Why is social media marketing important for businesses? I’m sure most people already know the answer to that question. With 3.96 billion people actively using social media — more than half the world’s population — it’s safe to assume social media has become a part of everyone’s day-to-day lives.
The real questions are: how can businesses leverage this tool to the best of their abilities? How does each social media platform differ from one another and which one should my company’s marketing strategy explore? What are the benefits of using Twitter for social media marketing?
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Most people would immediately think to Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram for their social media marketing needs, and that wouldn’t be wrong. They might, however, be forgetting an important social media platform that businesses need to start to explore on a deeper level. It’s time to talk about the importance of an effective Twitter marketing strategy for your business.
Why Twitter?
For starters, Twitter boasts 192 million daily active users and over half a billion tweets are sent out each day (that’s 5,787 tweets per second!). And that’s not all. Users (AKA potential customers) visiting your Twitter profile will likely visit the website linked in your Twitter bio — 47% of them to be exact. Plus, 53% of people on Twitter are more likely to be the first to buy new products.
Twitter Marketing Tips & Tricks
To effectively cater to your Twitter platform community, it’s important to understand what that audience is interested in. Different from Facebook’s benefit-driven characteristics or LinkedIn’s B2B-driven copy, a Twitter user is more likely to want to be informed and understand your brand’s unique voice. Cadence, or how often you post on a social media platform, is also different on Twitter. Additionally, posts on Twitter can vary from 3 to 15 posts per day. I would always recommend quality over quantity, but take advantage of this cadence to get as much information out there on your brand and increase your reach. This is the perfect opportunity to feature a company blog post or highlight coverage articles.
Although Twitter’s character limit was recently bumped up to 280 characters, Tweets between 71 and 100 characters perform best, garnering higher engagements than longer ones.
And perhaps the strongest marketing tool that Twitter offers over its social media competitors is the chance to interact and engage with your followers in real time. Monitoring social conversations is easy with a third-party social media management tool, such as SproutSocial and Hootsuite or within Twitter with its TweetDeck feature (my personal favorite).
Stay on Top Of All Social Media Conversations With TweetDeck
Keeping an eye out for mentions of your brand is easier than ever with this Twitter tool. TweetDeck offers you a full ‘deck’ where you can pick and choose which accounts, keywords or hashtags you want to follow to stay on top of what they’re posting about and if they mention you. It’s also a great way to monitor your competition, learn about industry news, learn from industry influencers, follow brand advocates and potentially inform your future marketing strategy. You can also create a Twitter list, where you can add certain Twitter profiles and keep them all in one place. Gone are the days of spending too much time researching keywords one by one. With this Twitter marketing tool, you’ll never miss an important tweet on your Twitter feed again.
#When and @Why Should I Use #Hashtags and @Mentions?
The power of Twitter’s trending hashtags is unique to this platform. When relevant hashtags are used right and posts are timed correctly, brands can go viral with just one tweet, increasing reach and traffic in a matter of seconds. In fact, branded hashtags represent 70% of the overall hashtags on Twitter. Hashtags can also be social holidays, trending topics or industry keywords — all things that help broaden your reach.
Mentions should also be a big part of your Twitter strategy as they encourage engagement and reach. When mentioning a company executive, a reporter, industry influencers or even another brand you may be collaborating with, you not only give them exposure but, in return, your own post can receive a retweet or quote tweet, increasing your tweet’s reach and potential to find new followers for your own Twitter handle.
Polls & GIFs & Videos – Oh My!
When it comes to Twitter engagement, the more you encourage conversation with your audience in different ways, the better. Like previously mentioned, your Twitter community wants to not only be informed on the latest and greatest, but they also want to get to know your brand voice and culture. This is the perfect opportunity to be fun and creative with your content marketing. Other than your 280-character count text, Twitter offers the ability to poll your audience, feature funny GIFs from a never-ending GIF library, add 240 second videos, feature images on posts and even live videos! The more you vary your Twitter profile and feed, the better. Don’t be afraid to be witty and fun.
Targeting Done Right with Twitter Advertising
Last but not least, let’s talk about Twitter advertising. Twitter has a unique capability compared to other social media platforms: utilizing keyword targeting in the form of hashtags to allow you to show ads to users who are actively talking about your product (hashtags for the win!). As discussed in this blog, your Twitter audience will most likely be highly engaged on the platform — constantly tweeting, retweeting and favoriting content they enjoy or identify with — and they should not be discounted in your campaigns.
When it comes to a Twitter ad and a promoted tweet, it all comes down to what your goals are, whether that is brand awareness, promoting a marketing campaign, reaching a specific target audience, amplifying your following, driving traffic to your website … the list goes on. Plus, for any marketer, you can call this a win-win: the amount of analytics that Twitter ads gives you is all you need to inform your next marketing campaign.
What’s Next?
It’s time to give your company’s Twitter account some TLC. If your goal is to increase engagement with your customers, Twitter is the place to be. When it comes to Twitter for business, the sky (and a 280-character count) is the limit.
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