case study on twitter

6 Twitter Marketing Case Studies To Inspire Your Brand

Last Updated: Jan 4th, 2023

Twitter is one of the most popular social media channels for marketing your business. And that’s for some good reasons:

• High Virality & Reach Potential
• The short-form content is relatively easy to create
• You can include links in the content

But how do YOU make the most of it?

In this article, we’ll look at six successful examples of Twitter marketing from companies such as Wendy’s, Sony PlayStation, McDonald’s, and more so you can replicate their success.

Through these case studies, you will gain insights into how each company used creative strategies to increase engagement on the platform and maximize its impact on users. So let’s get started!

You can go through the entire article or you’d jump directly to sections if you prefer.

• Using Humor to Connect with Customers
• Taking Advantage of Influencer Marketing
• Leveraging User-Generated Content
• Creating Custom Hashtags
• Fostering Brand Advocacy
• Aldi vs. Marks and Spencer’s

Twitter Marketing FAQs

Final thoughts, twitter marketing case studies.

Here are 6 Twitter marketing case studies to inspire your Twitter marketing strategy.

1. Wendy’s: Using Humor to Connect with Customers

Wendy’s Twitter Humor is basically the godfather of all funny brand social media campaigns.

Almost every single fast-food chain started doing it now. But Wendy’s is by far the most memorable and the funniest.

Their unique and often edgy jokes help engage followers, gain recognition and foster customer loyalty.

They use their platform to make people laugh while taking digs at their competitors like McDonald’s or Burger King.

In addition, their lighthearted approach to content can make a lasting impression on consumers, putting them at the forefront of the competition.

Here are just some of the funny tweets we found from Wendy’s:

2. Sony PlayStation: Taking Advantage of Influencer Marketing

To promote the launch of its new PS4 Slim console, Sony PlayStation turned to influencers for help.

By partnering with social media personalities and creating engaging content, they were able to reach a broader audience and increase engagement during the product launch.

This strategy was an effective way for the company to showcase the console and generate excitement around it.

Plus, as all the influencers created discussions around the launch, Twitter picked up terms like “PS4”, “PS4 sold out, and tons of others into the trending section.

This gave PlayStation a ton of more visibility as a promoted hashtag costs $200,000 per day, but Sony did it organically through influencers.

3. McDonald’s: Leveraging User-Generated Content

McDonald’s ran a campaign that encouraged customers to submit pictures of themselves at one of its restaurants in exchange for a chance to win free food.

By asking users to share actual photos of themselves enjoying McDonald’s meals, they were able to create an authentic connection between consumers and their brand, which ultimately drove more engagement and loyalty towards their products.

4. Coca-Cola: Creating Custom Hashtags

Coca-Cola developed custom hashtags like #ShareACoke and #TasteTheFeeling, which have been used worldwide by millions of people who enjoy their beverages or want to express support for the company through these designated terms.

The hashtags helped build recognizable brands that increased awareness among potential customers, making them more likely to pick Coca-Cola over other beverage options when shopping.

They also paired this with the names on the bottles, which made it even more likely for users to upload a pic to show off their name on the coke bottle.

5. Nike: Fostering Brand Advocacy

Nike has used Twitter to foster brand advocacy among its active customers by encouraging them to share stories about how they embody the “Just Do It” spirit through running or other physical activities.

This helps create an online community filled with loyal Nike fans eager to spread positive messages about the company on social media channels such as Twitter, helping boost its reputation further within this space.

It also creates a sense of community.

6. Aldi vs. Marks and Spencers

This case study is from the UK grocery store Aldi, but it’s pretty cool…

Backstory : Marks and Spencers (M&S) decided to sue Aldi because their caterpillar cake design was similar.

Aldi took it to social media to “troll” M & S, which led to the crazy engagement, and even influencers picking up the topic organically.

Oh, and the entire public was on Aldi’s side.

These posts reached millions across Facebook and Twitter and made the public feel more positively toward Aldi.

We’re not sure what the lawsuit’s outcome was, as the two stores reached a “Confidential agreement”, but from a PR perspective, Aldi clearly won.

Is Twitter still good for marketing?

Yes, Twitter is still a powerful platform for marketing. With its large user base and focus on real-time content sharing, it offers many opportunities for brands to connect with customers and build their presence in the digital landscape.

What makes Twitter unique for marketing?

One of the key benefits of Twitter for marketing is its real-time nature and the short attention spans that it caters to. This makes it an ideal platform for sharing news, promotions, and other time-sensitive content in a way that grabs the attention of users and drives engagement.

How has Twitter changed the marketing industry?

