Twitter is often an overlooked and underrated social media platform. From breaking news and politics to entertainment and sports, 166 million daily active users are engaging in conversations every single day. In fact, the number of daily active users have seen a 24% growth from the previous year, the highest year-over-year increase to date. The dramatic growth can be attributed to “product improvements and online chatter about the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to Hootsuite via a Twitter report.
The increase in daily active users presents brands with a prime opportunity to reach their customers and engage in modern tactics.
While Twitter might not be the newest, most visual or “sexy” as some would say–it’s the place to go to get involved in trending and real-time conversations.
More often than not, news breaks here before it reaches TV screens. If you want the real, honest truth, Twitter is where you’ll find it!
When we think of influencers we often think about Instagram first–maybe Facebook or TikTok, too. But, let’s dive into Twitter influencers; how they’re different and how to work with them. We’ll also discuss costs, measuring success and provide a few examples of influencers on Twitter.
What is a Twitter influencer?
To put it simply, a Twitter influencer is someone who can get their followers to engage in conversation about a particular topic, person, place or thing.
Influencers on Twitter are people who meet one or both of these requirements:
- They influence a lot of people (macro following)
- They Influence a lot without having a large following (their engagement is high)
Twitter influencers are incredibly impactful and unique because at the end of the day, their followers value their opinions or personalities regarding current events/cultural moments. The difference between Twitter and other platforms is that Twitter is far more timely than most.
How are Twitter influencers different from other influencers?
The word influence takes on many forms when we’re referring to social media influencers. When we think “influence” on Instagram we often imagine a good-looking woman holding her detox tea or fitness apparel promoting the latest and greatest through visually pleasing content. It’s often accompanied by a caption explaining the product–the ins and outs along with a testimonial about how the product fits within their lifestyle. We follow influencers on Instagram who are like us–People we trust, value and share similar interests.
But when we talk about “influence” as it relates to Twitter it looks and feels a bit different.
Anyone we follow on Twitter, or anyone who appears in our Feed, can have influence on us. We don’t turn to them for their opinions on the latest products, but for their opinions on local and national events, breaking news, live Tweets during an event or TV show, trending cultural topics, controversial conversations and more. We’re looking for their thoughts and opinions sometimes hoping what they say validates what we’re thinking. Want to know what society’s talking about? Turn to Twitter.
It’s also mandatory for Twitter influencers to engage with their followers. Their success depends on their willingness to carry on a conversation with the Twittersphere. And guess what–their influence works. Forty percent of Twitter users carried out a purchase after seeing it on Twitter.
What are some examples of Twitter influencers?
On other platforms, it’s not uncommon or difficult to partner with influencers who have micro and macro followings to achieve varying degrees of success. On Twitter, the most well-known Twitter influencers have macro followings and are often celebrities or public figures. Twitter influencers with micro followings DO exist, but are incredibly niche and usually only known to smaller circles of people–think journalists, reporters, radio DJs or even some local politicians.
Types of Twitter influencers
Twitter influencers span all the usual verticals. From lifestyle to media and entertainment to food to fashion. Additionally, I’d argue that politics could fit somewhere on the list.
2. @Elonmusk
Most known for founding Tesla Motors and SpaceX, Elon Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2. Musk rose to popularity on Twitter after people quickly realized he would often Tweet without a filter, citing everything and anything on his mind–controversial or not. Most recently, he caught backlash for criticizing Coronavirus testing and earned himself the nickname “Space Karen.”
Chrissy Teigen is quite the comic on Twitter–Often roasting followers and trolls snapping back with unfiltered replies. When she’s not busy putting people in their place, she’s usually sharing opinions on the latest pop culture convos, family happenings and updates or recipes about her cookbook, @cravings.
4. @NevSchulman
Nev is not only the host of MTV’s “Catfish,” but also a writer, family man, and most recently–ballroom dancer on “Dancing With the Stars.” Nev tweets often–mainly about his TV show but also engaging with fans and followers through retweets and replies.
5. @KenJennings
Ken Jennings rose to fame after multiple appearances on “Jeopardy!”. It was recently announced he’d serve as the new interim host of the show following Alex Trebek’s passing. He tweets often and shares trivia questions and miscellaneous life musings that spark conversations with followers. He heavily engages by retweeting and replying to trending conversations.
