Twitter and Your Dad

A month into my internship, and I had to convince my parents that I am a Twitter Campaign Master.

Recently when I get home after a day of monitoring and adjusting our latest Twitter campaign, my Dad (on the couch at this point checking the news and generally being an awesome dad) asks about my day. And for the next 30+ minutes, I somehow find myself attempting to explain How I Ran a Successful Twitter Campaign.

Usually when approached about a future campaign I have need-to-know questions:

What’s the budget?   What type of content?  How long are we running for?  Who are we targeting?  What’s the desired outcome? What defines our success?

But that’s only research. The rest I keep in mind as I’m adjusting in realtime.

1. Creativity and Connection are King

Make it interesting, and use visuals. You like them, I like them and apparently “tweets with visuals drive higher user engagement” (thank you, Business Twitter).  Although impressions are fine and dandy, users want authenticity in a brand, so try being conversational for a change.

2. Exposure Comes at a Price

Be prepared to pay Twitter a pretty penny because promoted Tweets are based on cost-per-engagement, fancy words for – “you’re paying for clicks.” The higher the budget, the more you can spend on exposure. But don’t worry, once your budget has been met, the campaign is exhausted.

3. Don’t Blow Your Budget on Wasted Time

In short, know your audience, your campaign, and when to pause or resume. Hint: If you’re target is the average 9-5 working people, there is a 110% chance they will be in traffic until 6, so wait until after 6PM then to resume on a given Monday-Friday..

4. Be Grateful That No Campaign is The Same

Enjoy keeping up to date about social media, especially Twitter because it is always changing, so you’ll always be learning. What works perfectly today may not work that great tomorrow or the next. And that’s how it should be. Allowing for trial and error will only add to your campaign-running skills. I’ve learned practice makes progress and finding what works is a constant reinvention.

From there, I get to watch epicness commence, as this thing I created and launched reaches millions of users in real-time. After hours of stalking the analytics and ensuring we hit our targeted goal ( and then some), I check the numbers, draw up a practical report, call it a day and – BOOM! Another successful twitter campaign completed.

At this point, I could tell my Dad was actually beginning to fully digest how big a business social media had become. His response to all of this was simple: “Twitter is a billion dollar business, huh.” My response: “You have no idea.” Bonding at its finest.

Would he start his own Twitter Ad Campaign anytime soon? Probably not. But, open up a Twitter account tomorrow? It’s a possibility, and that’s all I could ask for.