By now, everyone will have heard of Twitter – but did you know that it can be an excellent online marketing tool? Frequently using Twitter as a whole can take your business much further, and help to put your content in front of the right people. Your target audience can stroll through their Twitter feed, see your content, and engage with you and build a trust. This can then lead to a conversion and their custom. So, what does Twitter have to offer in the way of marketing your business? What does this social media network have that you can utilise in order to go further? And why is it important? Let’s find out…
Instant messages
With Twitter, you are able to relay a message instantly to millions of people who may be interested. Twitter provides the ability to make a short, snappy statement that conveys a message quickly to a society that has a short attention span. The speed of social media is what makes it so great, alongside the networking and community encouragement of it. You and your brand can find a space to engage with like-minded people and find the right audience. The simple use of a short, prompt Tweet can help you to achieve this.
Reputation through “word of mouth”
The youth these days use social media platforms like Twitter to “review” their experiences. Whether it’s a coffeeshop, restaurant, or other, people are known to take pictures of where they are or a product they’ve received and write something about it using either the relevant hashtags, or using the @such-and-such (the business’s name) to let people know where it came from. This is modern day “word of mouth” marketing, where people are talking about your business with their friends and followers. This is great for you and allows them to build a reputation for your business that you can also engage with.
News and updates about your business
You can use Twitter as a way to quickly update your audience about news in your business or your industry. This shows that you are actively involved in the community and care about sharing information with your audience. Instead of updating them on your website, you can do it much quicker and to a wider audience using Twitter.
Conversational promotions
Similar to updates, you can also share promotions with your followers. This is a great tool, as it encourages people to follow you in order to be notified about promotions that may be of use to them. Everyone loves a good deal, after all! However, be careful with this. No one wants to feel like they’re being bombarded with promotions, so much so they feel as though they are watching irritating TV ads. Instead, keep it friendly, conversational and persuasive in a real way – not a robotic, business style that doesn’t suit Twitter’s community.
Personality and brand building
Twitter is a great social media platform for building a brand. It gives you the space to connect with others in your industry, and be a part of the conversation. Your bio, tweets and engagement will say to your audience, “this is who we are, this is what we do, and this is how we can work for you.” This is crucial for any business, as a website alone isn’t enough to draw their attention, and let them know who you are and the values you encompass.
Credibility for your business
You should make sure that all your online platforms line-up with one another. Your Twitter, website, Facebook, Instagram, blog or other, should all try to have the same name or title, with similar bios and descriptions, too. This helps to build a reputation, brand and credibility. People will be able to find you more easily, too, and therefore are more likely to follow or engage across multiple platforms. Your logo, lingo and more will then show what your business’s brand is and how it differs in the industry. When people happen to find you, or search for you, they are more likely to trust you and your business if they can see a lot of activity from you in multiple places – and even better when others are talking about you, too.
Interaction with customers
Twitter, like other social media platforms, allows you to engage with your followers. You can tweet regularly, and start a conversation; or you can instant message your followers using Twitter’s Direct Messaging. Allowing your audience the space to speak directly with you can go a long way to gaining their trust and their custom.
Strong Twitter bio
As aforementioned, your Twitter bio (description of who you are) is really important. This is your introduction to the world, and therefore it needs to be apt, well-written and optimised. It needs to say what your business is, what your USP (unique selling point) is, what you’ve done that’s notable or unique, and include the right links to your website or another appropriate landing page. Don’t overfill it with useless nonsense, instead only include what is relevant and will make you stand out.
The use of keywords for SEO (search engine optimisation) could go a long way, too. When people are searching on Twitter or Google for “coffeeshops in Birmingham,” you will need to put this in your bio to help your account appear on the search results page.
Build relationships
Building relationships on social media is the central ideal to which these platforms were made in the first place. Twitter is a good platform to help you build relationships with potential customers, gaining their trust. If you engage with content in the industry, connect with the right people and engage with them, too, you will see that they begin to trust you with certain topics and end up coming to you time and time again. When you’ve done this, they will then seek your business out for your products or services too. This is a simple, effective social media marketing tool that involves no promotion, just a conversation or two.
Tweet regularly
You can’t allow your followers to forget you’re there. This is why you need to tweet regularly – not once a month, or once a week, but multiple times a week. Most people on Twitter will tweet more than once a day, and if you’re able, this could be beneficial to you, too. Sites like Hootsuite can help you to schedule your tweets, so that you can keep on top of things.
Engage; retweet, comment, favourite
It’s not enough to just tweet on Twitter. Instead, you need to show people that you are engaging with their content, too. This will then, in turn, make them aware of you, but also show that you’re not out to just shove your business in people’s face – which isn’t appreciated on Twitter. You can easily engage through the use of retweeting (sharing) other people’s tweets; commenting on their tweets, starting a conversation; or simply favouriting their tweet, to show that you like their content, thus drawing their attention to you.
Hashtag etiquette
Hashtags on Twitter can go a long way in bringing the right people to you. The use of hashtags in your tweets will draw the right people’s attention to your tweets, for users will follow a hashtag at times due to their interest in that kind of content. Therefore, the right hashtags for your industry will be beneficial to you and your content on Twitter. However, it is poor hashtag etiquette to overuse them or use popular ones just so that your tweet will be more popular, when in fact the hashtag has nothing to do with your tweet or your business.
Images and videos
The use of visual content on Twitter, such as images and videos, goes a long way in grabbing your audience’s attention. People are easily drawn to an image, and sometimes a picture can say a thousand words. Therefore, you can’t skip out on your visual content. They are an easy way to keep your content fresh and intriguing, ensuring that your audience comes to you again and again.
Links to articles
It is ever so important to share content from your website or blog on your Twitter feed. Good social media marketing always includes sharing links to articles on your Twitter, whether it’s your content or other content that’s relevant to your business. Twitter doesn’t allow you to ramble on, due to the character limitations, and that’s why the use of links can be handy. Accompany the links with a colloquial but appropriate message and the right hashtags and you’ll be on to a winner.
Twitter analytics
Lastly, you must make use of Twitter’s analytics – in order to know how your tweets are doing and what your user engagement is like(etc.) This kind of feedback can work wonders and any Twitter marketing expert knows that you need to analyse how your content is doing, then adapt and change where needs be. If you are constantly putting out content on Twitter, but you have no idea how people are interacting with it, how are you to move forwards and know what your customer wants? A good business person will regularly check Twitter analytics, and adjust accordingly in order to produce effective Twitter marketing results.
If you want to make your business more successful, and draw in more website traffic, then Twitter can be an excellent marketing tool. Twitter marketing is very much about socialising with your target audience and establishing a brand, a voice and a style. Use Twitter to share your other content, too, and engage with people in the same industry. Twitter marketing is a key part of any social media marketing strategy, so why not speak with us at SEM Consultants, where we have a great social media manager who can keep on top of things for you.