Here are three ways Twitter has changed the marketing industry:

• Twitter has made it easier for brands to go viral
• Twitter has made it easier for customers to reach brands
• Twitter has made it easy to have real-time discussions around trending topics

Why is Twitter good for advertising?

Advertising on Twitter is effective because the ad placements are easily visible, and the platform has excellent targeting tools. In addition, it can sometimes be cheaper than Facebook & Instagram ads because it’s slightly less popular.

Overall, Twitter is a powerful and unique platform for marketing that has changed the industry by making it easier for brands to go viral, connect with customers, and take advantage of real-time opportunities.

As we have seen throughout this article, brands can benefit from the following:

• Showing Humor on Twitter
• Leveraging UGC
• Working with Influencers
• Building Community
• Coming up with custom hashtags

We hope you have enjoyed this article on Twitter Marketing Case studies.

If you would like us to help you with your social media marketing strategy, book a free consultation with us here .

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Top 5 Case Studies of Successful Twitter Campaigns

August 2nd, 2024

Twitter has become a powerful platform for brands to connect with their audience, drive engagement, and increase visibility. Analyzing successful Twitter campaigns provides valuable insights into effective strategies and innovative approaches. In this article, we’ll explore five standout Twitter campaigns that achieved remarkable success, uncovering the key elements that contributed to their impact.

Case Study 1: Oreo’s “Dunk in the Dark” Campaign

Background:.

During the 2013 Super Bowl, a power outage plunged the stadium into darkness. Oreo seized this unexpected moment to launch their “Dunk in the Dark” tweet, which read, “You can still dunk in the dark,” accompanied by an image of an Oreo cookie.

The real-time marketing response capitalized on the live event, demonstrating Oreo’s agility and creativity. The tweet was simple yet perfectly timed, resonating with viewers who were following the game and the blackout.

The tweet went viral, garnering over 15,000 retweets and significant media coverage. It became a textbook example of effective real-time marketing, significantly boosting Oreo’s brand awareness.

Lessons Learned:

Agility and creativity are crucial in social media marketing. Brands that can quickly respond to real-time events with relevant and engaging content can capture widespread attention and engagement.

Case Study 2: Wendy’s Twitter Roasts

Wendy’s has built a unique brand voice on Twitter, known for its witty and humorous roasts. This approach has set Wendy’s apart from its competitors and created a strong following.

Engaging with followers through humorous roasts and witty banter, Wendy’s humanized its brand and made interactions more personal and entertaining. This strategy involved responding to both compliments and criticisms in a playful manner.

The roasts led to increased follower engagement, widespread media coverage, and a significant boost in Wendy’s social media presence. The approach also fostered a loyal and active community of followers.

A strong brand personality and interactive engagement can significantly enhance social media presence. Humor and authenticity resonate well with audiences, driving higher engagement and loyalty.

Case Study 3: Airbnb’s #WeAccept Campaign

Airbnb launched its #WeAccept campaign during the Super Bowl, amid heightened social and political tensions. The campaign aimed to promote inclusivity and diversity, aligning with the brand’s core values.

The campaign featured a powerful message of acceptance and inclusivity, encouraging users to share their own stories using the hashtag #WeAccept . This approach positioned Airbnb as a socially responsible brand committed to positive change.

The campaign received widespread support on social media, increasing brand loyalty and generating positive media coverage. It highlighted the impact of aligning marketing efforts with social causes.

Social responsibility can enhance brand image and loyalty. Campaigns that address relevant social issues and promote positive values resonate deeply with audiences.

Case Study 4: Spotify’s #2018Wrapped Campaign

Spotify’s annual Wrapped feature provides users with a summary of their listening habits over the past year. In 2018, Spotify encouraged users to share their Wrapped results on Twitter.

By offering personalized data insights and encouraging users to share their unique results, Spotify created a sense of community and excitement. The campaign leveraged user-generated content to amplify its reach.

The #2018Wrapped campaign generated high user engagement and went viral, with millions of users sharing their Wrapped results. It reinforced Spotify’s connection with its users and showcased the platform’s personalized experience.

Leveraging user data for personalized marketing can drive high engagement. User-generated content amplifies reach and fosters a sense of community and excitement.

Case Study 5: Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” Campaign

Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign featured customizable Coke bottles with popular names, encouraging users to find and share bottles with their names or those of their friends and family.

The campaign encouraged users to share photos of their personalized Coke bottles on Twitter, creating a wave of user-generated content. The personalization aspect made the campaign relatable and shareable.

The campaign significantly increased sales and social media mentions, becoming one of Coca-Cola’s most successful marketing efforts. It demonstrated the power of personalization and user participation in marketing.

