Promoted Trends is one of Twitter’s methods of advertising that allows you to advertise directly to twitter users’ homepages. Your ad will appear in the “Trending” area, with a “Promoted” box next to it to indicate that your trend is an ad, not an organic listing.
Unlike Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends allow you to get your advertising message in front of your users without them having to type in a specific search message.
This can result in a massive infusion of impressions, user activity and engagement.
Here we’ll talk about how trends work, how Promoted Trends work, who initial advertisers are and what their results were and finally how much it costs to use Promoted Trends.
HOW TWITTER TRENDS (UNPAID) NORMALLY WORK
Twitter has developed a proprietary algorithm that ranks the most talked about topics and displays them on the front page of all its users.
The algorithm takes into account impressions, retweets and general activity and looks for tweets that are getting more popular at a rapid pace. It also filters out topics that people are likely not to be interested in. For example, if the teenage population suddenly got interested in Justin Beiber’s new album, you may not necessarily hear about it because Twitter will filter it out.
Here’s how the Twitter trending topics normally looks like:
The trending topics are located just below the “Who to follow” on the right hand side.
HOW PROMOTED TRENDS WORKS
Promoted Trends allows you to pay for a placement where the trending topics appear. Your ad will also appear as a Promoted Tweet along the top of the results.
Here’s an example of how your Promoted Trend might look:
Courtesy of Twitter Business
WHO HAS USED PROMOTED TRENDS AND WHAT WERE THEIR RESULTS
Pixar was the first company to use Promoted Trends to advertise on Twitter. They used it to promote their Toys Story 3 movie release.
Coca Cola was the second company. During the World Cup, Coca Cola advertised #WC2010 as their Promoted Trend.
They got 86 million impressions within that one day. Their estimated ad spend was in the high tens of thousands. For Coca Cola, spending a few tens of thousands to get 86 million impressions was a very successful outcome.
THEMING ADVERTISING TO TOPICS
One of the most powerful things about Promoted Trends is that your advertising is being tied to a current event or a topic that people are interested in.
For example, Coca Cola would have never gotten as much of a response as it did if they hadn’t picked the World Cup as the time to advertise. Twitter users flooded to the site to tweet about the World Cup and Coca Cola took advantage of that brilliantly.
What could you hitch your business on to? What are current events or events happening in the near future that your business could hightail on to with a Promoted Trend?
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST AND HOW TO GET STARTED
In 2010, a day of Promoted Trends was estimated to cost around $70,000 to $80,000. Today the cost is estimated at around $200,000, according to CNET (report here).
While the price is steep for small advertisers, it’s important to remember that your ad will be shown to almost Twitter’s entire database. This kind of exposure is extremely difficult to get anywhere, especially with a brand as trusted as Twitter.
To apply to become a Promoted Trend advertiser, visit:
http://business.twitter.com/advertise/start