You can't spell Promote without PR

When marketing in the 21^st century, one of the biggest problems many companies encounter is trying to stand out in an over saturated online community.  How do you get noticed?

In last week’s class, Zack Sandor-Kerr, Digital Strategist at H+K Strategies,

discussed the various ways in which businesses use Twitter’s “promoted tweets,” “promoted trends” and “promoted accounts” to expand and reach new audiences.

Here’s the breakdown:

Promoted Tweets: How it works is you establish a daily budget and pay each time someone clicks on your tweet.   With promoted tweets, you have the ability to reach past your current followers and select any previous tweet to promote in 2 different ways. The first option is to promote a tweet to similar users who you share followers. The second option is promote a tweet that uses specific keywords to target users who are searching on Twitter. The benefit is that it helps attract followers who share and amplify your messages and can help you connect with new clientele.

Promoted Trends: is an extension to the promoted tweets. According to Twitter “With promoted trends, users see time-, context-, and event-sensitive trends promoted by our advertising partners.  Users interact with Promoted Trends the same way they interact with any other Trending Topic. They are able to click on a Promoted Trend to view all Tweets containing the trending #hashtag or trend terms. They are also able to Tweet about the Promoted Trend by including the terms in their Tweets. The only real difference is that a Promoted Trend is purchased by an advertiser and clearly marked as being promoted.”

The major difference between promoted tweet and trend is it's price tag. According to the Wall Street Journal, the hefty charge of a promoted trend could cost a company up to $120,000 per day.

Promoted account: is featured in search results and within the “Who To Follow” section, where Twitter identifies and recommends similar followers to help users discover new content and people.

Twitter promotions are one of the most important social media tools when marketing and advertising your business. As a platform of communication, it creates an open dialogue between company and consumer, and is an important utility to promote brands, offers and news. From a PR perspective it’s an amazing tool connect your business with its public. However, it is an extremely costly tool that many businesses cannot afford. 

As a PR practioner I think finding a way to utilize promotions can only have a positive impact on your business. It not only connects you to a large audience, but also helps control and steer conversations and dialogue online.