Personalization and user-generated content are powerful tools in marketing. Encouraging user participation and sharing can lead to widespread engagement and brand visibility.

Analyzing these case studies reveals several key strategies for successful Twitter campaigns: agility and creativity, strong brand personality, social responsibility, personalized marketing , and user-generated content. Brands that effectively implement these strategies can achieve significant engagement and visibility on Twitter. As you plan your next Twitter campaign, consider these lessons to create innovative and impactful content that resonates with your audience.

How can small businesses replicate these successful strategies?

Small businesses can focus on being agile, engaging with their audience in a unique voice, and aligning with social causes relevant to their brand.

What tools can help manage Twitter campaigns?

Tools like Hootsuite , Buffer , and TweetDeck can help schedule posts, monitor engagement, and analyze performance.

How important is timing in Twitter marketing?

Timing is crucial. Posting during peak engagement times and responding quickly to real-time events can significantly boost visibility and interaction.

Elon Musk & Twitter: The case study of all case studies

Leadership lessons on what not to do: elon musk & twitter.

In the few weeks since Elon Musk took over Twitter, many of us have been on the sidelines watching a business school case study unfold that will be taught for decades…and waiting to see what he does next. First, he cut half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees and then promptly realized he needed some of them, asking some to come back. Whoops. 

Elon then issued an ultimatum that remaining employees would need to commit to a “hardcore” Twitter or leave. He said, “This will mean working long hours at high intensity,” continuing that “only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.” Employees were given 24 hours to decide. 

Simultaneously, he revoked the company’s policy that allowed employees to work remotely on a permanent basis and required employees to work onsite (never mind that many employees who opted into this remote policy moved out of commuting range to Twitter’s offices). He has since walked back on this edict. He then cut off badge access for everyone, accidentally locking himself out. Whoops again. 

Where do I even begin in breaking down this epic failure in leadership? There is so much wrong here it’s mind-blowing. Here are 7 leadership failures fueling this colossal dumpster fire that we can all learn from:

Hardcore isn’t motivating

First, let’s start with the word “hardcore.” More than just a poor choice of words, it reeks of insecure bravado. I can’t think of a more “tech bro” term that would instantly turn people off and alienate them – even actual tech bros. Despite an economy that’s in the process of shifting from an employee to employer market, after a pandemic and the great resignation where people have been exhausted and depleted, looking for improved work-life balance and more meaningful work where they can feel valued, I don’t think most people would be excited to opt into a “hardcore” work environment, or hardcore anything for that matter. Turnarounds and restructurings require hard work, but hard work doesn’t have to mean “hardcore.” It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

No inspirational vision

Without an inspiring vision for where Elon plans to take the company (or any vision, for that matter) – and clear communication of said vision – employees are left scratching their heads in confusion around not only what’s happening in the present, but also having no picture painted for them of where the company is ultimately headed, versus being enrolled and motivated to pursue something big and exciting, where they’d want to – or would even consider, for that matter – working long hours or to strive for “exceptional” performance. One employee who opted out, when given the choice last week, tweeted that he left because “I no longer knew

what I was staying for…There was no vison shared with us. No 5-year plan like at Tesla…There were rumors that the new vision might be radically different…And there was no communication from leadership to dispel them or set the vision.” 

Impossible and ambiguous standards

Now, let’s address Elon’s seemingly impossible, ambiguous, and highly subjective standard of “ exceptional performance.” What does this actually mean? If something is the exception, then it’s not the norm. Does this mean you need to rate as an A+ player to stay on as an employee? Be in the top 10%? Top 2%? If these are the passing grades, then most will fail. That’s not exactly motivating. How will employees’ contributions be evaluated? Are there actual, measurable goals? Do they have a say in creating those goals? Do they have the resources to achieve those goals? All totally unclear. When he says, “only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade,” it sounds more like a vague threat where, let’s face it, Elon could fire someone because he doesn’t like the socks they wore that day. 

Corporate bullying

While Elon has technically given his remaining employees a choice – a very binary choice – he made them choose under duress with a ridiculously tight deadline. No one likes to be strong-armed or bullied into a decision or to have their livelihood or career toyed with. Bullies are inherently insecure people who pick on others more vulnerable than them to feel stronger or better about themselves. An estimated 1,200 of his remaining employees left as a result of his ultimatum and this number will likely continue to tick up. A good number of those who chose to stay likely did so because they either needed the paycheck or their work visas would be in jeopardy if they opted out. Either way, his bullying behavior invokes a sense of powerlessness or loss of agency or control in the remaining employees. You want people to feel like they want to be there, and not like they have to be there.

