How to use twitter for marketing - twitter marketing strategy
Regardless of the level of understanding one
has about How to use twitter for business; whether you have a twitter
business page, are using twitter for Social Media Marketing or know of the Twitter Marketing use
it or not, you will no doubt be aware social networking site ‘Twitter’ is one of the most popular social networking site on the web
right now. Commonly used for friends to keep in touch and for celebrities to
communicate with their fans, Twitter is one of the fastest social networking
sites in the world. It is no surprise, then that the vast majority of
businesses are now also jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. Seeing the
opportunity of Marketing on Twitter and as a networking tool and
setting up a twitter business page for twitter marketing.
The fact you are on this blog, it is likely
you are taking serious consideration into harnessing the power of Social Media within your marketing strategy and using twitter for business. If used
correctly twitter marketing strategy, Twitter can play a very
effective role in this. If for any reason you have not considered using twitter for business, then you really ought to!
But what is it, then, that makes using
Twitter Marketing such a hot prospect for businesses to utilize? Read this blog post to understand the benefits of
A good
and well planned Twitter marketing strategy all for all any kind of online / Offline business, and can
easily be used to increase customer engagement and sales. Twitter has been used largely by businesses for promoting their
products and especially in US more than 2/3rd of companies prefer Twitter as their
marketing tool. With more than 317 million monthly active users and 500 million
tweets getting published every day, Twitter has several benefits over other
social media websites like Facebook or Google Plus. It is comparatively easy to
gain followers in your Twitter account and it allows you to engage with users
before they become your friend. Here we present some useful Twitter marketing strategy tips and suggestions on how to plan your
business marketing campaign on Twitter
and to formulate an effective Twitter
marketing strategy.
What Makes Twitter Different
Your approach to every social
media site should be different. For example, your Twitter marketing strategy
isn’t going to be the same as your Pinterest or Facebook marketing plan.
Understanding how twitter works and where it fits in the social media landscape
will shape the way you use it.
Some of the main ways businesses
use Twitter include:
- Sharing
information and content
- Driving
engagement for promotional activities
- Interacting
with consumers
- Networking
- Branding
- Reputation
management
As you can see, most of these
activities have to do with interactions. It’s not necessarily just about
broadcasting your content like Instagram or Pinterest, for example. Twitter
thrives off communication. It’s time to go beyond the “setup your profile
correctly” and “follow influencers” tips. We’ll go over real Twitter marketing strategies that will
help you be more successful, and the steps you need to take to market like the
pros.
Set Your Goal First for Marketing on Twitter
Before jumping on to another social media tool, first
determine what you want from Twitter and how you want to use twitter for business. For example, a law firm would not try to
secure new clients with Twitter. Rather, the law firm would be establishing
itself as a credible source of information with great tweets about their
expertise. Becoming a leading voice in law will add to their credibility and
impress potential clients. It’s important to figure out if your target market
are using Twitter and then see what real value you can bring to them. If
you want to get more people to view your content, your objectives should
include some of the following:(Twitter marketing strategy tips )
- Generate leads from Twitter by getting followers to visit your landing page.
- Build awareness for a new product or service by using Twitter to market it to relevant prospects.
- Build a positive opinion about your brand, products, or services, by using Twitter as a PR tool.
- Build a community of like-minded people to give your ideas to innovate a product, service, or overall marketing strategy.
- Provide customer support through valuable content and one-on-one conversations that help customers get the most out of your product or service.
- Build thought leadership, engage with industry influencers and like-minded people, and share your opinions.
How to Speak in Twitter's Language
Twitter has it's own
language with subtle nuances and etiquette you need to understand. It's
important to take a step back and understand some basic Twitter lingo, for a
full list check Twitter’s great glossary.
