Twitter is email marketing 2.0. It is like PowerPoint with one bullet. A virtual coffee shop that works like no other social media platform. It does the research for you, compiles it in one place and if your business is not taking advantage of its hip and powerful functionality, boy you’re missing out.
The idea of Twitter probably sounded far-fetched and a little insane when its founders pitched the website, but as of 2014 there are 271 million monthly active users. So, how can your business create a Twitter presence that is responsive, engaging and brand worthy? We‘ve got 7 tips for you.
How do you convey your brand, engage your followers and wrap it all up into 140 characters? We like to call the solution "wordsmithing.”As always, it all starts with your brand—is your brand witty or serious? Are your followers young or old? Men or women? The answers to these questions will quickly lead you to phrases and word choices that fit your brand and audience. Twitter allows businesses to directly engage with consumers, so be sure to create content that will interest them and warrant a response.
Chances are, if people follow your business on Twitter, they are aware of your services and brand. The secret to success as a business on Twitter is finding a good mix of industry and business messages. A fashion designer, for example, should not always tweet about their latest collection, but instead about fashion trends and building personal style. When your followers learn that you’re an industry expert, they’ll trust your business when they look for a product in that industry.
Twitter developed a way for news and trending topics to be followed and compiled in one spot: hashtags. The pound sign (or hash) turns any word or group of words that directly follow it into a searchable link. This allows you to organize content and track discussion topics based on those keywords. So, if you wanted to post aboutRebranding, you would include #Rebranding in your tweet to join the conversation. Hashtags are incredibly useful in conducting research about industry news and topics and allow for your business to stay up to date with the latest trends.
Adding a photo to accompany your tweet is a great way to capture the attention of your followers. Pictures are likely to be retweeted (RT) or replied to, adding traffic and more followers to your Twitter page. When Twitter users do stumble upon your page, you’ll want to make sure it is brand worthy and visually engaging. Recently, Twitter updated the layout of their Twitter handle, making it easier for pages to be personalized and branded.
Another way brands can improve their engagement is to respond to every single tweet that is sent their way. Whether you’re managing an international brand like Nike, or a local hair salon, it is important to say thank-you and respond to every follower who asks a question, has a problem, or gives you a compliment. Some will respond back, and others will retweet your response simply because they want to show their friends that you’ve engaged with them. In this way, you’re not just engaging with a single follower, you’re engaging with a much wider audience.
Keep track of who follows you; potential clients, industry competitors, media outlets, etc. This will help you develop your tweets and reach out to new demographics.
The content you update your followers with should be time relevant, retweet-worthy and updated often. One way to ensure these happen is to create editorial calendars that include a schedule of your tweets. Editorial calendars keep things organized and when followed closely, guarantee a daily social media presence. They also aid in avoiding the dreaded typo. Ain’t nobody got time for that!
The internet is supposed to make things easier, right? Right. Team up with some of these tools to make your Twitter life a bit easier.
When sharing links, use a URL shortener extension to turn URLs into brief link shortcuts, then paste those link shortcuts into your Twitter update. 140 characters? No problem.
Use Twitter’s Advanced Search tool to dig a bit deeper. Through this mechanism, you can search for tweets based on words, language, twitter accounts, places, dates, positivity or negativity. Talk about cutting-edge.
To execute campaigns across multiple social networks, use tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social. Through these multi-function dashboards, you can launch marketing campaigns, grow your audience and streamline teamwork flow.
One core Twitter feature that often goes unnoticed is Lists. From your Twitter homepage, you can create lists that build the accounts you follow into groups. For example you might have a "clients” list and a "media” list. This feature is helpful for those who follow many Twitter accounts. Clicking on your lists will feature a timeline of tweets only from the accounts associated with the list. It's a great way to get ideas for accounts to follow and to keep track of topics/groups you are interested in.
Take these tips and head straight to your Twitter account. Stay engaged, interested and inquisitive in your followers and industry topics and you’ll see social engagement like never before. #GoGetEm
It’s Monday morning. You open your organization’s Facebook page and discover there’s a post you don’t recognize and didn’t publish. You try to remove it and realize your administrative rights have been revoked. It gets worse – you see there’s an ad running from your page, and your credit card is racking up the charges.