Impulsive and reckless decision-making

I’m all for being decisive and taking swift action, but not without being informed. There’s value to be had in soliciting the input of those closest to the actual work. Elon’s impulsive and reckless decisions, such as immediately firing the whole accessibility engineering team, its curation team that helps address misleading or false claims, and content moderators who track hate on the platform, have caused real problems. In the days since his takeover and following these firings, I personally noticed the floodgates open, unleashing antisemitic, racist, and vulgar content that seemed to come out of nowhere. It was noticed by advertisers, too, many of whom left as a result, jeopardizing the 90% of company revenues that come from advertising. Mostly, his extreme haste shows a fundamental lack of curiosity and desire to listen, a lack of humility and an abundance of hubris. This combination doesn’t tend to work out well for anyone.

Destruction of psychological safety

In firing those who publicly and privately disagreed with him – going as far as tasking his team members with combing through tweets to look for employees who didn’t agree with him – he sent a clear message of “If you disagree with me, you will be fired.” That somehow, disagreement was a personal betrayal or treasonous in some way. Firing people who disagree with you is more than enough to instill a culture of fear, shut people down, and have them not speak up when there’s a real problem – which will, in turn, result in more problems. Guaranteed. Being able to openly dissent and engage in constructive conflict – and engage in collaborative problem solving – are critical elements of high-performing teams. Lack of psychological safety is not only a culture killer, but also is likely to amplify and multiply problems down the road.

Un-inclusive and illegal actions

Elon’s actions were not only un-inclusive, but also illegal. His initial firing of half of the company’s workforce violated regulations that require large companies to provide 60 days’ notice. Further, demanding that employees work intensely for long hours is discriminatory to disabled workers, workers with children or other caregiving responsibilities (most likely to be women), etc. 

While Elon Musk’s modus operandi may be to “move fast and break things,” he may very well break the whole company and the limited number of employees he has left. The silver lining here is that Elon Musk has given us multiple leadership lessons to examine and learn from – most notably on what not to do – and there will likely be more to come.

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The Challenges of Transforming Twitter

• Goran Calic

Five principles Elon Musk (or anyone) should follow when making strategic changes at a legacy tech company.

Elon Musk may be an idiosyncratic leader, but if he buys Twitter he’ll face a familiar business challenge: how to transform a legacy tech company. Faced with this challenge, leaders should follow five principles: 1) prioritize an objective, 2) communicate the strategy, 3) rethink norms, 4) set high but achievable expectations, and 5) transparently engage with stakeholders.

After months of uncertainty, Elon Musk appears to be moving ahead on a deal to acquire Twitter for $44 billion. (Probably.) If the deal goes through, the next big question is: How will he change the company? Musk’s specific goals for Twitter have been hard to pin down, but the problem of how to transform the strategy of a technology business is a familiar one. What Musk will need to overcome is not unlike the challenge faced by an outside executive joining a new company, a private equity firm on a new deal, or a general manager overseeing an acquired business unit on behalf of a conglomerate.

• Andy Wu is an Assistant Professor in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School and a Senior Fellow at the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He researches, teaches, and advises managers on innovation and growth strategy for technology ventures.
• Goran Calic is an Associate Professor of Strategic Management at McMaster University. Calic’s research focuses on understanding why some individuals are more creative and some organizations are more innovative than others.

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10 Case Studies of Companies Using Twitter for Marketing

It should come as no surprise that I am a proponent of using Twitter for marketing. There’s no shortage of posts written about the subject, both on this blog and on others. We’ve covered Twitter ads , social listening , and even using lists for various purposes .

Today, I’m going to help you out by giving you evidence to support the conclusion that Twitter is good for marketing. Don’t just take my word for it ; look at what other people have done, and the success they’ve found. If these don’t convince you, nothing will.

Heinz is well known for being a ketchup brand, but they recently chose to expand into other condiments, notably including mayonnaise. They created a combination of the two, the simply named mayochup, and marketed it on Twitter.

Using Twitter, Heinz promoted both their mayo and the combination condiment, and through monitoring engagement, they were able to encourage people to be excited about the product.

This alone isn’t the most impressive, but what is impressive is that in the span of 48 hours, Heinz accrued over 2.4 billion impressions on their content. If you didn’t know about it before, you pretty definitely knew about it afterwards. That’s one hell of an awareness campaign.

Wendy’s is a globally recognized brand, and they were one of the pioneers of highly visible corporate memery. We’ve joked a lot about corporations being people, and Wendy’s has taken it to the next level, interacting with fans, detractors, and other brands in an often humorous and sassy way. Other brands have since tried to replicate their success, to mixed results. Being a pioneer has some benefits after all.

