beamagpie

So your ready to take the next step on Twitter, you have a Twitter account but you want to reach more people, maybe you have a campaign to promote or just want to find more supporters. Using a Twitter advertising service like Be A Magpie could be a good option for you.

I have been using the service for the last two months running campaigns for @BullyingUK and have had moderate success in bringing new people into our services.

Get started with Be A Magpie

Head over to the Magpie website and look for the Advertiser sign up, this uses your Email address rather than your TwitterID which is used to access your Magpie publisher account (if your accepting adverts to your stream)

{jb_bluebox}Once you have created your account and signed in you need to load your account up with some credits via a PayPal account I would suggest you start with $20 and see how you get on, no need to put $1000 into it at this point.{/jb_bluebox}

Setting up your Twitter Advert

When you setup your Advert ther are a few things to be mindful of:

  • Your Advert text needs to read like a tweet coming from that users make it personal,
  • AVOID putting your TwitterID at the start of the Tweet this can cause the advert to just appear like an @reply to you and will get lower CTR.
  • Only include ONE link in your tweet, two or more links are a waste of space and user actions (they wont click two links)
  • Short Adverts  = Retweets, Keep them short for maximum retweet potential

One of the really interesting things for charities is that users like to REtweet charity adverts but are less keen on purely commercial tweets like Newspapers or Mobile Phones the reason is simple, even an advert for a charity has social value when retweeted.

I would recommend that you pre-approve publishers before letting them carry your advert this means you can block a publisher if it doesn't meet your standards, remember your brand perception you wouldn't advertise in a porn magazine so be sure to block publishers is the content is at odds with your values!

Targeting your Twitter Adverts

Be a Magpie has a built in targeting system, it is VERY important that you use this to ensure your adverts are well targeted, select the country that best fits your demographic (USA, UK, CANADA)  and choose some keywords that the system will match against.

I like to use the keywords "UK Charity" to help me target users in the UK and who have mentioned charity in their tweets or profile, I figured this would give a higher quality of response but you will want to experiment to find the right keywords.

Tracking your Twitter Adverts

Every advert can be tracked by number of followers reached and the click through rate (CTR) but first you need to turn tracking on, to do this go to your settings page and enter your bitly USERNAME and APIKEY you can get both of these from Bit.ly when you enter the link you want into the tweet DON'T shorten it first just past the long link in and Magpie will shorten it for you and make sure it tracks the views and clicks properly.

Accepting publishers to take your  Twitter adverts

When your advert is complete the system will start matching it against publishers in the system, if you have set Pre-approve you will get an email telling you theirs some one to authorise.

{jb_bluebox}Check the list and note the data against each user giving their follower count and the CTR with other campaigns if they have more than 300 followers and a CTR of anything under 1% block them they are not worth your money in the short term.{/jb_bluebox}

Also as I mentioned above keep your eyes open for publishers who may not fit your brand criteria, money making schemes,  porn, gambling are ones to watch out for, if you click the link under their name you can view the users BIO and goto their Twitter page to check their content I strongly recommend you do this!

Checking your Metrics and making adjustments

Once your advert is running you need to keep a close eye on the metrics, if your not getting at least 2% CTR across the campaign you need to make some adjustments. First place to check is that list of approved publishers any accounts getting under 1% block them their dragging your CTR down and costing you money for very little impact.

{jb_bluebox}If your suffering low CTR across most of your publishers look at your Advert copy and reword it, even setup a second advert and start A/B testing a variation to find out the sweet spot for your advert.{/jb_bluebox}

Keep doing this until you find a happy place where the CTR is good but your not wasting money on low CTR publishers, if a user has a low follower count they are generally a more focused user with better focused social capital meaning a better relationship with the people following them, means a better CTR.

If your want to get started advertising on Twitter you can sign up with Magpie on this page