Many of us have become weary of Twitter for one big and very obvious reason. Of course. It’s about Donald. We’re sick to death of our president’s indulging in inappropriate tweetstorms at all hours of the day and night when he should be working. I have to admit that I’ve become a bit prejudiced when it comes to Twitter. But let’s remain open-minded. I’m a big sports fan, and I listen to KNBR, a local sportstalk station, and I know that the sports guys are all over Twitter. I have to wonder if it has something to do with their only having to come up with 140 characters. Another conversation.

Promote Mode: A new service that’s $99/month

Twitter has rolled out a subscription ad service that charges $99 a month to automatically promote tweets to generate larger followings. If you don’t know about promoting tweets or posts, it’s a method deployed by all of the social media sites to do a one-time boost of a post. The benefit is that you’re not buying into a long-term commitment to a campaign that requires metrics and management. The results are immediate and impressive. This doesn’t replace a long-term, thoughtful marketing strategy, but there are situations where this is a great way to spend your marketing dollar.

Promote Mode gives subscribers up to 10 promoted tweets/day. If you don’t know about social media and promoted posts, this is A LOT. It’s designed for small businesses and brands that don’t want the hassle of managing sophisticated ad campaigns. Their words. And they exactly reflect mine. Sometimes you just want to do this and see the results without analyzing it to death. 

Why are they doing this?

Twitter’s ad sales have been slipping, most recently in the third quarter, when its $503 million in ad revenue represented an 8% decline from the period a year earlier. Twitter does not disclose how many advertisers it has, but it is undoubtedly a fraction of the 6M that advertise on Facebook. Promote Mode could be Twitter’s ticket to attracting the businesses that don’t spend as much as the big brands. This could also completely change the online ad landscape.

According to Wook Chung, Twitter’s director of product management. “”Promote Mode is always-on; it automatically promotes your Tweets and profile, steadily attracting more followers and additional reach for a flat fee.”

But it remains to be seen whether Promote Mode is worth the fee

Boosting 10 tweets a day at that price can prove valuable, as one promoted tweet can easily cost small businesses $30, according to Darius Mohammadi, director of Elite Lucky Gamers Limited, an online shopping business that also helps ad clients with digital and social marketing. It has subscribed to the automated Twitter ad service.

Now for the downside . . .

• The biggest downside may be that Twitter’s automated system decides which tweets to promote. What? How does Twitter know how I’m marketing my business? Even for the very best of us, there are posts that are brilliant and those that are just okay. Let’s not assume that Twitter scrutinizes our posts and conscientiously picks out the brilliant ones for promotion; instead, it is randomized.
• Twitter’s subscription ad product also has limited targeting options. It mostly extends the reach of tweets, showing them to a wider audience and promotes accounts.
• The new program includes analytics so subscribers can track the impact of their promoted tweets.
• Through a mobile-optimized dashboard, Twitter Promote Mode will display how many people saw a subscriber’s tweets or account during the current period, including both the organic reach and the Promoted reach. Subscribers can also track the number of followers they’ve gained, profile visits, and the performance of individual tweets.

Important to note: Promote Mode works best if you have up to 2K followers

According to Twitter’s FAQs about Promote Mode, only those accounts with up to 2,000 followers will see the most value from this subscription at launch. The company plans to offer additional, higher-priced subscription tiers for accounts with larger followings in the future.

No guarantees, but this may represent a good investment

Twitter doesn’t make any guarantees about the gains subscribers will see with the program, saying those will depend on targeting selections, account type and frequency of tweets. However, the company does say in its FAQs that accounts on average will reach 30,000 additional people and add 30 followers each month. That is a significant traction for $100 and may be worth a three-month trial.

Do you need help managing your social media program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing specialists.