As a leading local digital agency, Thunderbolt digital are no strangers to social media marketing Surrey and as such make sure that we always keep up to date with the latest SMM options available for us and our clients so we can utilise the most appropriate one and ensure online marketing efficiency. The latest for us to consider is a new sponsored feature Twitter is rolling out to brand this year – the ‘conversational ad’!
In an ever present effort to create content marketing and drive up consumer engagement, Twitter are now moving to make their sponsored tweets read less like ads and something a bit more personal and involved, namely a sort of open poll. These ‘conversational ads’, as Twitter is calling them, pose a question for the target audience to answer, in the hope that this call to action will lead to users actually interacting with ads, rather than just scrolling past them. Users who interact with the ads and retweet with their ‘votes’ will even receive a thank you from the brand for their engagement – how polite!
It’s no secret that that the key to more successful and memorable online marketing is engagement (an audience that feels involved is more likely to remember than brand and interact with them again) but exactly how to get it is a much more hazy process that can sometimes be hit and miss. Usual sponsored tweets that aim to be retweeted by users can fall flat on their face if the audience isn’t suitably impressed by the content or message behind it, but Twitter is looking to utilise the ideas of voting and ‘teams’ in order to increase engagement and exposure – many of us are familiar with this idea, and often see people creating their own hashtags surrounding sports teams, TV shows (think Great British Bake Off) or books (remember #TeamJacob?).
This feature is currently still in beta, but Twitter are inviting any interested parties to try it. Do you think conversational ads are something that would work for your brand? Talk to us over on our Twitter at @Thunderboltdigi and let us know!