With different business models, goals and highly scrutinized budgets, nonprofit social teams in particular seem to be under more pressure to champion their work. I interviewed Ryane Ridenour, Director of Social Media at Everytown for Gun Safety, and Meghan Nguyen, Digital Associate at the Innocence Project, to find out if that’s true, and understand how their social strategies play a pivotal role in achieving their nonprofit organizations’ missions.

Why a strong social media strategy is critical for nonprofits

Rachael Goulet (Sprout Social): Social media is where audiences spend their time, and is a primary channel for discoverability—that’s true for nonprofit, B2B and B2C brands alike. How does social serve your mission?

Meghan Nguyen (The Innocence Project): We’ve activated more than 4 million people on social. We’ve prompted them to make donations, visit our website, call legislators, sign petitions and demand justice.

For example, back in 2022, we were trying to get a woman named Melissa Lucio off of death row in Texas. She was clearly innocent. We activated our followers to call politicians to urge them to take her off of death row. Two days before her execution date, they offered an indefinite stay of execution. We couldn’t have done it without our followers and influencers. We have seen how impactful social media is for fostering live-saving connections. It’s a tool more nonprofits should use to activate their mission.

Rachael Goulet: That’s an incredible example. Why social? What does social media offer that traditional channels can’t?

Ryane Ridenour (Everytown for Gun Safety): On social, we have a mouthpiece that speaks directly to the public. We rapidly respond to gun violence, and make sure folks know daily gun violence is a problem. Not just the mass shootings that make headlines.

We try to educate folks on what’s happening with gun safety—both locally and nationally—and provide a community for people advocating for the cause. We want to make our work accessible and keep it top of mind even when daily gun violence isn’t making the news. Not everyone has the time or energy to give. Even if we encourage someone to send a message to their lawmaker, maybe next time they’ll do something bigger.

The most important metrics for measuring nonprofit social media ROI

Rachael Goulet: There’s still a widespread belief that brands don’t have a way to prove the success of social. But they can. It just requires figuring out which goals matter most to you and your organization. Which metrics do you use to measure ROI?

Meghan Nguyen: A lot of our goals at the Innocence Project have to do with growth. We want to grow our community of donors and advocates by at least 5% in 2024. But what’s been really apparent is that we should prioritize engagement over follower growth. Looking at engagement rate helps us make sure we have a loyal audience that’s returning to our page. It’s really important to create content that encourages interaction and leads to meaningful connections with our followers, rather than solely focusing on growing the number of followers we have. Quality engagement leads to stronger relationships, loyalty and often delivers better results than simply having a high follower count with low engagement.

We also work really closely with our digital fundraising team. By tracking links, we can see how much we’ve raised directly from social media.

Ryane Ridenour: Clicks and link attribution clearly demonstrate hard impacts, like: Are we bringing new people into the fold? Are they engaged by this work? Is our community energized and excited to take action with us?

Even when people aren’t clicking links on social, we know it’s one of many channels where we’re asking them to take action. It’s contributing to the performance of other digital channels, like email marketing.

Tips for getting leadership buy-in on your nonprofit social media strategy

Rachael Goulet: Does leadership understand how your team goals funnel up to your overall mission?

Meghan Nguyen: We’re lucky. We’re a large, well-known nonprofit. We have a lot of resources, and our leaders understand the power of social. They know how social media can translate to dollars, and how it can have a meaningful impact in the space of social justice, including galvanizing our followers to call legislators or sign petitions.

Ryane Ridenour: In the nonprofit space, social media can be trivialized, even though we’re meeting people where they are. Nonprofits are forced to be scrappy because most of our resources are allocated to the mission.

Rachael Goulet: How do you get buy-in from stakeholders? What kind of performance reports or summaries resonate with them?

Ryane Ridenour: Sprout Social helps us tell a cohesive story of our data across platforms. We can see what’s working and what’s not, which helps us demonstrate impact and secure buy-in. In the past, we would only report on bigger moments (i.e., campaigns), but now we’ve gotten to the point where we send weekly reports of audience trends, video views, engagements and more. The reports link to our top performing posts. It helps us illustrate where we should invest resources.

Meghan Nguyen: We prioritize getting everyone on the same page. We have weekly meetings with leaders on our team, and regular meetings with our executives. We demonstrate our ROI through presentations that clearly illustrate concrete impact.

Rachael Goulet: As someone who’s worked in social for over a decade, I’ve learned that saying “we’re just too busy” doesn’t work when it comes to advocating for more resources. Instead, it’s been much more helpful to say “here’s what we could be doing if we had more resources.” I’m sure that’s even more challenging in the nonprofit space where possibilities are endless with more funding. When you ask for more resources for emerging platforms or formats, what’s your go-to approach?

Ryane Ridenour: We used social listening to make the case for increasing our investments in video. We demonstrated the “share of video content” created by our allies (a small fraction) compared to the huge ecosystem of content created by our opposition. It was such a tangible way to show the gap, and help us secure more resources.

Rachael Gouletr: Wow, that’s such a cool way to use Listening!

Meghan Nguyen: We frame requests around specific opportunities we want to seize, like establishing a presence on emerging platforms like Threads or TikTok. Our resources are limited, so we focus on platforms that offer the most promising ROI due to their highly engaged user bases. We pitched them to leadership by explaining that advocates on these platforms can help us achieve our goals. Ultimately, we have to align the value of any platform with our target audience, campaign objectives and tangible outcomes.

What the future holds for nonprofit social marketers

Rachael Goulet: How do you think your organizations will be measuring social ROI 5+ years from now?  Will it be easier or harder to pinpoint social’s direct impact on fundraising and other goals?

Ryane Ridenour: A lot is up in the air right now in the social landscape. I would hope that our tools are even more robust, integrated and centralized. It’s also still really hard to measure how much social instigates cultural shifts, and the ROI around them. But if we are doing our jobs right, we are changing the culture around what safety means.

Rachael Goulet: That is such an interesting use case for social listening in terms of seeing how specific terms are talked about, and watching how the culture and conversations shift over time. There could be goals you create around share of voice for certain keywords.

Meghan Nguyen: Looking ahead, we will refine our approach to measuring ROI. We haven’t yet fully taken advantage of advanced analytics tools. But we want to use social listening to understand how people are talking about us and tap into sentiment analysis.

We will have to continuously stay up-to-date on platform changes. It will probably only get more complex as algorithms evolve and new laws are passed, but we are prepared to continually adjust. When one door closes, another will open. The only certainty is that things will change, so we will have to change with them.

Building community on social is mission-critical

Thank you so much to Ryane and Meghan for pulling back the curtain on their approaches, and allowing us to see the strategy behind building a nonprofit social presence and communicating the value of social internally.

It’s clear both Everytown and the Innocence Project leverage social media to activate communities, facilitate meaningful connections and drive tangible outcomes such as fundraising and advocacy. Their robust social media strategies play a crucial role in advancing their missions.

Looking for more insight into the unique opportunity social offers nonprofits? Read our guide to finding social media management tools that empower nonprofit marketing teams to maximize their mission.

The post 2 nonprofit social marketers share how they build & measure their social media strategies appeared first on Sprout Social.

That doesn’t mean everyone has mastered influencer marketing. In fact, our 2024 Influencer Marketing Benchmarks Report shows most marketers struggle to measure the ROI of their influencer campaigns because of the complexity of influencer marketing.

For example, while the average engagement rate for the fashion industry is around 1.53%, its engagement rates on TikTok are much higher at 2.26%. Similarly, while the food and drink industry has a low average rate of 1.19%, it thrives on Instagram with a 2% engagement rate.

These conflicting factors are some reasons why marketers often struggle with influencer pricing and budgeting to get an optimum return on their investment.

This article will help you navigate the complicated terrain of influencer pricing to help you optimize your influencer budget. You’ll also find out what types of influencer partnerships are your best bet and how to fine-tune them.

The impact of influencer marketing

Working with influencers can benefit businesses in several key ways. In a survey of 300 influencers and 2,000 consumers across all platforms, Sprout’s 2024 Influencer Marketing Report found that influencer marketing can:

• Increase sales. Almost half (49%) of consumers make purchases at least once a month because of influencer posts.
• Provide product insights. A majority (62%) of frequent buyers are more likely to share product feedback with influencers, rather than brands directly.
• Further reach. Influencers allow brands to reach more people and specific groups through their loyal followers.
• Build trust. Trust in influencers is growing, with over 30% of people trusting influencers more than they did six months ago. This trust in influencers can translate to trust in a company’s brand.

Our report also found the impact of influencers is being felt outside of social media, with 80% of people more willing to buy from brands partnered with influencers beyond their social media content.

Types of influencer partnerships

One major factor that impacts influencer rates is the type of partnership you enter into. Here are the most common types of influencer agreements, and how they impact pricing.

Sponsored content

A typical influencer-sponsored post is usually a photo, video or reel promoting your product to their audience. 

These will usually be driven by the style of content the influencer creates, but in-house marketers often work alongside an influencer to ensure brand alignment.

Affiliate

Affiliate marketing works slightly differently. Instead of paying for a sponsored post, an influencer is paid based on a commission of the sales referred by the content they’ve created. This can be a more budget-friendly way of working with several influencers at once.

