Social media marketing has been adopted as a relatively low-cost method to communicate and demonstrate brand value, nonetheless for a firm to utilise social media tools and expose its brand to a wider audience costs are involved. These may include implementing social listening platforms, hiring people to monitor, analyse and execute social media marketing strategies or paying for advertisements (ads) across a number of sites.

Social media advertising is also known as paid social media, and has seen huge growth in the last few years (Tassi, 2013). Twitter was initially reluctant to introduce paid ads into their business model, as the social media website confirmed that banner advertising was not of interest to the company (Melton, 2014). Nonetheless, Twitter have since taken advantage of the requirement for businesses to advertise via social media and now act as a platform for businesses to endorse content, with BBC News (2014) suggesting that Twitter’s advertising accounted for 90% of its sales in the first quarter last year making ads the greatest source of revenue for Twitter.

Twitter Ads

Lowe (2014)

According to Tassi (2013) in his article for Forbes, Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts and Promoted Trends are somewhat less intrusive than ads on other social media sites, take up very little ‘real estate’ on a home page and do not deter from the functionality of the site. I would agree with these points; my Twitter homepage still feels personal with minimal obstruction from ads, and I do not feel deceived by Twitter, unlike other websites where ads are bold and blatant or impact the user experience.

Twitter has continued to update its ad platform to better target users, naming this function “tailored audiences” (Melton, 2014). The feature uses data recorded from users’ recent history to target specific ads that relate to the users’ browsing behaviour. It could be argued that Tassi (2013) did not consider that monitoring in this way is in fact intrusive. However, with GPS trackers on mobile apps, cookies on websites etc. organisations are collecting and utilising data from us all of the time. Does that mean it is ok for Twitter to take advantage of our data too?

Nonetheless, it is important to note that targeting ads by making use of users’ browser history in some cases may not be efficient; just because I was searching for something on my laptop, does not mean the topic is personally applicable to me. As a result of spending time looking into social listening and analytics for my previous blog post, I was invited in a Promoted Tweet to join a Google Analytics course (see figure below).  Which, although I am sure would be interesting, it is not something that a busy student like myself could commit to and so wastage has occurred as a result.

Figure 1: Promoted Tweet on my Twitter Account

Promoted Tweet

Compiled by author

In their article for the Business Horizons journal , Mangold & Faulds (2009) suggest that as a result of timing, content and frequency of conversations over social media, it is more difficult to control brands online. Although this point stands true, I would argue that this dynamic can be utilised by organisations with the Twitter ads tools. A relevant Promoted Tweet or topical Promoted Trend may enhance brand value and will be directly targeted to users’ at any time of day. And although there is waste, as pointed out in my example above, this contrasts traditional offline communication channels in which much more of the content may be wasted, as not only are promotions reaching a broader target, many consumers are likely to miss the advertisements altogether. I know that my prime tea-making time is when the adverts show on the television!

Mangolds & Faulds (2009) suggest that promotional tools should be used to engage with customers to help shape conversations about an organisation on social media. By doing this, firms can align discussions in a way that is consistent with the goals and objectives of the organisation, justifying the use of social media promotions. Therefore, it would be wise to set up promoted content on Twitter that is engaging, perhaps by encouraging users’ to retweet, to follow the brand and interact with the ad, or as suggested by BBC News (2014) make use of Twitter’s ‘language targeting’ ad feature to engage in a global reach. The ads are likely to reach a wider, but segmented audience and allow for further brand exposure and engagement online which is beneficial for long term relationships with consumers on social media.

 

Aisha Merrick

#BBSDIGMARKET

 

 

BBC News (2014) ‘Twitter ads get language targeting’ [Online] <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27321142>  [accessed 26 March 2015]

Lowe, S. (2014) ‘ How You Should Be Using Paid Ads On The 4 Main Social Networks’ Weidert Group, 29th April 2014 [Online] <http://www.weidert.com/whole_brain_marketing_blog/bid/206095/how-you-should-be-using-paid-ads-on-the-4-main-social-networks> [accessed 26 March 2015]

Mangolds, W. & Faulds, D. (2009) Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business Horizons, Vol. 52, No. 4, p357-365

Melton, S. (2014) ‘Why 2014 is the Year of Social Media Advertising’ Brand Watch, 14th January 2014 [Online] <http://www.brandwatch.com/2014/01/why-2014-is-the-year-of-social-media-advertising/>  [accessed 26 March 2015]

Tassi, P. (2013) ‘Facebook’s Advertising is Starting to Spiral Out of Control ‘ Forbes, 1st July 2013 [Online] <http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/07/01/facebooks-advertising-is-starting-to-spiral-out-of-control/> [accessed 26 March 2015]