With this specific case study, Wendy’s put forth a March Madness bracket builder. They put together an engine for creating your own predictions bracket using a chatbot, built on the Twitter business messaging platform. The bot asked guided questions to put together a bracket based on user choices. Once the bracket was complete, it was hosted and shared publicly, and users could even create a “consolation prize” bracket if their original bracket failed.

The chatbot ended up sending over two million DMs throughout the course of the event, with a 30% rate of users returning to follow the progress of their brackets and make new ones. Overall, they ended up with eight million impressions organically and even more paid.

3. 20 th Century Fox

Big-budget media productions lead to big-budget marketing campaigns. Fox is no stranger to releasing huge productions, and in the lead-up to Alien: Covenant, they wanted to make sure the movie got as great a chance at success as it possibly could. As part of their broad-spectrum marketing campaign, they took to Twitter.

For five days prior to the release of the movie, Fox created promoted trends that pushed specific hashtags for their campaigns. They got custom emojis for the event and got users sharing both the tags and the emojis. A five-day promoted trend is one hell of an expense, so did it work out for them?

Twitter measures elements like awareness and recall on a point scale, and both went up after the campaign. A seven point increase in awareness is nothing to sneeze at, and a three point increase in ticket purchase intent is pretty good. Over 250 million impressions in under a week is also a pretty good outcome. It’s certainly nothing to complain about, right?

The Great Red Giant of moderately upscale retail marketing isn’t above using social media for marketing. They partnered with Nielsen Brand Effect to study the effects of a promotional campaign on user engagement. Throughout the campaign, Target made a concerted effort to engage with users who mentioned them, using a combination of social listening and mentions to find opportunities. They took care to write clever, benign tweets to encourage fun interactions.

One of the primary benefits of using Twitter for this kind of marketing is the ability to reach people who aren’t necessarily shopping frequently. Promoted tweets can encourage users to remember Target exists and to use them for their purchasing needs. After all, when you’re deciding what store to stop at when two are (often) right next to each other, you’re generally more likely to choose the one you’ve had positive interactions with in the past.

Measuring metrics both before and after the campaign, Twitter and Nielsen found that customers are almost 70% more likely to shop with brands that are interacting with them on Twitter. Users were roughly 58% more loyal to target – the methodology for measuring this is in the case study – and 62% more likely to choose target for a service than before the campaign. If you could boost your customer purchase intent by 50% or more, would you?

Oreo is fairly well known for their clever riffs on current events on Twitter. One of the most prominent early examples came during the blackout during Superbowl XLVII, where they created a short video of their cookies in the dark, from event to tweet in a matter of minutes. The ads were a huge success, and Oreo has not stopped riffing on current events in the years since.

In this instance, Oreo was promoting a new cookie-candy hybrid, their chocolate candy bars. They wanted to promote the launch, and the Oscars were coming up, so they set about planning their campaign. Twitter was working with IMDb to host a viewing party, and Oreo sponsored it. Before the stream – and occasionally during it – Oreo would play a 30-second teaser with Oscar-themed advertising for their candy, along with a custom hashtag to help promote it.

The Oscars are horrendously popular and, as a primary sponsor of a large event, Oreo gathered a lot of visibility. They racked up nearly 40 million impressions with a unique reach of 11 million people in that one night, with 2.4 million people watching the stream through a feed that was tagged with the Oreo hashtag.

6. Bahia Principe

You may not have heard of this brand the way you’ve heard of the others on this list thus far, especially if you’re not a frequent international traveler. Bahia Principe is a hotel chain that currently operates 26 different hotels and resorts, largely in international areas, including Spain, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica.

Just before the peak season for vacation travel, the hotel chain decided they wanted to make one final push for awareness and conversions. They created a two-phase campaign. The first pushed a bunch of different pieces of content relating to their services, segmenting their audience into groups like Foodies, adults seeking romantic adventures, parents, and those who simply love travel. With targeted tweets and clever gifs, the company reached out to each of those groups.

The second phase took the audience of people who interacted with the first phase’s tweets and tailored more content to them, this time with more focus on advertising. The result was a 44x boost to traffic , 317 sign-ups, and an average cost per action of 23 Euros. It’s a reasonably good cost for the niche, and a decently sizable audience of new conversions that wouldn’t have come in if not for Twitter.

Big corporate brands aren’t the only ones able to benefit from Twitter marketing. Dots is a game developed by Patrick Moburg and Paul Murphy, a clever puzzle game with a unique twist. Among other perks, the app was designed with a Twitter-based leaderboard system, where users were encouraged to tweet their scores and compete with friends on the social network.