An affiliate method can be a more accessible form of influencer pricing, but it’s worth noting that you may have to modify your affiliate rates based on the influencer you’re working with.

Influencer takeover

During takeovers, an influencer posts content on your main channel, rather than their own. This can be a way to refresh your strategy, but you’ll often need to work closely with the influencer to determine the goals and type of content expected.

An influencer takeover usually lasts a day, but can be longer depending on the needs of your campaign.

Competitions or giveaways

These are situations where you partner with an influencer to give away a free sample of your products or host a competition.

This approach is often combined with a like/follow system that can boost your account’s engagement. The cost of these collaborations will likely be similar to a sponsored post, depending on the length and complexity of the competition.

Brand ambassador

This is a long-term form of influencer marketing, where an influencer promotes your brand regularly across their platform.

These partnerships are similar to celebrity sponsorship deals. As a result, they’re often much pricier than one-off sponsored content, but can be more beneficial in the long run with the right influencer.

How much does influencer marketing cost by platform?

Successful influencer marketing demands that you work with influencers with a similar audience to yours. Often, this determines which social platform they’re operating on, which impacts the total influencer marketing cost you’ll need to pay.

Here are some considerations for each platform, as well as some average costs for sponsored influencer posts.

Instagram influencer marketing pricing

Instagram remains one of the most popular influencer marketing platforms available. The majority of its user base is between 18-34, and its focus on photos and video make it an ideal platform for creative campaigns.

Instagram influencer marketing will likely cost more if you’re asking for a sponsored Reel, rather than an image post. On average, you should budget around $10 per post per 1,000 followers. 

TikTok influencer marketing pricing

TikTok remains one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. That popularity extends to the influencer scene, as over 100,000 TikTok influencers are active across the app in the US alone.

To work with one of those leading figures, you’ll need to budget appropriately. The cost of TikTok influencer marketing ranges around $10 per post per 1,000 followers.

Facebook influencer marketing pricing

Despite being one of the oldest social media platforms, Facebook remains an important marketing channel for businesses targeting certain demographics.

When working with a Facebook influencer, you should expect their pricing to be around $20 per post per 1,000 followers.

YouTube influencer marketing pricing

As creators of long-form content, YouTube influencers often attract high engagement for their work. 

One popular strategy is to sponsor a YouTube influencer in order to feature a short advert for your product within their videos. Or, you might work with an influencer on an entire video focused on your product.

Costs for YouTube influencer marketing also vary depending on the video length, alongside their audience size. You should expect to pay around $20 per 1,000 subscribers.

X (Twitter) influencer marketing pricing

Though it’s gone through many changes in the past few years, X is still one of the biggest social media platforms. Since it’s a text-based platform, it can also be a cheaper way to invest in effective influencer marketing.

The average cost of hiring an influencer for your X/Twitter marketing strategy is around $2 per post per 1,000 followers. 

Snapchat influencer marketing pricing

Though not as big as the others, Snapchat still boasts millions of daily active users. Its quick-fire video content approach also means it’s an ideal platform for certain businesses.

You should expect to pay around $10 per post per 1,000 followers for a Snapchat sponsored post.

Factors that affect how much influencer marketing costs

Alongside an influencer’s chosen platform, several additional factors impact influencer pricing. You should consider each of these seven factors before you start to work out your ideal influencer budget.

Size of the influencer

An influencer’s size is arguably the most important factor, as it determines how far your influencer marketing will reach. As a general rule, there are four approximate influencer sizes:

1. Nano-influencers: 1,000-10,000 followers
2. Micro-influencers: 10,000-100,000 followers
3. Macro-influencers: 100,000-1M followers
4. Mega-influencers: 1M+ followers

The bigger an influencer is, the more you’ll have to pay them. Using an influencer marketing tool, like Sprout, helps you find authentic influencers who are the right size for your campaign and budget.

Content type

The length and complexity of the content required from an influencer will impact the total price. For example, a single image post by an Instagram influencer will cost you less than three separate Reels. 

This is often determined by the influencer’s platform, but also the types of content they usually produce.

Timeline

If your campaign is time-sensitive or requires multiple posts, you’ll likely need to pay more. 

It’s always worth tracking your campaigns in a content calendar through an influencer management tool like Sprout, so you can keep strict timelines for campaigns and track delivery of every post.

Exclusivity agreements

An exclusivity agreement ensures an influencer isn’t simultaneously promoting your competitor’s products. 

This is usually beneficial, as it means you’re not losing any potential customers thanks to a post about a different product. But it will likely come with an added cost.

Different pricing models

You can agree to pay your influencers in different ways. Some popular examples include pay-per-post, pay-per-view or pay-per-subscribers.

It’s always worth outlining your goals for each influencer marketing campaign first, as this will determine which pricing model is the most beneficial.

Length of your campaign

If you’re planning a long-term campaign with an influencer, this will naturally incur higher costs. 

Plotting out content in a single interface, and easily managing approvals, can streamline more elaborate influencer campaigns and help reduce campaign costs over time.

Posting across multiple channels

Some influencers have large followings across several different platforms. Working with someone like this can ensure your campaign takes advantage of multiple channels.

However, you’ll need to factor the cost of posting across several platforms into your influencer pricing agreement. If you’ve decided to work across several channels with one influencer, make sure they’re tracking metrics across every post.

How to budget your influencer marketing costs

As these many factors and platforms show, influencer pricing can spiral out of control if it isn’t handled appropriately. Here’s how you can invest sensibly in influencer marketing, allowing you to drive successful campaigns that don’t become excessively expensive.

Define your goals

As with any form of digital marketing, successful influencer campaigns begin with clearly defined goals.

First determine the audience you’re looking to target. Then, outline the core aims you’re hoping to achieve with each piece of influencer marketing. Reliable goals can include:

• Building your brand awareness
• Improving your sales with a particular audience
• Increasing your follower count
• Generating new leads
• Furthering your social proof and community engagement
• Encourage more user-generated content

Ensure that you’ve clearly defined these goals before you start to search for an influencer, as they’ll gear you in the right direction.

Find the right type of influencer

You must source and work with the right influencer from the get-go to remain within your budget. Define the type of influencer you’re looking for and their audience as the first step in finding the ideal influencer. 

For this step, it’s worth investing in a dedicated influencer marketing platform. Tagger by Sprout Social offers over 50 search filters designed to help you find authentic influencers that match your brand’s core values. 

This reduces the time and costs associated with sourcing influencers early in your campaign.

Refine your value proposition

The influencer-brand relationship is a unique one. It’s important to remember that all influencer agreements should be mutually beneficial. Just like you, influencers also deserve to work with brands who value their time and creative effort, and offer them benefits in return.

At this stage, you can control your budget by refining your value proposition for influencers. 

Consider what your brand can offer them, and work this into your approach. This might involve event invites, free merch or promotion on your account. 

By treating influencer marketing as a two-way street, you’ll craft stronger relationships that result in successful campaigns.

Calculate ROI

ROI (return on investment) is the most important metric when considering influencer pricing. It clearly tells you whether the money you’re putting in is worth the expected result.

Apply this formula to calculate the ROI of a potential influencer campaign, as you’ll need it before you negotiate with an influencer.

(Total expected gain on investment – Cost of investment) / Cost of investment x 100 = ROI%

Remember to calculate it only after you’ve outlined your goals because your expected gain may not be strictly financial. It might also refer to increased trust in your products or other brand reputation boosts which are difficult to quantify. 

Factor in operational costs

Influencer marketing can incur many creeping costs that eat up your budget.

To avoid this, discuss every aspect of production with your influencer before you agree to a deal, such as who is paying for any studio time, travel costs or other people like editors or crew members.

An influencer may have factored these costs into their price already. But if they haven’t, and you aren’t aware, these operational costs can balloon quickly.

Establish a delivery schedule

Late projects can affect influencer pricing too. That’s why it’s worth defining a content delivery timeline so both parties are clear on expectations.

Make sure you’re creating a brief, sharing this with your influencer and tracking everything through a single interface like Sprout’s Influencer Marketing tool.

Track your metrics

Track your metrics during and after your influencer marketing campaign concludes. 

Tracking performance during a campaign helps you understand how your audience is engaging with the content. It also gives you an opportunity to modify or pivot future posts based on the current performance. 

Meanwhile, tracking metrics afterward shows how successful the campaign was, based on whether it met your goals.

Ensure you’ve determined the right metrics to track based on your campaign’s goals. And then review this data to figure out what’s worked and what requires improvement next time.

Start an affiliate program

By using an affiliate program, you can control costs to make sure you’re only paying influencers on a success-based system.

This also improves the value you get from influencers on your campaign. However, it’s important to agree to an affiliate rate based on each influencer you work with, as their requirements may differ.

Refine your budget over time

Much like with many other marketing strategies, influencer marketing is a strategy that thrives through experimentation. 

Once you’ve worked with a handful of influencers, compare how each campaign went, and how you found the process of working with them. Ask yourself, how much do influencers make our company right now? Use this information to determine the ideal cost and result for your company moving forward, and then apply this in your next negotiation.

By continuing to refine your budget and your expectations, you will gradually improve the results of your influencer marketing across all social platforms.