(Twitter marketing strategy tips )
(Twitter marketing strategy tips )
- Tweet: A 140-character message
- Handle: Your username
- Retweet (RT): Re-sharing someone else’s tweet
- Hashtag (#): A tool that allows others to find your tweets, based on topics. You can click on a hashtag to see all the tweets that mention it in real time — even from people you don’t follow. Inventing your own hashtag can be a great way to increase your brand visibility, and create a more unified Twitter community. For example, ABC’s Build-A-Business has led to #ABCCo which has taken off globally and helps us engage with new shop owners
- Direct Message (DM): A private message between two people. You may only DM a customer who follows you
- Mention (@): Reference another user by his username in a tweet. Your customer would be notified when @mentioned
Create a Stunning Twitter Profile for Marketing on Twitter
When you decided to use twitter for business, first impression is considered to be the best
impression and hence you should always make sure your Twitter profile is
attractive and create a good impression among your target audience. You should
ensure you have an engaging bio and nice profile picture which can be a custom
art or your business logo. Also you should use a custom background design which
will reflect your brand among your followers. Even your username and the links
you share on your profile page are important and should represent your business
in a positive manner. When it comes to social media marketing and branding, every
small element of your social media profile is important as it decides your
online reputation in twitter marketing world.
Essential Profile
Elements
Again, if you’re just
starting out, or if you’re not seeing a lot of success, one thing you will want
to look at is your profile itself before you start going and searching for
followers. Particularly, you will want to make sure you have the following:
·
Custom Background Design – When someone comes to your Twitter profile for the first time,
they should see a great design that reflects your brand.
·
Concise and Descriptive Bio – You get a whopping 160 characters to describe yourself and
what people will get when they follow you on Twitter. Make it interesting and
convincing!
·
Profile Picture – No one wants to follow the generic Twitter icons. And not a
lot of people want to follow a logo (unless it’s a well-recognized one). What
they do want to see is a person behind the profile. Social media is all about
engagement, and people want to engage with other people, not just companies or
bots.
·
Great Tweets – Last, but not least,
when people are deciding to follow you, chances are they are going to do so
based on your most recent tweets. If you visit your profile, you’ll see your
last twenty tweets at the least. Make sure that these tweets reflect your
engagement level with your audience – you should be sharing great content and
responding to others MORE than you should be doing pitches and trying to make
sales.
Finding Targeted Followers
As you Twitter marketing strategy, Now you have your profile setup, and some great tweets, as part of twitter marketing plan, your next on-going goal will be to gain followers. Sure, there are lots of ways
to get just any followers, but the key is to get targeted followers who are
interested in your industry.
So how do you find them? And how do you get them to follow you?
While everything shouldn’t always be about numbers, there is a
certain thing to be said about someone coming to your profile and seeing that
you have a good follower count. I usually like to start a new Twitter account
out by finding people who have a follow back policy in place, usually
implemented by an online application. Basically, you will be looking for people
who have close to a 1:1 ratio of followers and following count.
Some great places to search include while using Twitter for business:
TwitterCounter Search – Enter in your keyword
and you will see users with their following and follower count. Connect
TwitterCounter with your Twitter account and follow those users directly from
TwitterCounter’s search results.
Of course, there are many more ways to find followers. You can
use the Twellow and Wefollow directories mentioned
above. There are also applications out there that automate the following
process, the most popular being Twitter Adder which finds and follows
new users regularly based on your customized searches as well as un-follows
people who do not follow you back within a specified timeline.
Get Followers from Your Own Online Properties
Do you have a website, blog, email newsletter, or other way to
share links with others online? Then be sure to add your Twitter link to
everything as a part of you twitter marketing strategy, down to your email signature, forum signature, and even other
social profiles (such as your Facebook). This way, people who are already
connecting with you online can easily find you on Twitter.
One great way to get more followers, specifically from your
blog, is to use Twitter’s
retweet button. It allows you to put a re-tweet button on each of your blog
posts to make it easier for visitors to share those posts with their followers.
But the bonus is that when you create the button, you can put in a Twitter
account to recommend after someone shares your post. This way, people who are
already interested in your content are invited to follow you, and likely will
because it is so convenient.
Direct Messaging Best
Practices for Marketing on Twitter
Now that you have followers, the next step is to start engaging
with them! In twitter marketing one way to connect with your followers is through direct messages.
Twitter users have a love / hate relationship with direct messages, as many of
the ones sent seem like spam.
As you follow others, you will see examples of good and bad
direct messages. The bad ones are those that are pitching a product or service
right off the bat and those trying to get you to opt-in to their mailing list
(usually through the temptation of a free eBook).
