Comments on: Twitter Ads: Terrible or Terrific?

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:19:30 +0000

Thanks for the data driven analysis. I think this confirms most case studies on Twitter that I’ve come across over the years – direct sales are lacking, but it can be effective at spreading the word and increasing reach of a brand.

By: Robert Tyson

Robert Tyson — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 10:32:16 +0000

Interesting stats, thanks for sharing. Personally I don’t see any of the social sites as effective direct sales channels, more as branding mechanisms.

I can see how there’d be value in using Twitter ads to build an email list, which IS a better sales channel. But I will just have to wait; unfortunately in the UK we’re not able to advertise on Twitter yet!

By: Eric Bryant

Eric Bryant — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 22:08:15 +0000

This is a very good case study, Elizabeth! It does confirm what we’ve seen in social media advertising in general: that so long as your giving something away for free that has content value for your audience, social media works – both paid and just regular, old manual posting. However, the minute you try to sell something on social media, all our tests conclude exactly as yours does: people aren’t buying it. Interesting, they WILL buy through good, old fashioned social media “salesmanship” – that is, the one to one relationship-building and then posting a sales promotion. We’ve had very good success with this approach on Facebook and Twitter for a hotel client, for example. And we did have some good success using Facebook Offers (which is now paid). However, pushing SoMe “ads” in your followers’ faces to buy a product or service does not work.