6. @BarstoolRia
Ria Cuiffo is one of the two gals known for the “Chicks in the Office” podcast. They call themselves the experts in all things pop culture, giving you the hottest news in Hollywood. Ria rose in popularity after first interning at Barstool Sports and co-creating her popular podcast with Francesca Mariano.
The Yum Yum Foodie, Eddie Zamora, is a TV Judge on “Dinner Takes All” and tweets his favorite recipes and shares photos of his cute pup.
Jessica Hall is a radio and TV personality, part owner of BB Lifestyle and Sugar Taco LA, blogger and podcast host. She mostly shares behind the scenes action recording her podcast with Selling Sunset’s @HeatherRaeYoung along with family happenings.
While Brett Vergara might not be a well-known household name, he’s surely known to this niche crowd: Bachelor nation. He’s known for his incredibly hilarious tweets during the Bachelor/Bachelorette TV Shows often live-tweeting his thoughts through memes and gifs.
10. @justin_moore
Justin Moore and his partner Nick are a dynamic duo based out of Washington, D.C. They use their social media platforms as creative spaces where they can share their love for one another and inspire and educate the world through men’s lifestyle content, fitness, and LGBTQ activism. Their tweets are engaging, humorous and entertaining.
Twitter influencers are everywhere–These top 10 aren’t the end all be all. Find more here, on Twitter or using an influencer software for support.
Twitter Influencer Marketing Campaigns
Now that we’ve presented some examples of Twitter influencers, you might be wondering, how do we activate them?! Here are a few examples of Twitter influencer marketing campaigns.
OpenTable Celebrity Activation
OpenTable was launching a new feature within their website and app and wanted to activate celebrity influencers to drive awareness for it on Twitter. To execute, Popular Pays and OpenTable partnered with five macro influencers who are passionate about dining out to promote the new Tastemaker list feature.
The campaign resulted in a 4% engagement rate reaching over 31M people.
Pop-Tarts New Product Promotion
For this campaign, Pop-Tarts aimed to drive awareness for the release of their new product line: Pop-Tarts Pretzel flavors in Cinnamon and Chocolate.
In partnership with Popular Pays, Pop-Tarts activated two content creators to generate awareness and conversation on Twitter and Instagram before, during and after the “Big Game.”
The campaign resulted in over 36,000 organic impressions and over 750 post engagements.
An Evening with Lavazza and the Golden Globes
As a brand dedicated to providing premium coffee and experiences, Lavazza started premium conversations during the Golden Globes. Lavazza teamed up with Popular Pays to activate a few micro and macro Twitter influencers who participated in live-tweeting during the Golden Globes and discuss favorite moments throughout the night while enjoying Lavazza coffee.
The campaign resulted in over 3,000 total likes and 840 total retweets.
Should you work with a Twitter influencer?
Working with influencers on Twitter should come with a thoughtful strategy. Waltzing into it hoping it will go viral is not the best approach. Like most influencer partnerships, success comes when it feels organic–it’s just a bit harder on Twitter since the platform has such a specific use case and unique algorithm. Influencer marketing campaigns DO work–Twitter users spend 24% more time with ads posted by influencers.
Before considering Twitter for your influencer marketing campaign, you should ask yourself the following questions:
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- Is there a larger brand act the Twitter campaign will complement? It makes sense for the brand to execute a larger activation and allow Twitter to be the place where people go to talk about it. Twitter shouldn’t be the ONLY component to the campaign.
- Is the goal of this campaign to start a conversation or add to a conversation?
- If so, does that conversation make sense for the Twitter feed?
- Can the message be shared in 280 characters, ideally, less?
- Will it be easy for followers to engage and participate in 1-2 steps? If you want people to engage with your campaign or content, make sure it’s easy to do through a reply or retweet.
- Is your brand already active on Twitter? It doesn’t make complete sense to launch an influencer marketing campaign if your brand isn’t already active on the platform. You want to have an established presence to ensure you’re relevant in the conversation.
