Twitter's Small Business Ad Platform: Bang For Your Buck ...

Twitter, American Express team up to roll out new ad service for small business; online brand management guru Kate Brodock on whether it will be effective

Soon after Twitter celebrated its sixth birthday, the social media platform announced this week that a select group of businesses who are American Express merchants and card members can start using Twitter?s new self-serve advertising platform to?create promoted tweets and accounts.

American Express partnered with Twitter to give its U.S.-based participants access to the platform. The first 10,000 eligible Cardmembers and merchants will receive $100 in free Twitter advertising, courtesy of American Express. For Twitter users, the small business platform means they will see more ads from smaller stores, brands and chains, which will accompany Promoted Tweets, Trends, and profiles that have historically highlighted both national and international companies. Last fall, Facebook began offering?free $50 advertising credits for up to 200,000 small businesses as part of the company?s ad revenue strategy.

WATCH: Facebook?s Carolyn Everson on How Facebook Can Help Small Business

?Clearly, Twitter has spent a lot of time getting an advertising model up and running, so this new iteration is likely going to have some legs to it,? Kate Brodock, founder of online brand management firm the?Other Side Group and executive director of digital and social media at Syracuse University,?told genConnect. ?One thing I?m going to be interested in, however, is seeing is how much bang you get for your buck. To?get the right eyeballs on your brand, are you going to be able to do that with a small amount of money? Another thing I?ll be watching is how sophisticated the platform is. Is it robust enough and the data organized and granular enough to target effectively? They simply don?t have the amount of data that Facebook and Google have to put into an advertising machine that allows you to get such a high level of precision. But we shall see.?

Kate Brodock

WATCH: Kate Brodock on How Universities Are Embracing Social Media

Highlights of how Twitter?s new platform will work:

• Get started in minutes: Twitter provides ongoing management of your advertising.
• No previous advertising experience is required. If you can tweet, you can advertise on Twitter.
• Gain new followers: Promoted Accounts helps your small business connect with new people who want to hear from you and can spread the word about your business to others.
• Amplify your Tweets: Promoted Tweets helps your small business get your messages in front of more of the right people. Twitter will take out the guesswork by automatically identifying and promoting your most engaging Tweets.
• Pay per follower for Promoted Accounts and per engagement (click, retweet, reply, and favorite) for Promoted Tweets.
• Target the whole world, specific countries, or limit your reach to specific U.S. metropolitan areas.

Related:?Aaron Strout?s 10 Tips to Go From Novice to Noticed on Twitter

?Whether you have a storefront, a web site, or you?re totally mobile ? you understand the value of connecting with your customers online. That?s why you?re on Twitter,??Twitter says in an information video on the new ad service [watch video below]. ?You?re starting to find your voice, you?re tweeting about your business.?

Twitter is playing on the strength of its ability to connect people with this new platform. Twitter ? a long with social media platforms such as Facebook ? serves as a great venue for brands and small businesses to gain customers and a loyal following by allowing companies to directly communicate with their consumer base. Much like two people may feel they somewhat know each other after Tweeting with them back and forth ? even though they may never have met in person ? the same can be said for brands and businesses and their customers.

WATCH: Twitter Co-Founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams on the Positive Impact of Twitter

?One of the most rewarding features of Twitter is its ability to create the basis for strong future relationships. By connecting people, however small that connection might seem, it opens up the opportunity to pursue a deeper relationship with someone you might have never come in contact with otherwise,? Brodock said. Likewise, think of the first time you met someone in person that you were connected to on Twitter and may have had a few tweets back and forth with at some point. How much more meaningful was that handshake than if that interaction hadn?t occurred??

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Tags: Advertising, American Express ads, American Express Company, Facebook, Google, Kate Brodock, new Twitter advertising platform, online brand management, Online social networking, Other Side Group, small business ads on Twitter, Social media, Twitter, Twitter and American Express, Twitter small business

Category: Lifestyle, Technology, Views on the News

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