Implement successful influencer strategies without breaking the bank

Influencer pricing is not always easy, but it can be mastered.

Treat any influencer you work with respectfully, while keeping a close eye on your budget and the returns on your investment. With experience and careful tracking, you’ll find the right formula for your budget and strategy.

As you experiment, use Sprout’s influencer marketing budget template to keep a birds-eye view of your influencer costs and to help better negotiate contracts moving forward.

The post Influencer pricing: how much influencers really cost appeared first on Sprout Social.

Influencer marketing is a booming business because it’s a highly effective form of marketing. Influencers can be powerful partners for restaurants and food brands in particular, catching niche audiences’ attention with well-produced and relatable foodie content.

Food is a favorite topic among consumers, and influencers can help your brand stand out with mouthwatering content that doubles as a meaningful review. They’ve already built a rapport with the audience you want to reach, and followers trust their opinion.

If you’re a brand marketing to UK audiences, the food influencer scene is bursting with talented creators with a pulse on food and restaurant trends across the country. In this guide, we’ll cover the current state of influencer marketing and food trends, what to know when working with food influencers, and some of the top UK foodie influencers across cooking, baking, plant-based meals and more.

The post UK Food influencers redefining taste for your brand appeared first on Sprout Social.

With over a billion monthly active users, it’s a great place for brands looking to reach their target audience. While creating organic content is a good first step, investing in TikTok ads for your social media advertising strategy will further boost your brand’s impact on the app’s audience.

However, advertising on TikTok isn’t the same as advertising on other social channels. This post gives you a detailed overview of how to leverage TikTok advertising and what ads to try.

What are TikTok ads?

TikTok ads are paid marketing campaigns that help businesses reach specific audiences on the platform. They are customizable based on specific advertising goals, audience demographics, budgets and schedules. These ads appear between organic, user-generated content with a ‘sponsored’ tag and a call-to-action button, which viewers click to reach the ad’s landing page.

Most TikTok ads work on an auction model, where users specify a bid and daily spend limit for their campaigns. However, users can also use TikTok Promote to turn organic content into a paid advertisement.

TikTok Shop (TikTok’s suite of ecommerce features that enables brands, merchants and creators to sell products directly within the app) also has advertising features such as ads for users to promote their Shops to potential buyers.

Which brands should use TikTok advertising?

Many brands advertise on TikTok—Cetaphil, Nesquik and Vinted, for example. What these brands have in common is that their products are a natural fit for TikTok’s video format.

TikTok advertisers can show their products in action and pack a lot of information into a short video clip. This format may be challenging for B2B brands that sell difficult-to-illustrate services, but it’s ideal for B2C brands that want to move away from static ads and share engaging content.

How much do TikTok ads cost?

TikTok closely guards its pricing algorithm, which is based on a bid model. The platform recommends a minimum daily budget of $30 for North America and EMEA brands, and $20 for APAC brands.

Types of TikTok ads

TikTok offers plenty of options for advertising on the platform. It’s up to you to choose the most effective one to reach your target audience and get your message across. Here are the different types of ads for the TikTok ads platform:

• In-feed video: These ads appear in TikTok users’ native news feed on the For YouPage.
• Spark ads: TikTok rolled out this ad type in 2021, giving brands the ability to sponsor popular organic content related to their products.
• TopView ads: These ads are shown to users when they open the app. The full-screen, sound-on videos are great for capturing users’ attention.
• Image ads: Image ads include a brand or app name and text.
• Video ads: These are full-screen videos of 5 to 60 seconds that appear on a user’s For You Page.
• Pangle ads: Pangle’s video platform integrates with TikTok to offer video, native and banner ads, but this feature is available only to specific countries.
• Carousel ads: These ads include up to 10 images and appear in TikTok’s news feed apps.
• Video shopping ads: These video ads have product tiles that allow people to click through to a shoppable instant gallery page without leaving the app.
• Branded effects: Your ads can also appear as branded stickers, filters and other AR content so TikTok users can use them in their videos.
• Hashtag challenge: This type of ad is in the form of TikTok challenges that appear in the app’s Discovery section and encourage user participation.
• Sponsored influencer content: This is a TikTok advertisement where you get your message across through sponsored content from an influential TikTok user.
• Playable ads: Designed for gaming companies, these interactive ads allow users to try out a game before downloading.

How to set up ads on TikTok

Now that you know about the different types of TikTok ads, let’s look at how to set them up from your TikTok ad account.

Step 1: Create your TikTok ad account

The first step is simple: create a TikTok Ads Manager account. To set up a new account, visit the Advertising on TikTok signup page.

Enter basic information, like your email address and password. Then enter the verification code sent to your email. If you sign up with your phone number, you’ll need the verification code sent to your phone.

Confirm that you agree to the terms and conditions, then click on “Sign Up.” You’ll be prompted to provide more information about your business, such as your country or region, industry, legal business name, time zone, phone number, billing and payment information.

Once your brand is approved, log in to your dashboard and finish the initial account setup according to the instructions.

Then, follow the steps below to create TikTok ads.

Step 2: Create and install the TikTok Pixel

Now you’ll need to install the TikTok Pixel—a snippet of code on your website that gathers information about site events (such as how users arrived on your site, what device they’re using and where they’re located).

To create your TikTok Pixel, you will need to:

• Open TikTok Ads Manager and hover over Assets, then click Event.
• Under Web Events, select Manage.
• Select Set Up Web Events.
• Select TikTok Pixel as your connection method, then Next.

Now you can name your pixel, set up your web events (actions that you want the pixel to track) and decide how you will collect cookie consent.

To install the TikTok Pixel on your website, add the code snippet to the header of your website’s HTML code. Platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce and Google Tag Manager have plugins and integrations to simplify the process.

Step 3: Create a new campaign

Create an ad campaign under the Campaigns tab and click the Create button.

You will then get the option to use the Basic or Advanced setup options.

Basic mode simplifies the process to four steps: set an advertising goal; select an audience; set your budget; and create your ad.

In the Advanced setup mode, you will have to follow a few more steps to set up a new campaign. You will need to set an advertising objective, name your campaign, select a special ad category (if required), set a budget and decide whether you want to create a split test or use campaign budget optimization.

Step 4: Create an ad group

The next step is creating an ad group where you will define audiences, campaign budgets and placements for your ads.

Choose the optimization location:

Select whether you want to direct traffic to your Website or App.

Select the ad placement:

Your choice of ad placement will determine where your ads appear on TikTok and its partner platforms, such as CapCut or Fizzo. If you’re just getting started with TikTok ads, choose Automatic placement to have TikTok place your ads for maximum reach and value. Users can also manually place ads across TikTok and its news feed apps. There are also more advanced settings with options to enable or disable user comments, video downloads, video sharing and prevent your ads from appearing in certain Pangle apps.

Define your target audience:

Choose the audience for your ad by selecting demographics, audience, interests, behaviors and device. Each category has a drop-down menu with further customization options. For example, for demographics, you can determine your target audience’s location, gender, age, language, spending power and household language.

Confirm your budget and schedule:

Set a start and end time for your ad campaign and whether you want your ads to run all day or at specific times of the day and week.

Select bidding and optimization:

Choose whether you want to optimize your ads for clicks (i.e., the people who are most likely to click on your ad) or views (i.e., the people most likely to land on your website). If you choose to optimize for clicks, you can set a cost cap per click.

Step 5: Create a new ad

After setting up your ad group, it’s time to configure your first ad by completing the following steps.

Enable or disable Smart Creative ads:

Smart Creative is a feature that optimizes ad performance by automatically remixing a user’s ad creative (e.g., videos, images, text and calls to action) to create new ad variations. This setting will also prioritize the delivery of the most differentiated videos and pause videos that show signs of creative fatigue and replace them with fresh content. Users also have the option to preview, select videos and edit the auto-generated videos’ text.

Choose an ad name and identity:

Further customize your ad by naming it so it’s easier to distinguish between different ads within the same ad group. You may also choose whether you want your ads to come from your TikTok account or a custom identity, which includes a custom profile image and display name.

Customize ad details:

Choose your ad format, upload your ad creative (images, text and call-to-action), add interactive add-ons like a card or sticker and determine your ad destination (either a website URL or a custom TikTok Instant Page).

After creating an ad to your liking, you’ll have the option to preview it and get an idea of how it’ll appear to TikTok users. Feel free to tweak it before you submit it for review. For best results, make sure you follow the recommended specifications for image and video ads. This will ensure your ad looks great on TikTok and across partner platforms.

Update tracking settings:

Add tracking for website, app and offline events, as well as third-party tracking for impressions or clicks. This is an optional step.

Step 6: Measure your ad performance

The job isn’t done after launching your ad. You should also measure your ad performance using social media analytics tools to see how the campaign pays off. TikTok provides native analytics that show you how your ad performs in terms of impressions, clicks, conversions and more. Test and compare the performance of different ad creative and placements to see what works best for you.

TikTok ad specs

TikTok in-feed video ads must follow formatting guidelines to display correctly and generate engagement. Start by creating a video in TikTok’s suggested range (9 to 15 seconds) that’s less than 500MB and one of these file types: .mp4, mov., mpeg, .3gp or .avi.

