Utilizing Twitter for business is an important part of any marketing plan. However, in the age of ever-evolving digital platforms, news racing by in the blink of an eye, and attention spans decreasing a mile a minute, it can be hard to know where to begin.
Twitter is still one of the largest social media platforms available today. According to Twitter’s quarterly report, the site saw 330 million active monthly users and 500 million tweets sent per day in their final quarter of 2017.
Meaning, despite this platform now being in its second decade, Twitter is still the place for finding out what people are talking about, joining the conversation, and spending time marketing your business.
Why use Twitter for Business?
Implementing a marketing strategy that includes a well-crafted twitter business account will first and foremost give you a platform on which to build a community. With Twitter, you will be able to define and target your customers, keep tabs on the competition, develop relationships with your audience, up your customer service game, and keep on top of industry trends.
In turn, you will find that twitter marketing will improve your sales through exposure, and further refine your brands personality.
“The #1 reason people come to twitter is to discover something new and interesting.” – Twitter Business
What are some of Twitter’s Components?
Hashtags (#)
People search hashtags on twitter to find relevant content from sources that they are not already following. Be one of these sources!
Implementing a strategy in which you hashtag each and every post will give you free twitter marketing with which to grow your business. Studies have shown that relevantly and selectively choosing 1-2 hashtags per post increases engagement by up to 21%!
Direct Messages
Direct messages on twitter allow you to converse with customers, companies, and clients out of the public’s line of sight. Use DM’s to welcome new followers into your circle, conduct customer service, or reach out to accounts you know and love for potential collaborating opportunities.
Lists
Given the fast-paced, breaking-news nature of Twitter, it’s nearly impossible to stay up-to-date with every tweet in your feed, and quality content easily gets lost in the shuffle.
Enter the Twitter list. Twitter lists are essentially curated and organized groups of users that you can create, subscribe to, or be added as a member. Users create a list, choose other users to add, and then get all tweets from those added users sent to that list.
To create a list, go to your profile, click on “Lists” in the menu bar, and then click “Create new list” in the right sidebar. This general list page is also where you can find what lists to which you are subscribed, or of which you are a member.
Chats
Have you ever dreamed of networking, having a business meeting, or going to a conference from the comfort of your home office? This is essentially the service that Twitter chats provide.
A Twitter chat is when a group of Twitter users meet at a specific time to discuss a topic, using a relevant hashtag in the process. In a chat, there will be a moderator that asks questions, gives statements, and encourages interaction from the group.
Anyone can start a Twitter chat, but whether you’re the moderator or participant these make it easy to meet and interact with people in your industry!
Visuals – Images, GIF’s, & Videos
According to Forbes.com, including some kind of visual stimuli in your tweets will boost your engagement by 200%! Keep your text short and to the point, and let your visuals speak for themselves.
What are some of the Best Twitter for Business Profile Practices?
As in life, first impressions on social media are everything. Having a well-thought out and optimized Twitter business profile will show your brand’s attention to detail and help you gain followers.
There are five areas of your twitter profile to which you should pay attention:
Username
On your Twitter business account profile, you will have two identifiers, the @name and your business name.
The @name is your personal, unique-to-you identifier by which people will find your business. It is limited to 15 characters and is unchangeable once you create your account.
The second identifier, which sits just above your @name on your profile, is your business name. It is easy to change this name at any time.
For both of these identifiers, it is best to choose names that are specific to your brand and void of any numbers or special characters. Keep your profile simple and clean!
Profile Picture
Your profile picture is the photo that will not only grace your profile as a visual introduction to your business, but will also accompany every tweet you post as an icon. It is important to keep your profile picture on brand whether you choose it to be a logo or personal photo.
Note that Twitter profile photos are currently circular icons and, upon uploading, will be scaled to 400×400 pixels.
Bio
Think of your Twitter bio as your elevator pitch. This is where you tell people, in 160 characters or less, why your business is unique and why they should tag along for the ride.
