No topic (except maybe politics) is as divisive as Twitter.

Some feel that Twitter is an invaluable resource, naturally encouraging faster responses and more concise thoughts than other forms of social media. Others think it’s a waste of time, full of snippets of thoughts and very little of actual value.

While there’s evidence to support both arguments, there are some very real benefits to Twitter if you’re looking for a new marketing venue.

The reason that Twitter makes a great advertising arena is also the reason that there are so many differing opinions on the platform: it’s fast-paced and requires a lot of engagement to keep up with. Don’t believe us? Here are some of the main benefits to Twitter advertising, along with suggestions for getting started on the platform.

Following the Trends

While every social media platform puts a lot of effort into following trends these days, Twitter was trending before it was trendy. Many common features of social media today such as hashtags were adopted in an effort to keep up with Twitter’s mad trending skills. Even now, Twitter has one of the most accessible trending lists on all of social media. This can benefit your advertising efforts in several ways:

  • Instantly see what’s hot and what’s not so you can adjust your focus accordingly
  • Identify trends that are a good match for your clients to better target your ads
  • Discover potentially negative trends so you’ll know what targets to avoid
  • Find out which trends competitors are following to speed up your response

This is only the start. Having easy access to current trends gives you the power to really take control of your message, and Twitter is the platform to give you that access.

Instant Engagement

Twitter is designed for engagement. Whether you’re live-tweeting a political debate or letting everyone know about the awesome tacos you just had downtown, almost everything that happens on Twitter is happening in the moment. The more engagement there is on a platform, the more likely you are to get potential customers engaging with your advertising.

This is especially true with organic marketing efforts that allow users to interact directly with your brands. You get instant feedback, making it clear right away what’s working and what needs improvement. As a result, you’re able to fine-tune your strategy to get more engagement in real time instead of after months of analysis and reworking.

Impressive Message Reach

Twitter has over 325 million monthly active users, which means that there’s a huge pool of potential engagement opportunities just waiting for your marketing efforts. While this may not be as impressive as Facebook’s 2.32 billion monthly active users, Facebook also features slower engagement and a lot more competing content.

When you’re trying to gauge your best target for getting a message out there, the smaller user pool with higher engagement rates may well be a better bet for your marketing in the long run.

Showcase Your Personality

The most effective advertising on social media gives followers something to rally around, which most of the time means posts and campaigns that showcase a lot of personality. Brands that might otherwise seem boring can amass a huge following on social media through the use of effective posting and unique ad content that really gives people a feel for the brand.

Twitter is an excellent platform for this, since the increased engagement and limited characters make it perfect for quick responses and back-and-forth exchanges with customers and other fans.

Plan out the personality you want to express before you start this sort of a personalized campaign. A lot of thought went into developing the brand personalities for those companies everyone now follows on social media, and trying to jump in without a plan fully in place could make your brand message seem disjointed or unorganized.

Getting Started on Twitter

You can see that there are some definite benefits to Twitter advertising. So what’s the best way to get started? First, you can explore your options for paid advertising on the platform. Twitter’s ad rates are reasonable and allow you to manage your entire campaign the way you want to, giving you access to paid tweet promotions, more followers and a variety of options to encourage click-throughs to websites or app installations of your choosing. There’s also no minimum budget, so you don’t have to make a massive commitment when you’re still getting the hang of the platform.

In addition to paid ads, you can also create accounts for the brands you are promoting and engage with Twitter for organic marketing. It’s best to have a dedicated social media manager for this since you’ll want to take full advantage of Twitter’s faster pace of engagement. Combining paid ads with a well-thought-out plan of engagement for organic feedback will give you a great starting point for building brand awareness and harnessing all that Twitter has to offer.