Then consult TikTok’s list of video ad specs for additional formatting guidance.

6 examples of TikTok advertising done right

Besides learning the basics, it’s important to see how other brands use TikTok ads to generate ideas for your own campaign. Check out these examples of brands that launched brilliant advertising campaigns on TikTok.

1. Armani

To raise awareness and drive sales for a new fragrance, Armani Beauty ran Shopping Ads alongside standard In-Feed Ads. The creative was a mix of reviews and more brand-forward videos that showcased the product and highlighted its key scent notes.

2. Good American

The inclusive women’s denim and fashion apparel company used Video Shopping Ads to increase reach and boost conversions during a friends-and-family sale. These ads also used TikTok’s Dynamic Destination feature, which automatically creates an in-app product landing page to educate customers and enable them to start the checkout process without leaving the app.

3. Monopoly Go

Mobile game Monopoly Go partnered with creator Natalie Smith (@natalies.smith) to create In-feed Video Ads promoting the game. The ad is an organic, get-ready-with-me (GRWM) style video showing Natalie and her partner preparing for bed and playing the game as they complete their skincare routine.

4. Nesquik

To connect with a new generation of customers, Nesquik leveraged Spark Ads featuring a combination of branded assets and nostalgia-fueled, creator-led videos. The campaign featured creators using Nesquik products while talking about their relationship with the brand.

5. Rare Beauty

This makeup brand has become one of the top brands on TikTok thanks to its consistent organic and paid content strategy. They use organic content to build reach and educate their audience, and paid strategies like Shop Ads and Interactive Add-Ons to drive key actions.

6. Wyze

The smart home camera and device company uses TikTok Shop’s affiliate selling program, Open Plan, to reach new audiences. Through the program, Wyze provides product samples to creators, who create UGC content and receive commissions for sales from their videos. Wyze then uses TikTok Promote to turn the UGC content into ads that drive users to its TikTok Shop.

TikTok advertising best practices

To get the best results from your TikTok ad campaigns, follow these best practices:

Think TikTok-first

Shoot your ad videos in a way that feels native to the platform. Also, incorporate TikTok-specific features like text overlays, voiceovers, green screen and duets. Lastly, users love it when brands use TikTok trends, memes or challenges in their content.

Refresh your creative often

Even the top-performing ads experience creative fatigue. To avoid this, TikTok recommends advertisers use diverse creative in the beginning stages and update ad creative every seven days. Their Smart Creative and Smart Video tools can help automate this process.

Focus on the hook

According to TikTok, 90% of ad recall impact occurs within the first six seconds, so your hook is a critical element. Communicate your value proposition early and incorporate suspense, surprise or emotion to capture your audience’s attention.

Promote at the right time

Knowing the best times to post on TikTok helps you get the most eyes on your content. Additionally, aligning your product with trending topics or events can help generate buzz for your ad campaign. Lastly, don’t forget that TikTok analytics will show you the best time to run your ads for maximum audience reach.

Use attention-grabbing sound, text and editing techniques

Adding music, TikTok sounds, transitions, movement, text overlays and emojis will help hook your viewers in and make your ad more memorable. Quick edits can also increase TikTok engagement.

Incorporate hashtags

Include relevant hashtags to help users find you. Look at trending hashtags on the TikTok discovery page and choose the ones that make the most sense for your ad and brand.

Incorporate interactive add-ons

TikTok’s interactive features encourage interaction with ads. For example, use the Gesture add-on to encourage users to swipe or tap on an ad to reveal a reward. Or try the Voting Sticker overlay to seek input from your audience.

Partner with influencers

TikTok influencers already have a following, so partnering with them on an ad campaign can greatly expand your reach. Use the TikTok Creator Marketplace for influencers already using your product or who are among your target demographic. Launch a new campaign with an influencer to build buzz for your brand, or find an influencer with existing content that works well for a Spark Ad.

Test and optimize

Review your TikTok analytics often to see how your content is performing. Look at metrics such as views, interactions and click-through rates, and adjust your content strategy if you’re not seeing the engagement you’d hoped for.

Winning at TikTok advertising

With its fast-moving trends and young user base, advertising on TikTok may feel very different from other social media platforms. Our advice? Spend time on the platform creating and consuming organic content before diving into paid campaigns.

Once you get a feel for what works and what doesn’t on the platform, you’ll be more prepared to add fuel to the fire with a paid campaign. Check out our TikTok marketing guide to get started and gain more tips, strategies and real-world examples.

The post How to win at TikTok ads in 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.

But surprisingly, only 26% of marketers are currently using TikTok. Considering the massive user base and engagement rates the platform offers, there’s a huge opportunity for brands to capitalize on this untapped potential.

In this article, we’ll show you how to use TikTok for business. Follow the steps below to learn how to set up your account, develop a TikTok marketing content strategy, run ads, track performance and more.

Why you should use TikTok for business

Contrary to popular belief, TikTok has a very diverse user base. It’s not just Gen Z making funny dance videos. You also have millennials and older age groups using the platform daily for entertainment, catching up on the latest news or finding new products.

In fact, recent data shows nearly 50% of TikTok users are between 25 and 44 years old. Chances are your target audience sits nicely somewhere within that range.

Additionally, here are some specific benefits of using TikTok for business:

Increase brand awareness

TikTok offers multiple ways to spread the word about your brand. You can work with influencers, run various types of ads and use features like hashtags and branded stickers to put your brand in the spotlight. Also, if you create entertaining and unique content, your videos have a high potential to go viral.

Promote products

The best thing about TikTok marketing is it doesn’t feel like marketing. There are plenty of ways to promote your products without coming across as pushy, such as by partnering with influencers that your audience trusts, creating genuinely helpful and entertaining videos, and more.

Grow your audience

TikTok has millions of users distributed across the globe. It’s one of the best platforms to reach an international audience and grow your customer base. Plus, there’s always the added benefit of reaching exclusive TikTok users who don’t actively use any other social platforms.

Attract new customers

TikTok is all about creating authentic, engaging content that feels human and personal. This helps you build strong relationships with your audience and increases the chances of them converting into customers. Plus, if you hop on the right trend at the right time (or even better, start a trend) you may end up acquiring a lot of new customers.

Now that we’ve covered why you need to take your business on TikTok, let’s look at how you can use the platform to its maximum potential.

11 steps for using TikTok for business

Ready to start using TikTok for business? It’s competitive out there—you need to be smart and do your homework before you start sharing videos. Follow the steps below to start using TikTok for business and boost your chances of succeeding on the platform.

Step 1. Create a TikTok business account

The first step is to decide which type of TikTok account you want to create. You have three options—business, creator and individual. For brands, a TikTok business account is ideal.

A business account gives you access to TikTok’s entire suite of marketing tools, including analytics, ads, commercial audio and other resources. You’re also able to set up a TikTok store and connect to third-party apps like Sprout Social to manage your content.

Here’s how to create a TikTok business account:

• Download the TikTok app on your phone and create a new account.
• Open your profile and tap on the hamburger menu in the top right corner.
• Navigate to Settings and privacy → Manage account.
• Tap on Switch to Business Account.
• Choose the category that best describes your business.

Next, optimize your profile so it aligns with your brand identity, pops up in search, and makes your account look professional and legit. Add a high-quality logo as your profile picture, enter your business name and username, and create a short, compelling bio.

Finally, add your URL and social media accounts, such as Instagram and YouTube. Depending on your strategic goals, you could link out to your website’s homepage or pick a specific landing page or blog. Here’s a snapshot of Samsung’s TikTok profile as an example:

Step 2. Get verified on TikTok

Getting verified on TikTok adds a blue checkmark next to your account name. This shows TikTok has confirmed your account is authentic and belongs to a notable business.

A verified badge helps build trust and credibility with your audience. It also protects you from fake accounts trying to impersonate your brand by marking your profile as the original one.

To get verified, your account needs to meet certain criteria. This includes:

• Having logged in within the last 6 months
• Having a complete profile with at least one video
• Following TikTok’s community guidelines and terms of service
• Having 2-step verification turned on

You can apply through TikTok’s verification request form by providing proof of identity and popularity, such as a business email and media coverage.

Step 3. Define your goals

What do you want to achieve on TikTok? Maybe it’s increasing brand awareness, driving traffic to your website or boosting product sales. Whatever it is, having clear and meaningful goals will help guide your content creation and overall TikTok marketing strategy.

Break down your main goal into SMART targets. For example, if you want to increase brand awareness, you could set targets like:

• Gain 10,000 new followers within the next 3 months.
• Hit 500,000 video views across all TikTok content in the next quarter.
• Get 75,000 profile views within the next 6 months.

Once you’ve set your social media KPIs, you can create content that aligns with them and track your progress. But before that, there’s one more thing you need to do.

Step 4. Identify your target audience

To succeed on TikTok, you need to create content for the right audience. Think about who your ideal customer is, what they like and how they behave on the platform.

Start by looking at your current customers and identify common traits like age, gender, location and interests. Then, check out your competitors and see who they’re targeting on TikTok.

Once you have a clear picture of your target audience, dive into the platform and see what content they engage with, what hashtags they use, and which creators or brands they follow.

