Twitter Debuts Targeted Tweets


Twitter already offers a Promoted Tweets feature to help advertisers try to reach more people, but now it’s rolling out a new enhancement that will help companies target a more specific group of Twitter users with their promoted content.

Targeted Tweets

Targeted Tweets allow advertisers to send a tweet to a specific audience based on their geographical location, device or platform. And unlike Promoted Tweets, those using the new feature don’t have to send the tweet out to all of their followers first.

Though the new feature doesn’t allow many options for narrowing down consumer groups, it could allow some small businesses who only want to reach people in a certain area to take advantage of Twitter’s advertising options. The feature could also help those advertisers who only want to reach people using certain devices such as iPhones or Android phones.

Traditionally, Twitter has not been the platform of choice for many small business advertisers. Companies like Facebook and Google offer many different advertising options that allow companies to narrow down their target audience and reach a more relevant market segment. But the new Targeted Tweets could be a sign that Twitter is moving in that direction.

Twitter has been testing the new feature in recent weeks with a select group of advertisers including British Airways, Coca Cola, and Wendy’s. In its official announcement, Twitter offered an example tweet from British Airways of how the new feature might help companies reach only relevant consumers.

The new feature and Twitter advertising in general are still too new for many small businesses to really gauge value, but more and more companies are discovering the value of Twitter and are looking for new ways to gain more followers and clicks. Companies that use the new Targeted Tweets only pay when users engage with them, and the tweets that garner the most user engagement are more likely to appear more often. Engagement means clicking through or retweeting.

Here at Small Business Trends we’ve tested out Promoted Tweets advertising recently when seeking nominations for the Small Business Influencer Awards and while I can’t give details, I can say it was worth doing.  We were able to target the U.S. and Canada only, as the Awards are open only to North America.  (Note:  We paid for the advertising on Twitter just like everyone else, subject to a $100 credit from American Express OPEN which we along with 10,000 other small businesses took advantage of.)

The new feature is available to all users now. Advertisers who are interested in using the program can visit business.twitter.com to learn more or ads.twitter.com to begin.

6 Comments ▼

Anita Campbell Anita Campbell is the Founder, CEO and Publisher of Small Business Trends and has been following trends in small businesses since 2003. She is the owner of BizSugar, a social media site for small businesses.

6 Reactions
  1. Anita: It is interesting to see how Twitter is trying to come up with revenue sources. I must say that I have clicked on the “promoted users” (“Who To Follow”) now and then out of curiosity. Will the promoted tweet has information on why just the specific user got it in his / her Twitter stream?

    Has Twitter gather data about the click-through-rate on the promoted tweets? Will the orange icon with the with the white arrow show up in third-party Twitter programs, like Hootsuite, TweetDeck and on Twitter apps on the smartphone?

    • Hi Martin, Well there are some specific criteria you can designate for who sees your Promoted Tweet, in a general sense (such as those who follow you or only those who do not follow you already, etc.).

      And yes, you get excellent analytics. In fact, the analytics are valuable even outside of advertising. The analytics are pretty nifty. 🙂

      – Anita

  2. Hi Anita,

    Very informative article! I was wondering if you think that Twitter will stop at Targeted Tweets or if they will come out with more services like it. What else do you think Twitter can do with targeting specific audiences?