Twitter Overview

Twitter is one of the busiest social platforms. Over 500 million tweets covering live events, news, and opinions are sent every day. This makes it a useful channel for artists who want to tap into global conversations as well as keep up with what’s being said about them.

Who Uses Twitter?

As of Q1 2019, Twitter has 330 million monthly active users, with 68 million in the US.

Number of monthly active Twitter users worldwide from 1st quarter 2010 to 1st quarter 2019

The platform skews male: 34% of Twitter users are female and 66% are male. As of February 2019, 38% of adults in the United States aged between 18 and 29 years use Twitter.

Why Advertise on Twitter?

Advertisers will be happy to hear that Twitter allows you to target by keyword or #hashtag. This feature, paired with the news focus of the platform, works well for artists who want to amplify their music around press-heavy events like the Grammys using paid advertising.

Twitter Ads Creative Best Practices

Start with an active presence
Twitter is a network of conversations. So, it should come as no surprise that the platform works best for people who are active participants (at least, at the right moments). For this reason, your artist should have an existing presence on the platform before running ads.
Keep copy short
Twitter is a mobile-first platform. To quickly grab viewer’s attention, be sure to keep copy short and concise. According to Buddy Media, Tweets shorter than 100 characters get 17% higher engagement rates than longer ones.

Read more about what makes a high-performing creative.

Creative Specifications

Twitter’s creative specs overlap with those on Facebook and Instagram. We highly suggest using video content over static images.

Images
Aspect ratio: 1.91:1
Image size: 1200x628
File type: PNG or JPG recommended
Videos
Aspect ratio: 16:9, 9:16 or 1:1
Max time: 2 minutes and 20 seconds (15 seconds recommended)
File type: MP4 or MOV
Max file size: < 1GB strongly recommended
Video size: 720×1280 (portrait), 1280×720 (landscape) or 1200×1200 (square)

Audience Targeting

Twitter offers similar targeting found on other social platforms, such as followers of relevant accounts, geographic location, and gender. You also have the option to target audiences by keywords they’ve searched for and shared.