Twitter has approximately 330 million monthly active users which provide many opportunities for businesses to generate leads and sales. If you are not using Twitter as a part of your marketing campaigns, you are not getting the most out of your potential.
Many businesses spend time and money on Twitter with little return on investment. In a way, I can’t really blame them. Finding people to target, engaging them, and turning them into loyal customers takes a long time and is very tedious. Where do you even start?
Don’t give up on Twitter, it’s still a good platform. The micro-blogging platform is gaining popularity and will likely continue to grow in dominance. To learn how to play the game, all you need to do is invest some time.
But first, why use Twitter for your business?
You’re probably asking: Why not use Facebook instead?
And to that I say:
I enjoy using Facebook as much as any other person. There is no doubt that when it comes to reaching and targeting capabilities, Facebook is the best.
It’s only getting started. Although it has come a long way, there is still a lot of potentials for social media to grow in terms of discoverability, virality, and engagement. Twitter is where the action is.
Why is that? Twitter conversations happen in real-time, for starters.
When you open Twitter, it’s like walking into a crowded bar where you can talk to people from all different backgrounds. Most Twitter accounts are public, so everything is allowed. The reason Twitter is great for quality engagements is that it has a “free-for-all” atmosphere.
Twitter is also #1 when it comes to discoverability. This is because 79% of Twitter users like to discover new things, and 53% of them are more likely to buy new products.
Twitter is essentially a broadcast medium. Tweets tend to have a sense of immediacy and authenticity, which you can’t find on other social media platforms. The platform is designed to be viral so it can create engagements on a large scale.
Can your small business do well on Twitter?
Any type of business can thrive on Twitter. Twitter can be a successful platform for your business if your customers are present on the site. You should invest in Twitter if your customers are active on the platform and you only have time for one or two social media platforms. There are a few ways to find out.
1. Ask your customers
One way to determine if your customers are active on Twitter is to ask them. If you’re a business with an email list, send a quick survey about social media to get feedback from your customers. You should ask your customers which social media channels they use most frequently, what kinds of content they share, and which brands they follow on those channels. This will give you a better idea of how to reach them through social media. If you want to gather information from your email list, you can use SurveyMonkey or Typeform. Here is a social media survey template from Typeform to give you some ideas. You can use SurveyMonkey to create a survey that is tailored to your specific audience. This is a great way to get feedback about your product or service. No email list? Why not have a temperature check at the cash register in your physical store? As you are serving a customer, tell them that you are considering joining social media and ask if they follow any brands online. Also, ask which platforms they use most frequently.
2. Compare your target audience to Twitter’s audience
The groups of people who are more active on each social media platform vary. It is important to compare your target audience’s demographics and psychographic data with the social media platforms you are considering. Demographics include information like gender, age, geographical location, income, etc. Psychographic data includes psychological traits like personality, interests, and values. The most active users on Twitter are millennials, while Gen Z is active on TikTok.
3. Look at your competitors
Your competitors’ customers could be your customers. Twitter is a good platform to be on if your competitors are doing well there. This is because it’s likely that your target audience is also on Twitter. You just need to start tweeting! Your competitors’ use of Twitter can be an indicator of whether or not it is a beneficial platform for your company. If your customers say they want to follow you on Twitter, create an account, even if your competitors don’t have one. Twitter could be a great opportunity for your brand to be the first in your niche to discover!
What are the best marketing strategies for Twitter?
There is no denying that engagement is essential for boosting sales and revenue for your brand. However, if you want your engagement efforts to result in positive business outcomes, you need a more focused approach. You will be more successful if you have a marketing strategy.
Tactics to help you use Twitter as a marketing tool to get real results.
Set goals
Before beginning a Twitter marketing campaign, consider what you hope to achieve on the platform.
This means that you need to establish what you want to achieve. Why? Once you have your goals figured out, you can engage with your followers by sharing tweets and other content that your target audience will find useful.
Your goals will only have a real impact on your brand if you make them SMART goals. To ensure your success, your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. NapoleonCat’s blog post on SMART goals can help you create your own SMART goals.
Here are the goals you can set in your Twitter marketing campaign:
- Drive traffic to your blog or website
- Gain new followers (not my favorite goal, and here’s why)
- Increase engagement (now THAT’s a goal; more on this later)
- Acquire app installs
- Drive website clicks and conversions
- Promote brand awareness (Whatever that means)
- Etc.
Define your audience
In order to increase sales for your business, you need to post tweets that will be of interest to your target customers.
So, identify your audience. Get to know them—and I mean really know them. What are they looking for? What are they struggling with? Where do they hang out? What motivates them to get up in the morning? And so on.
If you know your audience well, you can write tweets that will interest them. This will make them more likely to visit your website and buy your products.
