At the end of the first quarter of 2015, it has been reported that Twitter has already more than 288 million active members all over the world. The sheer number of users it can reach makes this social media network a powerful marketing tool. It is broadly considered to come only second to Facebook as the marketing platform of choice.
Although Facebook is the top popular choice, savvy business owners know that what’s popular doesn’t always work. In fact, Twitter can be used as an effective real—time tool for a lot of businesses. But how can you leverage it to market your business, promote your company, gain more customers, or drive more traffic to your website?
I have made a list of tips to help you with your Twitter campaign.
- Be Clear and Consistent about Your Brand Identity – Your brand and your brand identity is the most important aspect of your business. If you want to get noticed, you have to make sure that your business is branded well. It means that your Twitter bio clearly tells your clients and customers who you are. When doing this, you have to be consistent so that they also understand your identity, your service, and your product. And don’t forget to include a link that will lead your customers to your website or landing page.
- Identify the Top People of Your Industry and Regularly Interact with Them – Search for the most influential people of your industry. Follow them and interact with them on a regular basis. Create a private Twitter list for them so it will be easier for you to track your interactions with them. Avoid being promotional but be casual and helpful. Your goal is for you to be able to build a long-term relationship and find opportunities to collaborate with them.
- Tweet and Retweet on a Regular Basis – One way of keeping in touch with your network is by tweeting regularly. This is the sign of a healthy and active Tweeter profile. Tweeting only on a weekly or monthly basis will push you back to obscurity. This is the right platform to keep up with the Joneses. Just make sure that your tweets are something of value and informative to your readers and followers as well as something that is related to what you do or offer.
Moreover, you should also retweet relevant mentions because it will help you link with other industry leaders and establish your leadership within the industry.
- Don’t Be Afraid to Ask – The best way to build your brand, if you are doing it for the first time, is to ask the help of your colleagues to follow, tweet, or retweet you. Once you slowly build a reputation, you can also ask the help of your other followers. However, you have to make sure that you return the favor as well.
- Use hashtags – The USA Today call hashtags “force multipliers” for advertising revenue on the Internet. To optimize the power of hashtags, find what is the trending and popular hashtag that is relevant to your business and join the conversation. By using this method, you are strategically placing your business where it can be seen by others when they search tweets with a particular hashtag. One or two hashtags is the ideal number of hashtags you can use for your tweets. Too much of them can be considered Twitter spam thus, defeating your purpose.
- Monitor Mentions and Respond Appropriately – Make sure you monitor mentions so that you know what is being said about you. Then, you can join the conversation and respond appropriately. Be polite and professional because your customer service is one of the most effective marketing tools you can use. Moreover, it also reflects your brand. You can also create a search for a term related to your business so that when someone tweets regarding that term, you can easily jump in and offer your service or product.
- Include Images and Videos – Adding visuals to your tweets make it four times more effective than just a plain tweet. Research has shown that tweets with videos and images are most likely to receive more views, shares, and clicks. However, you should be careful about what you share because a boring post about what you ate last night is not as effective as rich content that has helpful information to the readers.
- Integrate Twitter with Other Marketing Efforts – Like all other social media platforms, Twitter becomes twice more effective when you integrate it with your other marketing efforts. So if you have a special promo offer or a contest being advertised on Twitter, make sure that your email subscribers or Facebook followers also know that.
As you become more familiar with Twitter, never forget the rule that is prevalent in all social media platforms — say only what is valuable and relevant to your business. Moreover, continue to nurture your connections and communicate with authenticity.