Use this info to create personas that represent your ideal TikTok followers. This will make it easier to craft your content strategy around what they like to boost engagement and grow your following (more on this in the next section.)

Step 5. Develop a TikTok content strategy

Now on to the meaty part—creating engaging content that aligns with your brand and resonates with your target audience. But that can’t happen without a proper roadmap in place. In other words, you need a TikTok content strategy.

Here are a few things to consider when crafting a TikTok content strategy for your brand:

• Learn from the crowd: Before you start pushing out content, familiarize yourself with the platform. Get comfortable with all the features and buttons, check out popular creators in your niche, study your competitors and understand the language your audience is speaking on the platform (e.g. humor or use of emojis.)
• Hop on trends and challenges: TikTok trends are always changing. Brands crushing it on the platform know exactly when to jump on the bandwagon. Look up trending hashtags, music, challenges and content formats, and put your own creative twist on them. Crocs does this well:

• Keep it authentic: Avoid creating overly formal or scripted videos. Adapt to TikTok’s raw, playful and entertaining vibe by showing the human side of your business. Take your audience behind the scenes or feature your employees and office pets. You don’t need fancy equipment to create engaging TikToks either—just good ideas and lighting.
• Leverage TikTok’s video editing tools: Don’t just post plain videos—take advantage of TikTok’s creative editing tools to make your content pop. Play around with eye-catching transitions, effects and filters to give your videos that extra oomph. Use trending music to make your content more engaging and subtitles for added accessibility.
• Decide when and how often to post: Monitor your audience’s behavior to determine the best times and days to post for maximum engagement. What times are they online? Which days of the week do they use TikTok the most? Use this data to create a content calendar and schedule posts for when they have the biggest initial impact.

Step 6. Learn the TikTok algorithm

Mastering TikTok requires a deep understanding of how the algorithm works. This will help you create content that ranks higher in user feeds as well as on the Explore and For You pages.

First, know that TikTok’s algorithm recommends content tailored to each user’s interest. But you’re competing with millions of videos and there’s only space for a handful of them on the For You page. So, how does TikTok decide which videos get more exposure?

Here are the factors the platform’s algorithm considers when ranking content:

• Engagement: Likes, shares, comments, completion rate and favorited videos—all of this helps TikTok understand what kind of content your audience likes to engage with.
• User interactions: TikTok considers the accounts each user follows and the content they create to understand their unique preferences.
• Video information: The captions, hashtags and sounds on your videos help TikTok categorize your content and determine when to show it and to whom.
• Device and account settings: Language preferences, device type and country settings also play a role in which users see your videos on their For You pages.

Knowing these factors can help you create content that’s more likely to rank in front of the right people. Also, TikTok’s algorithm does not recommend the following types of content:

• Duplicate and spam content
• Content users have already seen
• Potentially offensive or dangerous content
• Videos that have just been uploaded or are under review

TikTok’s algorithm does not consider factors like follower count or previous high-performing videos when recommending content. This means even if your business is new on the platform, your videos are just as likely to rank as those posted by popular accounts.

Step 7. Master TikTok SEO

Want to make your videos easier to find? Optimize various aspects of your content so it ranks higher for relevant search queries. Here are some tips to nail TikTok SEO:

• Find and use the right keywords: Research relevant and popular keywords in your niche to find what your audience is searching for. Incorporate these keywords naturally into your video titles, descriptions and captions. This helps TikTok understand what your content is about and show it to users searching for those specific topics.
• Hop on trends, challenges and hashtags: Creating content around current trends and challenges can boost your visibility on TikTok, especially when a trend is new and there are fewer videos to compete with. Also, use relevant and keyword-rich TikTok hashtags so your content is easily categorized and searchable.
• Create high-quality content: Videos that are engaging, informative and entertaining automatically get more engagement. This shows TikTok your content deserves more exposure and boosts your overall visibility and ranking on the platform. Along with providing value, grab attention in the first few seconds with captions, hooks, high-res visuals, good lighting, clear audio, and creative editing and transitions.
• Engage with your audience: Staying active on the platform can increase your search rankings, visibility and brand awareness. Regularly engage with the TikTok community by liking and commenting on posts, hosting live sessions, responding to comments and DMs, asking questions and starting conversations.

Step 8. Leverage TikTok ads effectively

Businesses can run different types of TikTok ads that blend in seamlessly with the rest of the content on the platform. Ads can boost your marketing strategy on the platform by widening your reach and driving more targeted traffic to your website.

For example, you can promote organic posts using Spark ads or partner with creators to produce sponsored influencer content. Or, tap into more traditional ad formats like in-feed, carousel, TopView and brand takeover ads.

Step 9. Collaborate with TikTok influencers

TikTok is a haven for brands looking into influencer marketing. There are countless influencers of all levels on the platform—from mega influencers with millions of followers to nano influencers with a few thousand fans.

For instance, nutrition brand Tropeaka partners with lifestyle influencers like Sopha Dopha (@sophadopha) who help create video content for the brand. Here’s an example:

Working with influencers can help you attract new audiences and build a credible brand image by reaching out through someone they trust. Below are some tips for maximizing your TikTok influencer marketing campaigns:

• Find the right influencers to work with: Look for influencers that align with your brand voice. Also, consider whether to pursue large influencers or smaller ones. Larger influencers offer more reach but are expensive. Smaller influencers are more affordable, and while they offer less reach, they often have a loyal, highly engaged following. Depending on your goals, the influencers you engage may differ, which brings us to the next point.
• Have clear goals in mind: Partnering with influencers without clear objectives can be a waste of resources for both parties. You need to know exactly what you hope to achieve out of this collaboration and communicate it to the influencer so they know what to do. Is it brand awareness? Is it an increase in followers or a certain number of sales?
• Don’t be too controlling: Once you’ve communicated the end goal to the influencer, don’t try to take over every aspect of the campaign. Outline points you want them to cover but let them have their creative freedom and do things “their way.” Not only will this improve your relationship with the influencer, it will also make your brand look more credible and authentic.
• Measure and analyze results: Track the performance of your influencer marketing campaigns both during and after the execution phase. Know whether your outlined goals and objectives have been met, or whether you need to pivot in any way.

If done right, influencer collaborations on TikTok can be highly rewarding for your brand. Use an influencer marketing tool to choose the right partners and work closely with them during the planning and strategizing to see impactful results.

Don’t forget—they are experts at what they do, and might be able to bring a lot of great ideas or valid concerns to the table that you’d have otherwise missed.

Step 10. Learn and grow from your TikTok analytics

TikTok analytics refers to all the data on your profile, content and audience that helps you track the performance of your videos, learn about your followers and make strategic decisions.

TikTok can be very competitive, but a data-driven approach can help your business stand out and drive targeted results on the platform. Here are some key metrics to look out for:

• Video views, play time and completion rates
• Traffic sources (e.g., For You page, hashtags, sounds)
• Likes, comments, shares and profile visits
• Follower growth and peak activity times
• Audience demographics like age, gender and location
• Song uses, link clicks and video downloads

Compare the performance of different video types, formats, lengths and distribution tactics to identify what resonates best with your target audience. Look for patterns and trends in your data to guide your content creation and posting schedule.

Tools like Sprout Social can help you dive deeper into your TikTok analytics. Along with tracking your own performance, you can view competitor reports to compare metrics, set realistic goals and improve your TikTok strategy.

Step 11. Use a TikTok tool to boost your efficiency

Using TikTok tools can help your business create and manage scalable video campaigns, track mountains of data and essentially do more in less time.

There are tons of TikTok tools out there for editing videos, scheduling posts, tracking performance, running ads and engaging with your audience. Luckily, Sprout Social’s all-in-one social media management platform lets you do all of that in one place.

Here are some of Sprout’s top features for TikTok marketers:

• Smart Inbox: Capture and organize incoming messages across multiple platforms to always stay updated and respond to followers quickly.
• Premium analytics: Measure the performance of your content, track website traffic and follower growth, and analyze detailed audience demographics and behavior.
• Competitor reports: Compare metrics with those of your competitors to see how you stack up and set goals for future performance.
• Post scheduling: Set up a content calendar and access tagging, captioning and other features to schedule and publish posts on TikTok and other platforms.
• Optimal send times: Sprout analyzes your TikTok account to determine the best time to post for peak engagement and interaction.

Reach new audiences and grow your business with TikTok

TikTok is one of the fastest growing platforms of our time. If you’re still not using it for your business, you’re missing out on tons of potential brand awareness, revenue and engagement. Follow the steps in this article to get started on TikTok on the right foot.

Amplify your TikTok marketing strategy with the right tool. Sprout Social’s powerful social media management platform can help you engage with your audience, schedule posts and analyze performance all in one place—and not just on TikTok. Start a free 30-day trial now and take Sprout for a test drive.

The post 11 step guide for using TikTok for business in 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.

When you have access to the latest social media stats about the platform, you can understand how to best engage your audience. This is crucial if you want to attract more followers and grow your X community.

The 2023 Sprout Social Index™ found that 45% of consumers follow a brand on social for their enjoyable and entertaining content. Staying on top of Twitter statistics will show you the types of content and topics that drive engagement.

