Recently, Twitter announced an interesting expansion of their Promoted Accounts timeline feature. Now when users search within Twitter, relevant promoted accounts appear in the search results and give the user the option to follow the Promoted Account.
Promoted Accounts
Previously your Promoted Accounts were displayed only in the Who to Follow section and timelines.
“When an advertiser promotes an account, Twitter’s algorithm looks at that account’s followers and determines other accounts that those users tend to follow. If a user follows some of those accounts, but not the advertiser’s account, then Twitter may recommend the advertiser’s Promoted Account to that user.”
Promoted Accounts in Search
With this new feature, Twitter automatically selects search terms that are relevant to your Promoted Account based on your existing targeting settings. This means that if you already have a promoted account, you don’t have to do anything else to have your ads appear in the search results.
Why It’s Useful
Although you don’t have the option to specify which terms are deemed as “relevant” to your account, this seems to be a good way to target users who may be interested in your brand. Because the user was already searching something related to your brand, they’re a bit more qualified (in theory).
According to Twitter, “people are 72% more likely to make a purchase from a brand that they follow or engage with on Twitter.” This change isn’t a dramatic one for Twitter users, as they are already accustomed to seeing promoted tweets in the search results.
It’s not clear if this feature will make a huge impact on Twitter advertising, but it’s definitely an interesting change and I’ll be curious to see what the results are. This could be a useful way to increase user engagement with your brand, connecting advertisers and users at the right moment (when the user is actively looking for something). I’m a little skeptical of what Twitter assumes is a relevant search query; maybe sometime in the future you’ll be able to specify which terms you would like to advertise on.
What are your thoughts on Twitter advertising?