Twitter isn’t the best platform for all influencer marketing campaigns, in fact, it’s difficult to execute successfully. Influencers aren’t there to make money, they’re there to have meaningful conversations and share opinions. That being said, they might not want to jeopardize their credibility with #ad placements and sponsorships, which makes it difficult for brands to activate genuine partnerships with the correct people. The entire activation (even what’s happening outside of Twitter) should give influencers a reason to meaningfully engage in their own way.
It’s crucial to identify influencers who already have an affinity for your brand. You can accomplish this through social listening and look for the following attributes about them:
- Their image/online persona should match the brand’s personality
- Have they organically mentioned your brand before?
- Do they have a similar target audience as the brand?
How do you find Twitter influencers?
The hardest part of influencer marketing is finding the right people for the job. In fact, 73% say finding the right influencers is the hardest part of influencer marketing. Twitter influencers can be discovered using Google, within the Twitter app or using a software to help with search.
The DIY Approach: Finding influencers using the Twitter app
Aside from simply searching Google for “Twitter influencers” there are a couple other ways to source potential partners.
Use the Twitter search tool to find trending topics
Twitter does a great job organizing trending conversations and events by topics, including, news, sports, entertainment, even COVID-19. Although it’s personalized to your profile, if you have enough time to spare you’re able to find influencers manually.
Start by going to the “search” section (if you’re on mobile) or #Explore (if you’re on desktop). Choose any section that pertains to your needs, or, just check “trending” to see what’s popular in the United States and abroad. From there, you’ll find Tweets related to that topic sorted by hashtags or article headlines.
Begin clicking on user’s profiles to learn more about them and their following. If you want to find more users like that person, click “follow” and allow Twitter to generate similar user profiles. Repeat that process until you’re done looking through that specific trending topic and find a new one.
Using software to find Twitter influencers
Influencer marketing software companies, such as Popular Pays, help extradite the search process by aggregating a large community of influencers in their database you can search through to find the perfect partner. While software solutions might not encompass the entire Twittersphere, they still have relationships with thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, influencers ready to partner with your brand.
The benefit of working with a software solution is the ability to source a wide variety of influencer partners. When searching manually you’re likely to only come across macro profiles. The implication? Macro influencers usually cost way more money than the average Joe. That brings me to my next point, how do you work with Twitter influencers and what does it cost?
How do you work with Twitter influencers?
You can go about partnering with Twitter influencers the same you would any influencer on other platforms. You can work with Twitter influencers in a few easy steps:
- Identify your ideal Twitter partners
- Reach out to them directly or through a software, like Popular Pays to see if they want to collaborate
- Specify details and deliverables of the campaign
- Allow the influencer to create content and share with you for approval
- Content goes live on Twitter
- Evaluate success
- Optimize and repeat
How much does it cost to work with a twitter influencer?
There are several factors that can impact how much an influencer charges for their services, so it’s difficult to put a flat rate on one single Tweet.
According to webfx, brands can expect to pay $2 per post, per 1,000 followers. Here are some examples:
- An influencer with 10,000 followers would charge $20 per post
- An influencer with 100,000 followers would charge $200 per post
- An influencer with 1,000,000 followers would charge $2,000 per post
An influencer with around 1,000,000 or more followers will usually break away from average pricing structures like this–at that point, if they have that many followers there’s a reason for their fame and notoriety and they’re likely well-known outside of social media. And, knowing the majority of Twitter influencers have upwards of 500,000 followers it’s best to set aside a large budget in order to successfully activate.
How do you measure success in working with a Twitter influencer?
Twitter is best utilized for brand awareness influencer marketing campaigns and there are a few KPIs to keep an eye on when measuring success.
- Impressions: How many people saw the Tweet?
- Engagements: How many people engaged with the Tweet through a like, link click, retweet, detail expands, media engagements, or profile clicks?
- Engagement Rate: Calculate by taking engagements / impressions * 100
- Hashtag performance: How many people outside of the influencer used hashtags associated with the campaign?
Other metrics to keep in mind:
- How many additional followers did your brand’s account get as a result of the campaign?
- Are you able to equate ROI as a result of the influencer campaign?
- Is the sentiment positive, negative or neutral?
At the end of the day, the best way to achieve success with Twitter influencer marketing is to test and learn. Give it a shot and keep reiterating!
Let Pop Pays help! Reach out to us at [email protected] to get started.