While platforms like Facebook and Instagram might have more users, X’s audience is active, engaged and plugged in. And for brands, it is a valuable channel to connect with their audience.

Check out these 40 Twitter statistics to inspire and guide your social media strategy this year.

General Twitter (X) stats every marketer should know

1. Number of users worldwide: 415 million
2. Monthly active users: 335.7 million
3. Worldwide usage ranking: 12^th most popular social network
4. Annual user growth rate: 5% decline
5. Ownership: Privately held

X is at a unique crossroads. For one thing, new ownership has spurred renewed interest in the platform and increased user activity. At the same time, the platform has seen major upheavals including a complete rebranding and a monthly fee for verification.

These changes are driving some users away from the platform, leading to a decrease in monthly active users. According to projections, the number of monthly active users will drop to 335.7 million in 2024.

(Pro tip: Use Twitter analytics tools to track if these changes are affecting your brand’s audience performance.)

In line with this trend, the platform will also see a decline in annual user growth rate. In 2023, Statista reported a 4% decrease in monthly active users on X. For 2024, the platform is likely to see a 5% decline in monthly active users.

However, the latest Statista reports show that the platform still has a total of 415 million users worldwide. That means more than 80% of X’s total registered users use the platform every month.

But keep in mind that X is still in a transition stage, so don’t discount the platform just yet. As the 12^th most popular social media network, it remains a major player in the social media game.

Source: Statista

Twitter (X) usage statistics that prove the platform’s impact

6. Monetizable daily active users: 237.8 million
7. Average daily usage: 34.1 minutes
8. Worldwide daily engagement ranking: Third most-used social network
9. Number of monthly website visits: 6.2 billion
10. Median engagement rate: 0.029%
11. Median number of Tweets per week: 3.31
12. Top content preference on X: Informative
13. Number of X users using it as a news source: 53%

In spite of the decline in monthly active users, daily active usage on X is seeing an increase. According to the latest available data, there were 237.8 million monetizable daily active users on the platform in Q2 of 2022. That’s more than 57% of the platform’s users logging in daily.

This marked an increase from the previous quarter, where it had 229 million monetizable daily active users.

The good news is that X’s daily time spent continues to stay about the same. People are spending an average of 34.1 minutes per day on the platform. This makes it the third most used social network, surpassing Instagram.

For context, people are spending 33.1 minutes on Instagram each day, a platform that far surpasses X in popularity. And Facebook, in spite of having the largest number of monthly active users, only sees about 30.9 minutes of daily usage.

So there’s no denying X has the potential to help brands grow their communities by gaining new, highly-engaged followers.

Source: Statista

In line with the growing X usage statistics, visits to the Twitter.com website have also seen an increase. For the month of December 2023, there were 6.2 billion visits to the website. In the previous month, there had been 5.9 billion visits to the website.

At the same time, engagement rate and Tweet frequency on the platform are on the decline. RivalIQ’s study revealed a 20% decline in engagement rate. Now the median engagement rate on X is 0.029% across all industries.

For the time being, brand accounts are also Tweeting much less frequently. The median Tweet frequency was 3.31 Tweets per week—a 15% decrease from the previous year.

But this doesn’t negate the platform’s role in driving conversations around trending topics. X continues to be the top source of news among all social media sites. A 2023 study found that 53% of the platform’s users regularly use it to get news.

This finding is in line with X users having a preference for information-type content on the platform. About 55% of users prefer to see informative content, making it the most preferred content type. Additionally, users show a preference for relevant, engaging and trendy content. As such, brands using the platform can make a mark by participating in trending conversations.

Source: Statista

Twitter (X) user statistics to help reach your audience

14. Gender distribution: 60.9% male, 39.1% female (Note: Sprout Social acknowledges gender isn’t binary, but our data sources limit their reporting to male and female.)
15. Men are more likely to reach out to brands on X
16. Age distribution: 36.6% between the ages of 25 and 34
17. Top locations: United States, Japan, India
18. Cross-platform usage: Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook
19. Education level and income: 29% are college graduates and make more than $100,000 annually
20. Top community: Suburban
21. Sentiment trends: 33% have a favorable impression
22. Reaction to the new X logo: 33.57% neutral

To maximize your chance of reaching your target audience on X, you need to understand the demographic breakdown of its user base.

The platform tends to sway male, with 60.9% of users identifying as such. Male X users are also most likely to reach out to brands on the platform. A Khoros study found that 81% of male X users have reached out to a brand on the platform. The number is lower among female users with 68% having done the same.

X’s popularity among the Millennial population hasn’t dwindled. It’s most popular with people between the ages of 25 and 34 years old, and least popular with teens. Users within this age range are also most active on Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Pew Research Center’s study on social media demographics noted that 29% of U.S. X users are college graduates. About 49% of the platform’s user base earns more than $70,000 annually while 29% make more than $100,000 annually. This highlights the platform’s highly-educated and high-earning base.

Moreover, X sees the most usage among suburban communities (26%). Urban communities follow close behind at 25%.

Countries leading in X usage include the U.S., Japan and India.

X’s core users loudly express their feelings about the platform. Many have raised concerns about platform glitches, new features, privacy and proposed paywalls. While Twitter sentiment has ebbed and flowed, most users are pulling for the platform to regain its wings.

In fact, 33% of U.S. adults still have a favorable impression of the platform. Additionally, 40% of users expressed that they’re likely to still use X in a year’s time.

Changes such as the platform’s new logo didn’t garner many negative reactions. One-quarter of respondents felt positively about it. Meanwhile, 33.57% had a neutral feeling about the rebranding.

Twitter (X) statistics for advertisers

23. Annual ad revenue: $2.98 billion
24. Ad engagement: 7% increase from 2021 to 2022
25. Cost per engagement: 10% increase from 2021 to 2022
26. Average ad cost (per first action): $0.26 – $0.50
27. Average ad cost (per follow): $1.01 – $2.00
28. Industry inclusivity: Only major social platform to allow cannabis advertising

Advertising on Twitter takes multiple forms. This includes promoted Tweets, accounts and trending topics among many others. The platform strives to continuously roll out new high-impact ad types to meet evolving consumer behavior.

In spite of this, ad revenue on the platform has witnessed a decline in the past couple of years.

As a result of the drop in monthly active users, there’s a looming uncertainty over the platform’s financial health. A March 2023 forecast predicted that the platform will generate $2.98 in ad revenue. While this would be a 27.9% drop compared to the previous year, the decline will slow down in 2024 according to the same projections. X hasn’t published updated revenue data supporting or challenging these forecasts.

Source: Oberlo

Meanwhile, additional sources report a 7% increase in X ad engagement between 2021 and 2022. With this engagement boost, the cost of advertising on the platform also increased. There was a 10% increase in cost per engagement during the same period.

In spite of this, the ad cost is comparable to Facebook and still significantly lower than LinkedIn. The typical cost per first action or cost per click on X is $0.26 to $0.50. meanwhile, LinkedIn has a cost per click of $2 to $3. Additionally, brands can expect to spend around $1.01 to $2 per follow for promoted accounts on X.

From offering discounted ads to allowing cannabis advertising, X is making attractive appeals for brands to reinvest in the platform. (If your brand sells cannabis, bookmark our article: How cannabis brands elevate their social media content.)

Twitter (X) stats businesses need to inform their strategy

29. Best time to post: Mondays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon and Tuesdays through Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
30. Posting frequency for top brands: 3.75x per week
31. Engagement rate for top brands: 0.102%
32. Percentage of Tweets with emojis: 26.7%
33. Discoverability: #1 platform
34. X users are 2x more likely to have made an in-app purchase
35. X users are 36% more likely to be the first to try new things
36. Number of users who’ve engaged with a brand: 75%
37. Top engagement intent: Customer care
38. 64% of X users prefer sending a message than calling a business
39. Expected response time: Three hours or less
40. One-third of users made a purchase after a positive experience on X

When you build your Twitter marketing strategy, it’s imperative to align your content with the style of the network. For example, X is a fast-moving platform, and your Tweets are easy to miss if you post at the wrong time. Overall, the best times to post are Mondays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon. Tuesdays through Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. are also good times to post. But you should find the best time to post on Twitter for your industry and audience.

By sending out your Tweets at the best time, you can catch your audience when they’re most active. This allows you to drive higher engagements for your brand’s X account.

For context, RivalIQ reports that the top brands on X have an engagement rate of about 0.102%. So anything around this range should be a good engagement rate on the platform. Moreover, they Tweet at a frequency of 3.75 times per week.

If you’re looking to get more engagements, make sure to throw in several emojis in your Tweets to make them stand out. Between 2013 and 2023, the platform has seen a significant increase in the number of posts containing emojis. Now 26.7% of Tweets worldwide have an emoji.

Despite a low brand engagement rate, X is the number one platform for discoverability. And its superpower is helping brands gain exposure to an audience eager to try something new. According to X, 36% of people on the platform are more likely to be the first to buy new products. They’re also twice as likely to have made an in-app purchase compared to users on other platforms.

Consumers aren’t just on the platform for Twitter ecommerce, though. The previously cited Khoros study found that 75% of X users have engaged with a brand on the platform. Among these, the top engagement intent was customer care with 53% of users reaching out to resolve care-related issues.