Tweeting relevant content isn’t as easy as it might seem. Buyer personas help you remember what your ideal customers want. Additionally, making your audience more relatable humanizes them, which in turn makes it easier for you to communicate with them in a way that satisfies their wants and needs.
To create strong buyer personas, doing extensive market research can help. The most relevant information for your business can always be gathered from your best customers through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and analytics research.
Create a kickass Twitter profile
If you only have the default Twitter egg as your profile photo, people are not going to take your tweets seriously. It also doesn’t help your case if your bio implies that you have the personality of a doormat.
So don’t be an egg. If you want to be seen as credible on Twitter, your profile should show some personality. It’s even better if that personality reflects your brand.
How to make a great Twitter profile? A Twitter profile has six elements:
- a Twitter handle,
- a username,
- a profile photo,
- a header image,
- a bio,
- and a pinned tweet.
Your profile picture and banner are important to how your brand is perceived, so make sure to choose images that are eye-catching and reflective of your brand. Be sure to use visuals that match your brand identities, such as logos, images, fonts, and colors. If you need help designing a logo, you can hire a professional logo designer.
The same goes for your user name. You only have 15 characters to work with, but it is always best to keep the message short. Choose a brand that is easy to remember and that sounds like it would be easy for a human to remember. Additionally, do not include numbers or unrecognizable acronyms so people will not believe you are a robot.
Contrary to popular belief, people still read bios. So make your Twitter bio interesting! Bios should be a brief summary of who you are and what you do for your customers. Keep your bios to 160 characters to make the most impact. Make it creative and original. Infuse some personality. Including an emoji in your message can help to express your tone, and don’t forget to include links to any other relevant accounts.
Post media directly on Twitter instead of linking out
Most social media websites prefer media that is posted directly on their platform instead of something that is linked out. If you post a photo or video on Twitter, more people will see it. So you have to win them to your channel. Additionally, people who are on Twitter do not want to be on YouTube, so you must convince them to come to your channel. Only link out to other websites, including your own, occasionally.
Interact with your followers
A great social media presence is about more than just posting great content. Interact with those who are interacting with your content on Twitter. If you want to keep your fans engaged, follow them back, like their posts, and respond to their comments. This will help you build relationships with them. People will be more likely to keep interacting with you on Twitter if you do this.
Earn followers, don’t buy them
Although it may be tempting to buy Twitter followers in order to increase your metrics, this will not have any positive effect on your business. The followers that you buy are not going to read or interact with your posts. If people discover this, it will not be received well. Focus on creating engaging content to attract new fans. Think about asking your current customers to follow you on Twitter. Make sure your Twitter handle is visible in your emails or displayed prominently near your cash register. Think about offering a limited-time incentive, such as entering a giveaway raffle or getting a discount for following your brand’s Twitter.
What types of content do well for small businesses on Twitter?
Twitter is fast-paced. It is important to have content that can be read or viewed quickly, so visuals and concise text are essential. Your message must be eye-catching to stand out in people’s Twitter feeds. So, there are a few types of content that do particularly well on Twitter:
Pop culture trends and news
Staying up-to-date with pop culture trends and news is a great way to connect with your audience about current events.
Thought-provoking content
If your brand stands for something, make it known! It is a way to connect with your customers about the values you have in common. This type of messaging can cause people to have strong opinions, so make sure it’s something you’re okay with your brand being known for before you use it. Mercy for Animals uses Twitter to post content that challenges people’s views on animal rights. By doing this, they hope to change people’s attitudes and behavior toward animals.
Humor and wit
There are many benefits to using humor in your marketing, as it can make your customers feel seen and your brand more approachable.
How to measure success on Twitter
The level of success achieved by a business can vary depending on factors such as its size and objectives, but there are some metrics that can be used to assess its performance and track its progress over time.
- Followers: You want to build you following so that there are people who interact with you, but don’t get stuck on this number. It doesn’t indicate engagement.
- Likes: On many social platforms, “likes” don’t indicate true engagement. Likes can come from bots, and even when they don’t, many people are clicking the like button and moving on. However, unlike Instagram, where a “like” is almost entirely a vanity metric, likes on Twitter do have an added benefit. When one of your followers likes your post, it can show up in their followers’ feeds — even though their followers don’t follow you.
- Retweets: Retweets are better than likes. It means people value your post enough to share it with their friends. It helps spread your message!
- Comments: Comments start conversations. Commenting is a deeper level of engagement than alike, and it gives you insight into what your customers care about.
Do not give up hope at the start when you are growing your audience. It takes some time to get your Twitter account going. To grow your small business on Twitter, post content consistently, engage with your followers, and encourage the right people to follow you.
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