The past few days saw two significant updates for advertisers from Twitter and Facebook, which are relevant to all social media marketers.
Twitter analytics vastly improved
Twitter continues to iterate its on-site analytics for advertisers, providing more granular statistics about tweet performance.
This latest update is for brand advertisers and verified accounts, and shows specifically how many people saw a tweet - basically, the tweet's organic reach. This is beyond the promoted tweet audience figure, which shows who saw a paid promotion. The new analysis allows brands and influencers to see organic reach similar to what Facebook has offered for awhile now on each post.
The new tweet dashboard offers a comprehensive tool for these users to increase engagement with their content - something that is good for both the platform's users and shareholders.
From Twitter:
The revamped Tweet activity dashboard can help you quickly identify which Tweets drive the highest engagement and impressions. Here are a few ways to use the dashboard to improve your content strategy today:
Pay attention to when you tweet. Note which time of day and day of the week yields the highest engagement and impressions.Analyze the frequency of your Tweets. Use your new insights to determine your Tweet cadence.Identify what Tweet mechanics work, and which aren’t as effective. Keep an eye on elements like different calls to action, the inclusion of rich media and copy length.
More here on the official blog.
Wide release for oft-requested large format ad on Facebook
Facebook advertisers have been clamoring for more real estate on the the world's most populous social network, and now it's here: the right column ad is much larger, and is now available at a premium in the Facebook advertising system.
Facebook had announced the initial launch of this format on June 24, but has just this week started pushing marketing to small business owners and other advertisers to educate them on the larger format ads.
The new format also creates a better format for high-resolution photos, as it moves towards a less rectangular size while also increasing the real-estate devoted to the image itself.
Facebook says:
Our goal is to make right column ads work harder for your business by giving you more value for every ad impression.
Why do we think the new format will be more effective for your ads? It's bigger. The creative in new design will be 2.5X the size in the old one. This gives you more space to tell your story and capture the attention of your customers. It's better. With fewer ads on a given page, each ad gets significantly more attention when compared to the old format. We've also seen significantly higher click-through rates with the new design. It's simpler. Upload only a single creative for both News Feed and right column. This makes it significantly easier for you to create ads for News Feed and the right column simultaneously.
For now, the unit is only available via desktop given its size. No word yet on it a version will be created for mobile - Facebook will likely be testing a more engaging visual format on mobile soon.
More from Facebook here.
NB: Bullseye image courtesy Shutterstock.