Integration with Twitter caused a huge amount of growth as people wondered what the score meant and sought out the app to try it themselves. Competition breeds further competition, and eventually the game – and its sequel – won awards like the Webby Award and reached #1 in the app stores. 30 million players is really good given how packed and competitive mobile gaming is as a niche.

It’s worth noting that in addition to paid tweets and organic viral shares, Dots’ founders focused on customer service through Twitter. Apps are invariably buggy and can cause all sorts of problems, so being able to reach the developers directly and get your problems solved quickly is a great boon to any game.

8. BillBachao

Who? If you’re not a resident of India, you may not have heard of this company before. BillBachao helps folks investigate mobile plans and identify the best plan to suit their needs. This kind of company needs reliable data to match people to the best plans, to keep up a high enough success rate that they’re recommended through word of mouth.

The BillBachao campaign focuses on getting new users to download their app, through viral sharing, promoted tweets, and audience engagement. With a tech-savvy audience of young millennials and students in India, they couldn’t afford to fake it until they made it.

Through clever use of engagement-building tweets, both organic and promoted, a concerted app install campaign resulted in a 56% increase in installs. The results speak for themselves, right?

Brands both large and small can find success through Twitter marketing. You don’t need to have a budget in the millions for promoted trends or billions of impressions, you just need a sizable percentage increase on what you already have.

The eBags company is a retailer for bags, suitcases, and other travel accessories. They focus on promoting the idea of wanderlust and the glory of travel, while minimizing the impact of packing materials dragging down a good vacation.

The Twitter strategy eBags employed as to create dynamic ads across both mobile and web platforms, serving ads relating to products recently viewed by the target audience. Remarketing has always been a good, successful technique, and they put it to work for them.

The results? In this case, eBags managed to get a 23% higher clickthrough rate for their product-focused promoted tweets, with a 17% lower cost per conversion than when they started.

10. St-Germain

There’s more to Twitter marketing than just promoted tweets, and St-Germain took full advantage of it. The company is a liqueur brand, and they partnered with a creative agency called Possible to create a campaign to inspire the average user to drink. Okay, that sounded a little bad, but you know, advertising alcohol is a tricky business. It’s an industry with a bunch of additional regulations and laws surrounding it, and it’s tricky enough to pass social stigma to succeed.

In this case, St-Germain took advantage of Periscope, Twitter’s livestreaming service. Through choreography and careful creative direction, they created livestreams that reflected the vintage French aesthetic of the beverage brand. The videos combined a sort of candid look into private lives, a glamour enhanced by the beverage brand, and a spontaneity we all yearn for in our lives.

While it’s admittedly difficult to invest so heavily in a creative endeavor with no guarantee of success, when you have the budge to do it, it can bring about wondering results. Promoted tweet engagement rates jumped up 26% through the course of the campaign, with the associated jumps in conversions as you might expect.

Twitter marketing is broadly available, even if some forms require a bit more investment than others. I don’t imagine most of the people reading this will ever buy a promoted trend, but promoted tweets with clever copy, good timing, and plenty of responsive engagement from the brand itself can have incredible results. Social media is social at its core, and Twitter makes it easy to leverage that social interaction into tangible results.

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8 Inspiring Twitter Marketing Case Studies

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Twitter seems so simple in features and straight forward in usage. You can find any kind of Twitter marketing case study for various situations and marketing goals.

I hear a lot of comments like these about Twitter:

• “Twitter does not work for me.“
• “I never figured out Twitter.“
• “I gave up on Twitter, results were not what I was hoping for.“

And that is so sad. Because Twitter can easily be the most effective marketing channel when you are starting out. On Twitter, you can grow a targeted audience for almost any niche and promote your content – without spending a dime on advertising.

Before you read on - we have various resources that show you exactly how to use social networks to gain massive traffic and leads. For instance, check out the following:

Many marketing success stories are based on mastering Twitter. And often it is some small tweaks that make all the difference between success and failure with your Twitter marketing strategy.

Here are 8 Twitter marketing case studies to give you an impression of what can be done and how powerful Twitter can be. I tried to choose case studies that are very diverse to show you that Twitter marketing success is not limited to one strategy and that many tactics can lead you to Twitter marketing success.

1. Mastering Twitter for Traffic, Signups, and exponential growth: Our personal Twitter Marketing Case Study Exploreb2b

Some of you may already know that this is a story about me and Jonathan and how we became marketing pros. A couple of years ago we founded a publishing platform called exploreB2B. We badly needed growth in the form of traffic and users for the platform – and we had basically no marketing budget to speak of.

While we did try some advertising on LinkedIn, Facebook and Google, the key to exponential growth was mastering Twitter. And we virtually started with nothing: no followers, no brand, no idea how to get it right.

Here are the steps that took us to success:

• Understanding the importance of content:  We created our own content marketing strategy that included promoting our publishing platform mainly by sharing links to contents we created and published on exploreB2B plus tweeting the best content our users published on exploreB2B
• Starting and joining conversations, engaging with influencers: We found some great content creators that were willing to publish their content on exploreB2B via Twitter. We simply asked them to with a simple tweet.
• Forcing growth with the follow-unfollow routine. When you are small on Twitter you have to get yourself on the radar of people: retweeting, liking and following is one way of getting on the radar of the right people
• Using direct messages to invite people to publish on exploreB2B: the best-converting channel I have ever seen – if you have the right message your conversion rate can skyrocket
• Scaling Twitter growth by starting several Twitter accounts. Each account focused on one topic or niche. We used the various Twitter channels to promote content from the platform to a targeted audience.

This simple Twitter strategy helped us grow exploreB2B to over 500k pageviews/month, over 80k registered users for exploreB2B and over 50k published articles

Content Marketing can take its sweet time before you see the great results. This is the traffic graph of our former startup exploreB2B – you can see started small and went big in the end.

Image source: exploreB2B Analytics

2. Driving social traffic to a blog: Jeff Bullas

The one blogger that made us realize the power of Twitter was already famous when we started out: Jeff Bullas. It was an article on his own blog that made us realize what we were missing with our Twitter activity and how we could make Twitter work for us. In this article, Jeff Bullas explained how he grew his Twitter followers to over 100k . This basically taught us how to use Twitter to get traffic to content.

Twitter is and has been one of the best traffic generation channels for many successful bloggers – Jeff Bullas is only one of many.

Hey, before you read on - we have in various FREE in-depth guides on similar topics that you can download. For this post, check out:

For Jeff „ Twitter has been my secret sauce to building an online brand .“

The strategy is simple:

• Share valuable information on your Twitter account by sharing links to your blog posts
• Grow a following (he did that in a similar way as we used for exploreB2B)
• Optimize your activity as you go: automate some recurring tasks, create better headlines, use images, use @mentions

And what is the result? Here are the top three social networks that drove traffic to Jeff’s blog at the time he wrote the above post:

Image Source: Jeff Bullas

Twitter is killing it! And it could work the same magic for your own blog or business!

we used the same strategy to grow traffic to this blog when we started it. Once we had created a couple of blog posts, we used SocialOomph scheduling feature to tweet our best blog content on autopilot. This strategy resulted in almost 50k visitors per month to our new blog after just 6 months of blogging.

(if you want to know how you can get traffic from Twitter to your content on autopilot with SocialOomph scheduling, check out this post about Recurring Queues for Twitter )

3. Getting all the marketing power of Super Bowl for free: Oreo

Have you heard or read what one minute of advertising during super bowl would cost you? In 2013, 30 sec. advertising came at upwards of 3.8 Mio $. Imagine how you could reap some of that power without paying a dime!

That is what Oreo accomplished simply by being alert and leveraging an opportunity they could not foresee but their marketing team was prepared to jump on:

The lights went out.

There was a power outage during Super Bowl. For 30 minutes the power went out in New Orleans Superdome. No one could play, everybody waited. And what did people do? Use their free time to check their social media.

And Oreo was there with this awesome image and text: „You can still dunk in the dark.“

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC — Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

They received instant fame for their tweet with over 10k retweets within an hour. This marketing success story of this one tweet was so successful it made the marketing news on hundreds of marketing blogs in the weeks to follow.

The branding effect for Oreo was beyond measuring. Even today almost 4 years after the marketing stunt people still talk about that one tweet at the right time!

4. Launching a new product with hashtags and polls: Xbox Launch

This Twitter case study includes some paid promotion. Although we are usually not so much about digital advertising on our blog I included this marketing campaign because I like the combination of using hashtags and Twitter polls.

Microsoft Xbox UK used Promoted Trends to help their television ad to more views via Twitter.

They branded the hashtag #HUNTtheTRUTH  as a promoted trend and combined it with a couple of tweets with gifs and images that introduced the major characters of the game.

They then used Twitter polls to increase engagement with their audience and inspire curiosity among the crowd – in return, they got a buzz in the form of a ton of likes and retweets:

Image source: Twitter

Also, Xbox pushed the campaign with promoted videos.

