• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 11, 2013

Twitter's IPO put the company on edge after the S-1 filing revealed revenue bleeding from its advertising business. However, some believe those who are looking for niche audiences through television deals like the one with Comcast, as well as brands like DK Publishing. can save the day.

DK Publishing, known for family reference books, launched a Twitter interest-based ad campaign that allowed the publisher to reach a new niche audience it was unsuccessful reaching elsewhere. The publisher typically uses Twitter's ad platform to build awareness for book titles by targeting specific audiences. The goal is marketing titles such as Star Wars and LEGO, but it recently had success reaching crafters and DIYers, building brand awareness through Twitter's Interest Targeting ad tool.

"I started searching for handles on Twitter related to crafts like croquet and sewing, looking at the sites to determine whether they would have interest in the crafts the book explains," said Kari Cunningham, online marketing manager at DK Publishing. "I started with 20 Twitter handles and waited to see which ones showed the most interest."

The 20 Twitter handles became the campaign's initial audience segment. From there, other similar handles were added to provide a potential audience of thousands.

DK taps a variety of online ad media, but the interest-based campaign for Craft excelled by linking the tweet to Crafty Creatures-related content, Cunningham said.

The Twitter tweet read: "What can you make with buttons, poly fill, a sewing kit and a couple of mismatched gloves? These crafty creatures! bit.ly/1g1etRr" Responses came back "@dkpublishing Wow, this is adorable, thank you!!," "@dkpublishing Too stinkin' cute," "@dkpublishing Very cute! And much faster than knitting them, too."

Selecting and optimizing targeted Twitter handles led to some of the company's strongest results on the platform.

In the first week, the campaign saw a 5.4% engagement rate, and averaged out at 3.7% as the content aged. The campaign ran for about three weeks. Compare that with the 1% click-through rate DK generally sees for patterns offered in its multititle email campaigns -- about 1% of all those who receive an email vs. 3.7% of those who see the promoted tweet.