Design By Humans knows that taking advantage of your social media accounts can help you gain a devoted fan base that will increase your sales and credibility as an artist. That's why we started this series of Social Media Promotion Blogs. In our first Social Media Promotion Blogs (Facebook Part 1) and (Facebook Part 2) we talked about creating a Fan Page and trying out Facebook Ads to promote your artwork, among many other tips. Now we're moving onto Twitter - another social media networking giant. In this post you'll learn some of the basics about Twitter as well as how to start a Twitter Ad Campaigns to help promote your content.
Don't forget to check out our new Artist 101 Promotion Guide that offers a ton of tips for our brand new artists, as well as some tips for our old timers here at DBH.
For those of you that have never used Twitter or are just trying to make sense of all Twitter has to offer, we're here to help.
Tweet - a message posted via Twitter containing 140-characters or less.
Mention - bring a tweet to another user's attention by including their username in a tweet. This mention will appear to that user and all of your followers.
Retweet - if you'd like to share someone else's tweet with your followers, just retweet it.
Message (or DM) - a message or direct message is a private message that only you and the recipient can see.
Hashtag - users often add hashtags (#) to their tweets to make them easier to find in search. Many users also take advantage of hashtags when something is trending, such as #sharknado. Tweets marked with these tags often go viral and gain you a lot of followers.
Reply - a reply tweet is a tweet that is posted in response to another user's message. It is not a DM and will not appear in their message box, but allows you to reply to someone directly. reply tweets are seen by the person you are tagging, and the people who follow both of you.
Note: Unless you are intending to speak directly to a person, do not start a tweet with a username. This will make the tweet a Reply even if you were sending it to your whole twitter following. Check out the tweets below for more examples.
Twitter Best Practices
Keep it short. You've got 140-characters to send a unique message - make it count.
Keep it visual. Tweets that include images get twice the engagement as those that don't. Twitter is also directly connected to Youtube - so get ready to share those Work In Progress videos.
Keep it conversational. Your followers aren't going to interact with your tweets if you sound like a robot. Create a genuine voice for your Twitter feed that will keep your fans engaged.
Keep it funny. Need we say more? Everyone likes a good laugh. If you can incorporate humor with your artwork and posts, you're on the right track.
Keep it interesting. Tweet exceptional content - not just your artwork and sales. Commenting on current news, funny photos or videos, pop culture trends and more will gain you more followers and keep fans engaged.
Keep it shareable. Ask questions, reply and retweet your followers. This also shows them that you're more than just a robot. Staying engaged with your own followers will create a more interesting experience for them as well.
Similar to Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads can be extremely helpful for artists new and old to the site. These ads can help you gain followers on your account as well as get people clicking straight to your DBH Collective Store. These ads can be tailored to specific demographics and audiences, from age and location to interests and language. One important feature of Twitter ads is the ability to create new tweets that aren't published to all of your followers first - you can tweet to audiences you choose specifically that will not be seen by everyone. Additionally, Twitter gives you the ability to promote previous posts, although they always recommend posting brand new content. Twitter ads will appear in different places on the website and on mobile depending on which Twitter Ad Campaign you select. In this post we'll be talking about a few basic Twitter ads to help build your account and get fans to your DBH Collective Store. You can access Twitter Ads in the dropdown menu on your Twitter homepage under the gear tool. You can also access Twitter Ads by clicking here.
We thought it might be additionally important to talk about image sizes and budgeting for Twitter Ads.
Twitter has a very specific image size they require/recommend for their ads in order to make them visible and successful - 800px x 320px. This allows them to be visible in anyone's Twitter feed, whether on mobile, desktop or using apps like Tweetdeck.
Budgeting your ads for Twitter is pretty simple too. Twitter only deducts from your ad budget when someone interacts with your ad (such as a clicking on a link). Twitter gives you the option to set a maximum budget, which they will never go over. After you set the maximum budget, you decide how much money you want to spend per day (daily maximum). Next, you "bid" for "link clicks" with other companies. You can choose to spend any amount of money (as low as $0.10 per click) but if another company is willing to pay more money for the same ad space, they will win out.
A Followers Ad Campaign, respectively, helps you gain more followers for your Twitter account. The best part about these new followers is that these new users don't just follow your account, they engage, retweet, download, buy click-through, and bring more like-minded followers. Because you can target specific demographics, these new followers are much more likely to be interested in your products and art style, effectively helping you build a stronger community on Twitter. Some best practices recommended for this campaign are to: Let users know why they should follow you and to include a "Follow Us" lead in your Tweet. We've included an example to the right. The Followers Ad Campaign lets you choose between two types of Targeting: Tailored Audiences and Interests/Followers.
Tailored Audiences allows you to reach people using your own data from existing customers, which would help out our artists who already have an established Twitter following. For example, if you have created a Twitter list of followers who are interested in just pop culture designs, you can tailed an ad campaign to them featuring one of your pop culture designs.
Interests/Followers is recommended for reaching people with specific interests or who are similar to followers of specific accounts. You would want to choose this for finding new audiences and starting conversations about your artwork (I'm talking to you new artists!). Under this section is a portion to add Twitter usernames to target similar people. We recommend tagging @designbyhumans so that you can target followers that are similar to ours and are interested in artwork and apparel design.
After you pick your targeting, set your ad budget (discussed above) and you're good to go. At this point, you should be set up on Twitter with some helpful tips and tricks to make your account successful. Make sure to tweet often and share your behind the scenes process work - and don't forget to follow DesignByHumans on Twitter! Check back to learn more about Social Media Promotion on Tumblr, Instagram, and more in our following posts.