Think of that first direct message as the first thing you say to
someone you have just met and shook hands with. You don’t want to put them off
immediately. Think of your direct messages as a way to go above and beyond to
connect with a new follower. Simply thank them for following you, or ask them
what they would like to learn from you on Twitter. The latter can be especially
helpful in surveying your followers to see what kind of tweets will keep them
engaged.
The best way to do direct messages is by personalizing each one
to your new followers. But of course, when you start getting dozens of new
followers daily, it becomes a bit of a productivity issue to do so. This is
where automation comes in.
Free services such as Social Oomph lets you register your
Twitter account and send your new followers a direct message automatically. My
biggest suggestion on this one is to remember not to pitch your new followers
off the bat and ALWAYS try to reply personally to them if they respond to your
message.
Something that can come in handy is to keep track of who direct
messages you personally, past the initial welcome message. For example, do you
have people who direct message you asking you to promote their blog content?
Then the next time you have some content you really want to push, you can feel
good about direct messaging them for a favor.
What Can Be Automated and What Needs to Be Personal
There are two automation services I use that usually get a great
response from followers. The first is dlvrit.com. This service allows you
to connect your Twitter account and publish tweets whenever your favorite blog
adds a new post to their site using the blog’s RSS feed.
By using the advanced settings to add on the blog’s Twitter
account in the Post Prefix or Post Suffix, you will be letting
them know with every tweet that you are a loyal follower of their blog and
sharing their content, which may lead to connecting with the blog owner for
guest posts, cross promotions, and more.
Why is dlvrit.com so great? If you choose
blogs which fit your industry that your followers will like, they will
appreciate your willingness to share relevant content with them and likely will
re-tweet those items to their followers as well.
The second automation plugin works specifically with WordPress
blogs – Tweet
Old Posts. This plugin will tweet posts in your blog archives to your
followers, this way new followers can see content that they may have missed out
on.
The best part of both plugins is that they will keep your
Twitter account active when you can’t be actively updating it. But it is
important to remember that these cannot be the only sources of tweets for your
account.
The most important updates you can do are the ones where you
directly engage with the Twitter community – not only your followers, but also
the influencers in your industry.
Having a higher instance of conversations where you are directly
@username replying to someone is key to showing your current and potential
followers that you are more than just a bot but an actual human who wants to
communicate directly with others. This means that you need to not just be
tweeting, but also be listening.
Research Your Target Market
Be sure to find the best examples to follow for sucessful Marketing on Twitter– if you’re a local
bakery, and your competition down the road isn’t on Twitter (or only has 3
followers), then try broadening your searching for a local bakery in a larger
city. Once you’ve found them, follow them and see what they do. Note what seems
to get a good response and what doesn’t.
Research your Competition
- Follow your competitors: While you are using twitter for business, you don’t even technically need to follow them. Make a private list that will be visible only to you. Add your competitors. You could also include all the employees if the competitor has more than one primary account.
- Monitor their engagement: As a part of twitter marketing strategy, Know what people are saying about your competitors, as well as how they’re responding.
- Look at the articles they share: If competitors are creating a lot of content, this will help you see how they’re marketing it and how it’s received by their audience.
- Monitor their @Replies: Why watch just one side of the conversation? Setting up a search for your competitor’s @username will give you a look into what people are saying to your competitor. This way, you can see what their fans (or enemies) like or dislike about them, as well as questions they have.
Plan ahead for various events
How Should I Tweet?
The
most effective thing an eCommerce store can Tweet, is simply communicating with
your following. Sure you can tell everyone about sales, and answer questions,
but what's really going to grow your following is daily and continuous
"small-talk" - whereas you're talking about anything and everything
with your following. Also try: (Twitter marketing strategy tips )
- Sales, discounts, and new products
- Ask fun questions
- Ask for opinions on which new prototype your Twitter community likes best
- Ask about their favorite products and brands
- Offer to send them free stuff.
- Tweet fun pictures of your product and ask your followers to do the same
- Tweet recent blog posts
- Interesting & related YouTube videos are great
- Industry info graphics
- Famous quotes that are related to your industry
Managing
your Twitter account can be tough work – but your efforts should pay off in the
end with increased sales, and a strengthened online community. See the
following (Twitter marketing strategy tips ) for a good tweet:
- Upload an eye catching picture as your avatar, be smart with your description, and always link to your homepage!
