Twitter has extended its SME advertising platform to South Africa, offering businesses the chance to increase the impact of their Twitter marketing with self-serve products such as Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts.
The platform launched in the United States (US) one year ago, followed by launches in the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, Ireland and Japan at the end of last year, and has now been made available in South Africa and Israel.
Twitter said research shows 72 per cent of users of the microblogging site are more likely to make a purchase from an SME after they follow or interact with them on Twitter, with 30 per cent more likely to recommend a business they follow on the site.
The self-serve platform allows businesses to promote their Tweets and accounts, paying per engagement and obtaining the same functionality as larger brands, while also providing analytics to track performance.
“We view South Africa and Africa generally as an important market for Twitter. South Africans are avid tweeters — both individuals and large and small companies — and of course mobile use of Twitter is high,” Barry Collins, Twitter director of SMB EMEA, told HumanIPO.
“We’ve already seen great organic use of Twitter by small businesses in South Africa. So we’re excited to give South African SMEs a way to amplify their Twitter activities and look forward to them achieving some great results.”
Collins said 3,000 small businesses were already using Twitter’s small business handle in South Africa, a good indication of initial interest.
“We see it right across the board – SMEs are really active on Twitter and good at using it. They’re perfect candidates for using Twitter ads because they’re comfortable with the platform. This makes small businesses are a huge opportunity for us,” he said.
“Overall our plan as we stated is to accelerate the deployment of this platform in as many markets as we can, and South Africa is our next market in this rollout.”
Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
