Twitter is making good on some of the promises they’ve made to business owners by rolling out key features, albeit very, very slowly. Increasing the number of accounts that can now use pinned tweets is the newest way they’re attempting to grab some of that dough we’re all pouring into Facebook’s platform. This feature has long been available on a business’ Facebook page.

If you aren’t advertising on Facebook, you are missing out on a great opportunity to reach an audience for a very affordable price.

Pinned Tweets - Advertising on Twitter

If you are already a Twitter advertiser (or at least using their premium analytics) and have been blessed by the Twitter fairy, you may have just noticed the option to pin a tweet. This will allow you to take one of your tweets, and highlight it on your Twitter page. This is very useful because if someone clicks through to your username, they see your Twitter handle, your name and your description and then they see a list of your recent tweets. Those recent tweets may or may not reflect your ‘first impression’ branding, so pinning such a tweet can be a great way to start off on the right foot.

Use Case

We do a lot of hackathons for our clients, it’s our bread and butter, so to speak. If you also do events, have seasonal offerings, or for any reason often have a mish-mosh of items in your Twitter feed, this feature will be very attractive.

For instance, during a hackathon, a client’s Twitter feed may be heavily populated with tweets concerning the event, including who won, scheduling logistics, cool pictures, Vines or simply links to learnings from the event. While those are wonderful pieces of engaging content, they may not be the best ‘first look’ content for new prospects.

The ability to pin a tweet lets them have the freedom to post excellent, engaging content for those hackers without worrying about turning off a potential follower. The prospective follower can still see all that content, but a pinned tweet will sit at the top of the page and communicate whatever messaging the corporation wants to communicate. This delivers a chance for the company to stay on brand, even while remaining current and in the moment.

Tips on Pinned Tweets

Whatever tweet you decide to highlight, be sure to use one with an image or video. We know that images and videos lift engagement significantly, with a steady increase in retweets (RTs), follows and responses (@ messages).

Choose a post that is exciting. You want folks to see the engagement on the tweet.

Note the engagement on the Best Buy example above. That post is exciting and sits on the page for a long time, so it gets good engagement. Likes, RTs and @ messages show your potential followers that your content is at least worth a second look. They are a good quality indicator, so choose to highlight content that is likely to garner those things.

If your company is in the Partner Program at Twitter, odds are you’ve already seen this. It’s been around for partners since 2011.

Check it out. It’s found on the analytics page.

If you are unable to see the analytics page, that’s a simple fix too. You just have to add a user card somewhere on your page and request verification through Twitter. Reach out to us if you need a hand.