Let potential followers know what your business is all about and what kind of content you share. If applicable, include a website link, hours of operation, and some relevant hash tags.
Your Header Image
Your Twitter header is your personal marquee. Fill this space with your company’s current promotions, events, or feature products. Play with this space as you wish, always remembering to stay on brand. Feel free to choose either plain photos or a sign with a text overlay.
Note that Twitter’s header images are all 1500×500 pixels.
Pin A Tweet
This is the first tweet people see when they visit your Twitter profile, regardless of whether or not you’ve posted more recent content or not.
Your pinned tweet can either be your most popular tweet to showcase lots of engagement, some cornerstone content linking back to your blog or website, or your latest promotion.
What Twitter Tools Can I Use To Make This A Little Easier?
Manually keeping up with Twitter can be time-consuming and, frankly, overwhelming. Thankfully there are many tools to help you effectively implement your Twitter marketing strategy:
Scheduling
Instead of spending short bursts of time throughout your day tweeting, try a scheduling tool. These tools let you program your tweets ahead of time to go out at pre-determined intervals throughout the day. Spend an hour or so scheduling at the beginning of the week and watch your Twitter presence fall into place.
Popular schedulers include Buffer, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social.
Hashtag Analytics
Twitter offers a constant look at the days top-trending hashtags, but it can be difficult to decipher more niche trending hashtags without some research.
To give your real-time marketing a boost, try Hashtagify.me, Trendsmap, and TagBoard.
Image Creation
You know all those pretty text-overlaid images popping up on your feed? Well chances are those weren’t made in Paint. The good news is that you don’t need to be a graphic designer to produce your own quality social media marketing images.
Popular websites for quality image creation include Canva, PicMonkey, and Pablo.
Community Building
Whether you want to find out who the leaders of your industry are, manage your messages, or congregate with like-minded business owners, there is a community building Twitter tool for you.
Popular options include TweetDeck, Klout, and Triberr.
What About Advertising on Twitter?
Despite twitter being an excellent marketing tool in and of itself, sometimes it pays to put funds into advertisements. Advertising on twitter allows you to target potential customers based on their specific interests, activity on twitter, and demographics.
Advertising goes one step beyond traditional methods to help you gain exposure and grow your following.
How Do I Use Twitter for Business?
So now that you have the tools and knowledge in your pocket to effectively market your business on Twitter, here are some of the things you should be doing every day to optimize your Twitter presence:
Tweet Often
The number one key to staying in the forefront of your audience’s mind is to stay visible. Use a scheduler to plan and load your tweets ahead of time so you stay consistent in your posting. Additionally, be sure to retweet relevant content and reply and engage with other users tweets.
Keep in mind that all tweets and retweets reflect back on your business. Always make sure that each tweet is centered on one specific topic, as well as keep your content relevant and within the scope of your business plan.
Additionally, if people don’t see the content you’re tweeting, they won’t be interacting. Steer clear of spamming, but there is no shame in tweeting the same piece of content more than once!
Promote Your Account
It’s all about cross-pollination. Include links to your twitter profile on your website and other social media accounts. There is nothing stopping you from including a Twitter link or mentioning it on places like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram!
Reach Out
Despite tweeting being an excellent conversation starter, Twitter doesn’t have to just be about mass marketing. Do a little research and reach out to leaders in your industry, thank clients that are promoting your products or services, and Twitter users who you believe would benefit from your business.
Ask Questions
One of the easiest ways to encourage engagement is to ask a question. Your followers will be all over imparting their knowledge to help you grow your business! To do this, ask something on topic that you know will be of interest to your followers, or take a poll.
Know Your Analytics
As with any part of your business plan, it’s important to know what marketing tools and strategies work for you and which do not. Stay up to date with your Twitter analytics, and take stock of your profile visits, mentions, impressions, and engagement rates.
Use this data to optimize your experience.
Do you use Twitter? Want some ideas of how you can use it for business? Give us a shout!