This makes it the top social media platform for seeking customer care. The latest social media customer service stats also show that 64% of X users would rather reach out to a brand on X than call the business.

Source: Khoros

These numbers highlight how crucial it is for brands to provide assistance to their customers on the platform. But not just any assistance would do. Consumers are expecting brands to provide a swift response to their care-related issues.

The Khoros study reveals that 50% of X users expect a response to their complaint within three hours. This is regardless of whether they shared a complaint publicly or in a private message. Meeting this expected timeframe could improve loyalty to your brand. 45% of users also become more receptive to the brand’s advertisements.

Source: Khoros

In fact, a positive Twitter customer service experience could drive purchase decisions. One-third of X users would buy a product or service after a positive customer experience on the platform.

Use Twitter marketing statistics to help your brand soar

These key Twitter statistics prove the platform could still play a vital role in your brand’s social media strategy. But like all social media platforms, your brand’s performance on X is what you make it.

Even in the midst of the platform’s evolution, you can find stability and success if you ground your strategy in data. Use the 40 Twitter stats we shared in this article to refine your tactics to better resonate with your target audience.

Start asking yourself questions like:

• Is my target audience using X more or less than I anticipated?
• What does my target audience use X for?
• What is my brand’s return on paid investment on the platform?
• Am I reaching my audience at the best time?
• Is my company’s X customer service workflow meeting expectations?

Use your answers to guide your company’s approach to the platform in 2024, and watch your presence take off. Keep iterating on your strategy with the latest tools and features to best use Twitter for business.

The post 40 Twitter (X) stats to know in marketing in 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.

As the weather heats up in the northern hemisphere, so too are in-person events. From festivals to fundraisers, sponsorships to sporting events, brands are turning IRL moments into opportunities for meaningful community engagement on social. By taking their followers behind-the-scenes of some of the biggest events of the year, social teams are winning over audiences and creating social-first experiences that translate to increased awareness and brand love.

Let’s dive into our lineup of brands who capture the magic of in-person experiences online, and takeaways you can use to extend the cultural caché of your events.

Rhode-chella: Photo-ready pouts

During a year when many brands pulled back on influencer activations at Coachella, Rhode followed suit and bet on user-generated content (UGC) instead. Enter: the TikTok famous Rhode booth that gave festival marketing a “clean girl” twist.

Part photo booth, part lip gloss dispenser, Coachella goers were keen to capture content inside of the sleek, chic structure. The activation helped amp up the buzz surrounding their line of lip products and lip phone case.

According to Sprout Social Listening data from April 8 to April 20, 2024, mentions of the Rhode booth and Coachella drove nearly 2.5 million impressions during the festival on X (formerly Twitter). The brand and its booth boasted an impressive 95% positive sentiment rate.

Videos about the booth gained millions of views on TikTok and thousands of likes on Instagram. Rhode repurposed the booth for their pop-up in LA in the weeks following Coachella—something fans begged for on social.

The play: One user-generated post is a drop in the bucket. But when hundreds (or even thousands) of people post about a brand, it floods feeds and reaches viral pandemonium. The key to making UGC effective on a large scale is understanding trends in your audience’s behavior. The Rhode team knows taking selfies and applying (then re-applying) lip gloss are natural actions for their customers. Combining both in an unexpected way was a match made in UGC heaven.

Once excitement builds, you can extend the life of your marketing efforts and increase brand awareness by reusing recognizable activations. We predict the Rhode booth will be a long play for the beauty brand.

The Rocket Mortgage Draft: This is what Dream(mates) are made of

Rocket Mortgage was the official sponsor of the 2024 NFL Draft. In honor of the event, the brand started the “Dreammate” movement—a celebration of the role mentors, confidants and motivators play in helping people achieve their dreams, from homeownership to playing in the NFL. The campaign also benefited Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit who helps turn the dream of homeownership into a reality for those who can’t afford it.

On social, Rocket Mortgage shared content featuring celebrity Dreammate teams connected to the NFL, including new draftees, sports broadcasters and current players. These posts mirrored the emotional, joyous aura of the event. Rocket Mortgage also shared UGC created by those who attended in-person.

Rocket Mortgage’s sponsorship paid off, proving to be an effective strategy for increasing brand visibility. According to Sprout Social Listening data from April 26 to April 28, 2024, the brand and event were mentioned together more than 250,000 times on X, and those posts received 1.7 million engagements.

The play: Event sponsorships can offer extensive reach, but they should still align with your brand values. Rocket Mortgage artfully created a throughline to the NFL Draft by amplifying their shared mission: to make dreams come true. Tying in their nonprofit partner took the affinity to the next level. While the three brands may not seem obviously connected, Rocket Mortgage wove their stories together in a sentimental way that delighted audiences.

The brand’s partnerships with athletes and influencers humanized the campaign on social, and created momentum before, during and after the draft.

TikTok on the “Gardens of Time” clock

On the first Monday in May, TikTok sponsored the biggest night in fashion, The Met Gala. As they explained in the press release announcing the sponsorship, the social network sees art, fashion and education as integral parts of its DNA.

In the days leading up to and following the legendary night, TikTok created a Meta Gala portal on their app. From the portal, users can vote on their favorite looks from years past and best dressed of 2024, try the official #MetGala creator effect and explore relevant content.

Many news outlets are reporting TikTok legitimized its influence on fashion throughout the 2020s by sponsoring The Met Gala, making the case for the platform’s vital role in shaping the cultural zeitgeist.

The play: The Met Gala is a prestigious event hosted by Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine. It’s hard to think of a more internationally-celebrated, emblematic moment in the fashion industry. As a rising star, TikTok’s sponsorship feels like an intentional play for cultural longevity, and a way to capitalize on chatter already taking place on their platform.

Aligning your brand with the right events can lead to positive gains in your brand reputation. And generating PR on social media can sway the court of public opinion in your favor.

The Masters tees up Topgolf

Do you know the feeling of watching professional athletes on television (or even from the sidelines), and feeling a powerful urge to pick up a ball, racket or—in this case—golf club? That’s where Topgolf enters the chat.

While committing to a full round feels intimidating (especially after a full day of watching a tournament like the Masters), swinging on a gamified driving range is energizing. As the Wall Street Journal reported, every stall at the Topgolf in Augusta, Georgia was full on the Friday of the Masters tournament.

From their social presence, it’s clear Topgolf understands this phenomenon. They see themselves as the place guests turn when they want to scratch their golf itch in a low-stakes way. Topgolf even sent an ice cream truck serving peach ice cream sandwiches (a Masters staple) around town the weekend of the Masters, and promoted the truck on social.

Business is booming at Topgolf: The company reported annual revenue of $1.7 billion in 2023. Their business model serves the needs of their customers and they know how to stay top-of-mind on social during high visibility golf events.

The play: Being a part of major events—on social or in-person—doesn’t require a budget-breaking sponsorship. You can find a way to get in on the action, even if your brand is only adjacent to the event. As Topgolf demonstrated, cultural relevance can come from understanding audience behavior, and predicting what they need before they even say it.

Event spotlight: The Kentucky Derby team gets their roses

The horses work hard, and so does the Kentucky Derby social team. In the lead up to this year’s event, it was off to the races. The team posted videos introducing this year’s equine contenders, explaining the history of the event and celebrating past fashion moments—all in a way that felt social-first.

On race day, the team churned out content from the event across channels. On May 4, 2024 they published over 50 TikTok posts that accumulated 51 million views, including interviews from the red carpet, updates from the infield and the pivotal moment when Mystik Dan crossed the finish line.

Though the Kentucky Derby is already one of the most famous days in sports, the behind-the-scenes and boots-on-the-ground content drummed up palpable excitement that made this year’s 150th race more exciting (and earned the social team lots of well-deserved kudos).

The play: Even if your brand is hosting a traditional or well-established event, opting for a social-first promotion strategy still works in your favor. Just ensure that your approach is optimized for specific platform formats and has a community-centric focus. Take a page from the Kentucky Derby’s playbook, and pull back the curtain on iconic parts of your event.

Translate live events into digital community

That concludes this month’s installment of the PPR. Stay tuned for next month’s edition where we’ll be highlighting some of our favorite brand collaborations right now. Until next time, keep these points in mind:

• Post Performance Report Takeaways

  • Make your followers feel like they’re really there when capturing content at events. Take them behind-the-scenes and offer an up close and personal point of view.
  • Understand your customer base deeply. Predicting what will interest or excite them about your events and brand activations requires keeping up with the trends and conversations currently captivating them.
  • Factor how your brand’s social presence fits into an overall event experience early—whether you sponsor/host an event or are just related by proxy.

Looking for more on how to embrace your community on social? Read more about how to craft a social-first community strategy, and how it can breathe new life into your brand identity.

And if you see a social post or campaign that deserves to be highlighted, tag us @sproutsocial and use #PostPerformanceReport to have your idea included in a future article.

The post Post Performance Report: Brands turning IRL events into online engagement appeared first on Sprout Social.

Customers want quick and responsive conversations with brands—and organizations want to satisfy their customers.

Conversational marketing leads to enhanced customer experiences because it helps people feel heard. However, that’s not all. Advanced conversational marketing strategies use conversational AI, which enables brands to derive important business intelligence from customer conversations. The best part? Those valuable insights can deepen customer loyalty, improve lead generation and drive revenue.

