle; and how you’ve been using Twitter to recruit, retain, upsell and/or partner with customers
Use a CDP and/or DXP to organize and manage all your customers and prospects, segment audiences based on your user personas, and improve the empathy and personalization exhibited in your marketing on Twitter

2. Establish Your Twitter Marketing Goals

To ensure clear direction for your Twitter marketing strategy:

Define goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based (SMART)
Start with your overall business goals, proceed to your long-term strategic marketing goals, move on to your social media marketing goals, and conclude with your Twitter- and campaign-specific goals
Identify the social media marketing KPIs against which you’ll measure your Twitter campaign performance — found exclusively in the full report, The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing
Outline your expectations for each stage of the customer journey

Two moose lock horns in the middle of a field, with the forest beyond, symbolizing the competition brands face on Twitter

3. Conduct a Competitive Analysis

To understand what your competitors are doing well or poorly on Twitter, and identify successful tactics you can incorporate into your social media strategy:

Use your SEO tool, apps like Glassdoor and the various social media platforms to identify your key competitors
Confirm the social media platforms used by your key competitors
Search your competitors’ names, account handles and relevant hashtags on Twitter to determine what they’re sharing and how their audience and the public are responding (social listening)
Track your competitors’ Twitter performance, using your predefined KPIs
Track characteristics of your competitors’ behaviors on Twitter, including what, when and how often they post
Focus on your top five competitors, and audit their most popular and most engaged followers, as well as any influencers or users who generate content for their brand
Benchmark your Twitter marketing performance against the competition
Perform a SWOT analysis, determining your Twitter strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
Identify gaps in your existing Twitter strategy
Strategize methods for addressing any gaps, weaknesses, threats or opportunities

4. Audit Your Twitter Account, Content and Campaigns

Once you’ve clarified who you’re targeting and what you hope to achieve with your marketing on Twitter, look back at what you’ve already created — and how it performed — to identify trends and determine what can and should be repurposed.

Start by asking yourself:

Which types of Twitter content have and have not worked?
Which types of Twitter campaigns have and have not worked?
Which of our user personas have been most and least engaged?
Which of our user personas have been most likely and least likely to convert to customers?
Who are our most and least valuable business and influencer partners? (Learn more about influencer marketing.)
How does our Twitter presence compare to that of our competitors?

Then, perform a Keep, Kill, Refresh on your Twitter content marketing and paid and organic campaigns, as follows:

Content

Delete any off-brand, inaccurate, stale or erroneous content (Kill)
Properly name, file and store any content that can be reused as is (Keep)
Optimize any content that could provide added value if updated and enhanced (Refresh)

Campaigns

Replicate any campaigns that performed particularly well (Keep)
Optimize any campaigns that could perform even better with behaviorally informed edits and enhancements (Refresh)
Archive any past campaigns that underperformed (Kill)

5. Outline Your Twitter Content Development and Distribution Responsibilities, Processes and Procedures

Before you begin planning and then creating custom content for Twitter, you need to secure buy-in from all parties on how your content will be produced and disseminated. Specifically:

Who are our Twitter content marketing strategists?
Who are our Twitter content creators? Writers? Graphic designers? Video editors?
Who are our partner content creators, including Twitter influencers, other brands and customers who provide user-generated content?
Who are our Twitter content reviewers?
Who are our Twitter marketing managers?
Who are our Twitter marketing coordinators?
Who are our Twitter data and performance analysts?
How are the content themes and subjects determined?
What types of content are being created? And what unique step(s) does each type require?
How are deadlines determined?
At what cadence is the content released?
How is content posted? Do we use a social media marketing platform or other third-party AI-powered social media app? (I list my preferred social media martech solutions in The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing.)
What type of project management style are we adopting (e.g., agile)?
What project management software are we using (e.g., JIRA, for agile)?

6. Develop Your Twitter Editorial Plan and Content Calendar

Finally, you can flesh out your Twitter marketing ideas, based on your findings from each of the preceding steps.

Be sure to supplement what the customer data and platform and web analytics tell you by:

Interviewing internal stakeholders on trends, topics and techniques they think most appeal to your Twitter audience
Asking your Twitter followers — and, in particular, your most engaged followers — what inspired them to follow you and engage with or share your content
Asking your customers what, if anything, you’ve done on Twitter that has contributed to them making a decision to purchase your product or service
Asking your partner Twitter influencers what it is about your brand, products/services, values or Twitter presence that inspired them to work with you
Asking past Twitter followers and customers what it is about your brand, products/services, values or social media presence that inspired them to unfollow you or stop spending

Once you’ve finalized your editorial plan, you can create your Twitter content calendar.

Use the project management software you selected earlier to build out a master calendar, as well as the timeline for each campaign, project and assignment, assigning all roles from development to approval and from distribution to monitoring, analysis, iteration and optimization.

#DontWorryBoutAThingCuz we got your back-side.https://t.co/B8N8PfYDXk
— Charmin (@Charmin) May 13, 2016

#CharminAsks: Should you answer the phone while answering nature’s call? pic.twitter.com/WgsYde3vx6
— Charmin (@Charmin) April 21, 2016

The Top 12 Twitter Tips for Marketers

Twitter is a microblogging and social networking site, so don’t fret over profile aesthetics, post-to-post design consistency or heavy use of videos and photos
Try to get a gold badge (unlike the blue check for paying subscribers, the gold verification is for confirmed organizations)
Create a business account, select the Category most appropriate for your business, and add a Profile Spotlight (either your business address, Twitter Shop, mobile app or external link)
Post often (one to three times per day)
Monetize your account with a Subscription offering for your loyalists
Create public Lists of your employees, business partners, loyal customers, influencer ambassadors, and industry experts
Create a Twitter Circle for exclusive discounts, promotions and giveaways, promote it ‘on main,’ and add users based on predetermined and pre-announced engagement criteria
Create a Community for public customer group engagement and support
Create DM groups for private customer group engagement and support
Create and live-host Spaces based on user pain points, goals, and values
Monitor and use (as appropriate) trending hashtags and topics
Take the necessary time to determine whether, based on your brand values, you should be using Twitter Shopping or advertising on a platform with a CEO as controversial as Elon Musk

7. Monitor, Analyze, Report, Iterate, and Optimize

Based on the KPIs you’ve identified as being most appropriate for your organic and paid efforts, your analysts should be constantly monitoring your Twitter campaign performance and providing reporting to your Twitter marketing strategists, managers and coordinators to inform ongoing iterations and optimizations.

The truth is: You can always split-test something else. And you can always optimize further.

Before you get started, be sure you’re set up to measure performance against the most important metrics — available now, if you download the full report, The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing.