The importance of internet traffic to any business cannot be stressed enough. It is so crucial that a sparse number can spell doom for your business. The top guns in the industry suggest diversifying it that is driving traffic from varied streams. It is not wise to rely entirely on Google given its affinity for algorithmic updates. Twitter is as good as Google when it comes to driving qualified traffic to your website and features such as Twitter cards make it all the more better.
If this is the first time you've heard of Twitter cards, you needn't get confused. They are easy to understand and use. They make your tweets look more beautiful and engaging by allowing you to embed photos, videos and other media. It is as easy as including simple HTML coding to your webpage. These cards are for Twitter what Meta tags are for Google. When a user tweets links to your content, the card is automatically added to the tweet and becomes visible to all their followers.
How Twitter Cards help Your Business
If asked to state it objectively, it increases the traffic to your site. However, it does so in varied ways. They are as follows:
- It increases referral traffic
- It increases readership
- It increases click through rates
- It can be used to builds leads
Types of Twitter Cards
There are 6 main types of Twitter Cards. Understanding the difference between each will help you decide which type of card to choose at different stages of business promotion.
1. Summary Cards: This is the most basic type. As the name suggests, this type is typically used to provide a short summary of a product, service, event or business. It features a title, a short description, a thumbnail image and a Twitter handle. It allows you to show or hide a tweet summary. The word limit for the title is 70 characters while that for the summary is 200 characters.
2. Photo Cards: A photo card allows you to place a photo you would like to be delivered with your tweet. The photo is the point of focus here and is placed center front. You can click on the photo for a larger detailed view. The minimum image size is 280 pixels wide and 140 pixels high. The images should also not be more than 1MB in size. Photo cards are among the simplest to work with and the images are automatically resized to various devices.
3. Gallery Card: The gallery card allows you to present a collection of related photos and not just one photo. A gallery card can take up to 4 images of size less than 1 MB. It requires that you specify the URL to the image representing each photo. The gallery card allows you to attribute the photographs to the photographer.
4. App Card: By creating an app card, you can represent your app and persuade people to download the app embedded in the Twitter card. The app card has space for the name, a short description, the icon, ratings and price. It is available for iOS and Android platforms on the official website.
5. Player Card: Twitter cards are not only about text and images. The player card allows you to deliver rich media in the form of audio streams and video clips to users across the globe. It is included in the tweet so that the person viewing or hearing it can view and hear it right there. It has a title and 200 character description in addition to the media file.
6. Product Card: A product card allows you to share information about a product via text and image much like a summary card. It allows for a title, a thumbnail image of the product or retail item and a short description of 200 characters. In addition to this, you can specify key details such as the price, product location and availability.
Besides these, there are lead generation cards that help share email addresses and website cards that direct people to a homepage on clicking a button.
How to get started
It is fairly simply to get started with Twitter cards. It starts with embedding some code onto the website based on the type of card you want to work with. After this is done, it needs to be validated by the Twitter Developer website. Once approved, you can tweet the URL and measure the results. There is a twitter card preview tool that lets you run and test you card, particularly the code implementation, before it is made public. You should use it.