5. Starting the conversation: Hilton Suggests

While the first two case studies were based on growing a Twitter following fast, Hilton suggests does not base its success on followers at all. Instead, they monitor conversations around a location where they have a hotel – and jump right in with travel tips for that area.

To see what they are about on their Twitter account you have to go to the „Tweets&Replies“ section. Most of their marketing beef goes into answering questions and direct communication with Twitter users on the road – targeting an audience that is at this moment very open to their suggestions.

What they achieve is tremendous brand awareness and lead generation effect plus building a connection to travelers that they can leverage later on. When you are looking for a nice hotel in a new town, would you not turn to the people who helped you out on your last trip?

(As of 2020 the Twitter account @hiltonsuggest is no longer active. Whether this is due to limited traveling in times of the global Corona Pandemic or if Hilton changed their Twitter strategy only time can tell.)

You can do something similar if you use Twitter’s advanced search to monitor relevant tweets from your niche.

(as of 2020 the Twitter account @hiltonsuggest is no longer active. Wehter this is due to limited traveling in times of the Corona Pandemic or if Hilton changed their Twitter strategy only time can tell)

6. Promoted Twitter Hashtag Campaign: LEGO’s #RebuildTheWorld

LEGO – which child around the world does not know the little bricks that allow you to build almost anything. And not only children. Most adults can well remember the times when they built houses, cars, ships, and castles with the little plastic bricks. But how could an old brand like LEGO use Twitter to inspire more creativity and acquire new fans?

Lego went for a campaign around the hashtag #RebuildTheWorld.

LEGO’s inhouse marketing agency followed a three-step approach: Tease, Reveal, and Reinforce.

For the Tease Phase they used short videos that ended with “Coming Soon.”

Coming soon 👀 pic.twitter.com/z26IRU6H3V — LEGO (@LEGO_Group) September 15, 2019

The full versions of the videos were released in the Reveal Phase. The videos were all referencing the Lego world with their figurines, bricks, and additional stuff playing their part in the videos.

How does @MarkRonson build an amazing song? It starts with a brick… #RebuildTheWorld pic.twitter.com/AGFfY3X47C — LEGO (@LEGO_Group) October 21, 2019

These videos were promoted and took over the explore tab for 24 hours.

In addition to the hashtag #RebuildTheWorld, Lego also used a branded emoji that was used whenever the hashtag was tweeted.

This made the brand part of the conversation.

For the reinforcement phase, Lego used Twitter’s sponsorship program. They also featured creators and their LEGO creations – to inspire the next generation to #RebuildTheWorld.

More on the LEGO campaign can be found here. 

7. Use your personal fame to push your brand: Elon Musk

You have probably heard of Elon Musk. You may also have heard of Elon Musk’s Twitter activity.

But you may not be totally aware of just how much Elon Musk achieved for his brand Tesla with his activity on Twitter. Here are just a couple of examples:

In appreciation, Tesla is providing all repair costs free of charge and expedited. https://t.co/D68HNJcCoQ — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 15, 2017

More on how Elon Musk used Twitter to push the Tesla brand and business can be found here.

8. Running a Competition on Twitter: LG Ticket Hunter

The electronics company LG ran a Ticket hunt competition on Twitter in 2012.

The goal was to increase smartphone sales in the age group 16 – 24.

The ideas was a game-like competition on Twitter:

They set up a stall somewhere in the UK – the first people to find and reach that stall would win 2 tickets to a highly sought-after concert.

At the center of the campaign was a map that zoomed-in every time someone tweeted the campaign hashtag #lgtickethunter. In the end, the map showed the location of the stall.

The campaign was a tremendous success:

• 5000 tweets in the first 24 hours
• 50000 tweets all in all
• 38% engagement rate for the sponsored links
• quadruple smartphone sales in the targeted age group 16 – 24

How to create your own Twitter Marketing Case Study

I love these Twitter marketing case studies for using such diverse marketing techniques. If you are looking for inspiration, I hope at least one of these case studies will inspire you to get more out of your Twitter activities.

Here is how you can create your Twitter marketing case study:

• Find an example for Twitter marketing that comes close to what you want to achieve with your Twitter marketing strategy
• Learn how they succeeded with Twitter marketing. See if you can pull off something similar. Consider your budget, manpower and social media audience.
• Check what has changed since this Twitter marketing case study was performed.
• Set your goals and develop your own Twitter strategy based on the example strategy
• Keep your eyes open for what other people do on Twitter and what you can integrate into your Twitter strategy

Do you have other awesome Twitter marketing case studies? I would love to hear about them – please let us know in the comments.

Join our  free Email Course  to learn how to grow an audience and traffic from Twitter:

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Susanna Gebauer

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