- Use Twitter search to get a sense of what's being said about your company and your industry. See what works and what doesn't.
- Find some thought leaders in your industry and follow them. This is a great way to keep up-to-date with what's happening in your space.
- Never, ever, ever, ever SPAM!
- Avoid Spammer stats, which means you’re following way more people than are following you. It shows you don’t have good content.
- Connect on a personal level as much as possible. It doesn’t have to be all business all the time.
- Don’t brag too much. Your fans will like it but you’ll annoy everyone else. Remember you’re tweeting to multiple audiences.
- Ask questions!
- Give advice, throw in the odd funny picture and show your true self.
- Free apps like TweetDeck will make your efforts in Twitter Ville way easier.
Get Noticed: Engage Followers
Alerts
Alerts are your friend; they tell you when things happen, and
help you keep tract of important business and industry news. They track
industry terms used to collect leads and show mentions of your business on the
internet.
Twitter Chats
Give short, informative, savvy responses in industry twitter
chats. Retweets of these responses will give you wider visibility
Team Effort
Use resources at your disposal; influencers, employees, partners
and other multiple agencies to create a trending topic
Geo-location
Helps find and engage with tweeters from your locality.
It’s a powerful tool for local businesses.
Show Your Current Customers Some Love
Find innovative ways to keep your current customers happy and
engaged; you can give them rewards, incentives, private tours of the product
making units.
The Human Touch
Tailor the word to appeal to their desires and goals. Align content
to what they want to achieve.
Customer Support
Whether the complaints are justified or not,
every online store can be a victim of public scorning on Twitter. As an
ecommerce merchant you need to start thinking of Twitter as a public complaint
department. The secret to running a successful Twitter complaint department is
to give awesome customer service.
Manage Positive and Negative Tweets
Use Twitter Chats to Engage with your Prospective Customers
Set Goals and
Milestones
An astounding 41% of companies have
no idea whether or not their social media efforts are working or not. A big
reason behind that number is companies aren’t keeping track of their activity,
and haven’t set any type of objectives for what they want to achieve on
(Twitter marketing strategy tips )
(Twitter marketing strategy tips )
- Build an
engaged following
- Monitor and
improve your brand’s reputation
- Respond to
customer complaints quicker
- Generate
leads
- Get more
traffic to your website
- Network with
bloggers and influencers
Then, you’ll establish
accomplishments that tie in with those objectives.
·
Increase @mentions and Retweets
by 15%
·
Keep response rate above 90%
·
Maintain a response time of under
10 minutes
·
Generate at least 20 leads from
Twitter
·
Improve referral traffic from
Twitter by 30%
·
Add at least 100 new contacts
from Twitter
Of course, all of your goals
should include a specified deadline. This could be weekly, monthly, quarterly
or whatever works best for your industry. Use a social media management
tool like Sprout Social and a website analytics tool like Google
Analytics to measure your activity and
track your goal’s progress.
Analyze your performance and revise your twitter marketing strategy
- Demographics
of your followers including language, age-groups, gender, location etc.
- Tweets
published and direct traffic to your business website from twitter
profile.
- Engagement
statistics which includes @mentions, likes and re-tweets.
- New
followers gained on daily/monthly basis.
- Following
Vs. Followers comparison
- Recent
Unfollows data.
You should have deeper insights about your Twitter community
growth and segment your most influential followers into various groups with
help of Twitter lists. This will help you post relevant content for your
influential followers. You should constantly review your account performance and
update your twitter marketing strategy tactics based on it.
You can make use of social media marketing tools like HootSuite, socialbakers, Objective
marketer etc.
to improve the effectiveness of your twitter marketing strategy. You should understand
that Twitter is just a tool and your Twitter Marketing success depends on the tactics
you follow and continuous improvement based on analysis of the past
performance. By having clear marketing goals and devising a powerful twitter marketing strategy, you can certainly build your brand reputation and grow your business
using twitter for business.
Conclusion of twitter marketing strategy
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