In this article, you’ll learn the ins and outs of conversational marketing. Plus, we’ll cover how it can delight your customers while providing your business with useful data. Let’s dive in.

The post How to apply conversational marketing to your business appeared first on Sprout Social.

In this article, you’ll read why proactive marketing is essential to keep customers engaged. Plus, how to create a proactive marketing strategy to increase your social and marketing ROI.

What is proactive marketing?

Proactive marketing is centered on anticipating market demands and creating successful campaigns and strategies to increase market share, revenue and customer engagement. Marketers use various sources to draw proactive insights including social media, reviews and surveys.

Among these, social media is critical to proactive marketing, especially in today’s increasingly digital landscape. It acts as a channel for businesses to engage with audiences directly and in real-time, promote their brand and create a dynamic feedback loop through social customer care interactions.

For instance, using a social media management tool, a brand can engage with its customers to foster a two-way conversation even when not directly tagged or mentioned. This shows they’re invested in building customer trust and also tuned into industry conversations. Plus, by analyzing social chatter you gain brand insights in minutes compared to traditional research methods, like focus groups and surveys, which can take months.

This proactive approach helps you quickly tailor your content, advertising and other marketing tactics to what resonates with your audience. It allows you to create meaningful engagement that ensures customer loyalty and retention.

Why proactive marketing strategies matter

Proactive marketing helps you get more out of your social media engagement strategy. It shows your audience that you’re actively trying to connect and communicate with prospects and customers. That can create a major competitive differentiator.

Take Adidas, for example. Their proactive marketing strategy includes uplifting social content involving sports champions to encourage people and boost morale. These posts indirectly promote their products and act as open forums where customers ask product-specific questions. A quick look into social conversations in their “You got this” campaign shows audiences engage with the brand on a variety of topics including product inquiries.

This shows how empathy-driven, proactive marketing is pivotal within your overall marketing to maintain brand engagement–even if you’re an established brand like Adidas.

The difference between proactive vs. reactive marketing strategies

A strong marketing strategy includes proactive and reactive marketing tactics to address both long-term and short-term goals. Here are the key differences between them.

Reactive marketing strategies

• Reactive marketing is about responding to immediate customer concerns, such as addressing customer care complaints.
• It’s a passive marketing approach where customers initiate contact with a brand, for example, to enquire about products or pricing.
• Reactive marketing doesn’t require planning or additional investment of time and resources as it’s not hinged on competitor behavior and involves responding to customer needs as they arise.

Proactive marketing strategies

• Proactive marketing is a forward-thinking approach built on anticipated market demands to supply a solution, such as expanding a product portfolio based on emerging market trends.
• It requires a brand to make the first move and reach out to customers and prospects, rather than waiting for the target audience to approach them.
• Proactive marketing involves long-term planning with a focus on long-term goals. It relies on a thorough strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis of the brand and its competitors.

Netflix is a great example of proactive marketing. It uses AI-driven algorithms to analyze users’ viewing habits and engagement rates to search for patterns to inform the kind of content to produce and market in different regions.

Another example of proactive marketing is how Mexican fast food chains like Chipotle and Pollo Loco capitalize on National Burrito Day to earn all-time high sales every year around the holiday. These brands plan for the event, advertising their locations and mouth-watering deals much in advance, to ensure customers choose them over the competition.

How social media fits into the proactive marketing picture

Social media empowers brands to engage proactively with audiences. It facilitates real-time conversations and prompt responses to customer comments and inquiries. These interactions hold the key to valuable insights to inform future brand strategies.

Here are some ways social media drives proactive marketing.

Social listening

Social listening data catalyzes proactive marketing. According to The State of Social Media Report 2023, 91% of leaders believe social data is critical to understanding customer needs, while 89% believe it’s key to predicting future market trends.

Knowing customer opinion about your brand helps you proactively refine your products and offerings and develop winning marketing campaigns for long-term success. Plus, competitor intelligence data from social conversations helps with competitor benchmarking so you can build strategies to strengthen brand positioning and loyalty.

Likewise, social listening data helps identify patterns in audience preferences and behaviors. For instance, you could determine which social networks give you the highest engagement. This enables you to focus on those platforms to amplify brand engagement and analyze conversations to uncover potential opportunities. With Sprout’s Listening tool, you can automatically sift through billions of data points in social chatter within seconds to find key topics, hashtags, trends and insights to influence your future strategies.

Reporting and analytics

Social media reporting surfaces deep insights about your brand’s performance on social and reflects emerging market shifts—essential data to improve your marketing ROI. For example, Sprout’s Analytics tools provide you with comprehensive reporting on social media metrics based on your KPIs and goals to help you evaluate social campaigns across channels. Having this crucial data visualized through easy-to-grasp charts and graphs further helps you understand network-specific and cross-network analytics better so you can strategize for the future.

Plus, built-in templates help you prove your social ROI to decision-makers to get the funds you need for your future strategy.

Customer Care

Social customer care is the new norm. Customer care departments are no longer siloed from the broader marketing org—today they play an important role in informing marketing decisions.

Insights from customer care conversations inform you about recurring customer complaints and market gaps, which you can share with marketing execs and product teams to draw attention for future planning.

Similarly, tools like Social Customer Care by Sprout Social and our integration with Salesforce Service Cloud enable agents handling social to deliver prompt, personalized responses and offer services based on previous interactions. This proactive approach leads to higher customer satisfaction and halts attrition.

Brand Keywords

Brand Keywords in your social data tell you which hashtags your audience follows so you can use them to boost your reach and attract new customers. Sprout’s Brand Keywords tool extracts keyword mentions from X (formerly known as Twitter) directly into your Smart Inbox, keeping you in the loop about discussions related to your brand, even without direct tags. Use search operators to track branded keywords across various social channels and monitor mentions seamlessly within a single platform.

Explore more Sprout features.

How to create your proactive marketing strategy with Sprout

There’s no single approach to proactive marketing, especially on social. The conversations your brand can weigh in on are never-ending. That’s why, creating a strategy focussed on social media business value is important. Here’s how to get it done.

Determine your team’s bandwidth

Creating a proactive marketing strategy means leveling up your social media strategy. Like all new endeavors, it takes time.

Consider how much time your team spends on reactive engagement (i.e. responding to tags and mentions). What is your daily inbox volume like? If that alone is tough to manage, think about how to prioritize creating a business case for expanding your social team.

Identify conversations that provide value to your organization

Use company and department goals to decide which conversations present the largest opportunities for your team.

For example, if your big goal this year is brand awareness, prioritize conversations around key influencer partnerships or larger industry discussions. Engaging with those posts can expose your brand to new audiences interested in your products or services. Sprout’s Influencer Marketing tool can help you identify particular voices with influence to further expand your reach.

If you work with co-marketing partners, you can also create multiple partner-specific Brand Keywords to proactively build on those relationships through social.

Draw insights from sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis surfaces nuanced emotions customers express on social and online channels about your products and services. Examining sentiment in social listening data tells you the common topics of discussion when people mention your brand on social.

With Sprout, calculate sentiment scores automatically from data across all your social accounts within a single, unified dashboard. Analyze this data to understand sentiment trends and the conversations driving these sentiments.

This intelligence helps you construct a data-driven, proactive marketing strategy aligned with customer expectations. For example, you could refine your content strategy, pivot your ad campaigns and personalize your customer service to proactively address customer needs and wants.

Tap into competitive intelligence

Use Sprout’s native competitive analysis tools to gather essential insights about your competitors and their social media engagement. Also, dig into metrics such as post engagement, hashtag usage, audience demographics and audience growth to identify trends and establish competitive benchmarks. Sprout’s actionable competitor intelligence dashboard enables you to track and analyze this data easily.

This competitive monitoring helps you stay informed about competitors and identify industry trends and market changes as they emerge.

For instance, you might observe discussions about an increasing need for customer care software that streamlines processes and cuts response times in half. Or, you might notice your target audience responding favorably to your competitors’ content related to their eco-friendly service initiatives.

Use this insight to proactively align your business and offerings with customer preferences to ensure you’re agile and ready to capture new market opportunities.

Optimize your strategy through business intelligence and reporting

Use Sprout’s built-in reporting tools and templates to contextualize social insights and see how you stack up to competitors and where you could do better. Plus, explore which interactions and campaigns attract quality leads and drive revenue growth. Then use that data to optimize your proactive marketing strategy and strengthen your brand footprint.

Integrate with Salesforce and Tableau for a 360-degree analysis of your customer messages and conversations to get additional context. Use this data to tailor your customer journey and address customer issues proactively to exceed their expectations and build robust customer relationships that future-proof your business.

Supercharge your proactive marketing strategies with Sprout

Social media insights help you get ahead of brand conversations to establish your brand as a forward-thinking and relevant contributor to the industry. Sprout’s powerful social media management tools help you do this and more. They help you navigate macroeconomic trends, anticipate changing customer expectations and optimize your marketing plans in real time so you’re always a step ahead.

Use brand intelligence to power up your proactive marketing strategy by starting your free 30-day Sprout Social trial today.

 

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