By Johnny Walker
Understanding how to use Twitter for business means first establishing your goals. Twitter is an extremely popular and influential platform, which can be used for various purposes.
For example, you can launch a Twitter campaign to find more potential customers for your business or drive traffic to your website. Alternatively, you can create a Twitter profile for the purpose of building brand awareness or promoting your latest products.
Using Twitter for business can be approached in several ways. But considering the fact that Twitter has around 206 million monetizable daily active users worldwide, it’s a platform every business should use.
Research suggests that the average Twitter user follows at least five companies. Additionally, four out of five Twitter users mention brands or companies in their tweets.
Coupled with the fact that Twitter for business is largely free to use, this all makes for an opportunity not to be missed. Although as things stand, an opportunity that most businesses don’t take full advantage of.
18 tips to promote your brand
Knowing where to start can be half the battle, due to the sheer amount of competition you face. Understanding the thousands of Twitter tips, tricks, and hacks floating around online can also complicate things.
But when it comes to the fundamentals of a successful Twitter campaign, the basics are surprisingly simple. Regardless of business size, nature, and goals, the following 18 activities should form the core of your Twitter strategy:
Add Twitter cards pointing to your website
First of all, Twitter cards are much better at directing traffic to your website than basic text. There are five types of Twitter cards you can use to bring eye-catching and engaging visuals to your external links – all guaranteed to increase your CTR. Twitter Cards are particularly important for directing potential customers to product pages, giving them a visual indication of what’s on offer.
Publish various types of content
Research suggests that Twitter users who post different types of content earn an average of 150% more retweets. Mixing things up with eye-catching photos, GIFs, videos, text and polls is therefore highly recommended.
Besides generating more interest in your tweets and boosting engagement, a rich mix of media types will also help you influence Twitter’s algorithm.
Work on your profile
You have to assume that if someone is interested in your tweets, they will check out your profile. At this point, that all-important first impression will influence what happens next.
From your bio to your taglines to your profile picture and background, everything about your profile should scream pure professionalism. While highlighting your personality and your authenticity.
Collaborate with Twitter influencers
There are two ways to connect and collaborate with influencers on Twitter. You can convince them to recommend your business and promote your products, or you can pay them to do so.
Although whenever possible, the former tends to be the most effective approach. Either way, the influencers you reach out to should be genuinely relevant to your business, your niche, and your target audience.
Engage with your audience
Taking a passive approach to a Twitter posting strategy is a recipe for failure. Publishing quality content is only half the battle. To make things happen, you need to engage and interact with your audience on an ongoing basis. Embracing the “social” aspect of social media is key to getting followers involved in what you do.
Find the right time to tweet
A useful tactic to simplify your posting strategy is to schedule your tweets in advance. However, you must first determine the best possible time to tweet, based on audience activity levels.
Use analytics to determine when your audience is most active and schedule your tweets accordingly. Avoid posting at times when engagement levels are likely to be low.
Manage issues via direct messages
If a client publicly shares a complaint or grievance, issue a professional and diplomatic response in the same way. After that, use direct messages to get to the heart of the problem and solve it.
DMs are better than tweets for solving problems because there is no character limit, which makes it much easier to communicate correctly with your customers. Again, an initial public response indicating that you take negative comments seriously is essential.
Retweet relevant content
Don’t limit your publishing strategy exclusively to your own unique and original content. Make an effort to provide your followers with a steady stream of relevant posts from elsewhere. Retweeting can be great for bridging the gaps between your own original posts, while bringing variety and engagement to your production.
Try Twitter Spaces
If so, it’s also worth trying out Twitter Spaces. Spaces is Twitter’s new live audio chat feature, which, although still in development, is already proving popular. Promote your audio events with your tweets, invite your followers to participate and bring new dynamics to your Twitter strategy with real-time audio.
Tweet consistently and consistently
Research has shown that Twitter users consistently respond more positively to editors who tweet regularly and consistently. On the other hand, tweeting infrequently and at completely random times does not generate much engagement. Again, you can simplify your posting strategy by scheduling your tweets in advance and planning ahead.
Use Twitter Analytics to analyze and optimize
Twitter comes with a bunch of built-in analytics tools, which should be taken full advantage of. Monitor the performance of all aspects of your publishing strategy and make regular adjustments.
Approach your publishing strategy as a continuous improvement campaign, increasing the performance of what works and eliminating what doesn’t.
Hashtags are the key
Hashtags are the searchable words and phrases that group tweets based on trending topics, brands, and general topics. The hashtags you use will therefore have a major influence on who discovers your tweets and interacts with your business.
However, it’s essential to only use hashtags that are relevant to your business and valuable to your target audience. Hashtags shouldn’t be overused either – less is almost always more.
Use Twitter ads to promote your content
Paid ads on Twitter can be a surprisingly affordable option to instantly increase your reach and influence. Some of the few options worth checking out include Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts, Promoted Trends, Twitter Amplify, Promoted Videos, Mobile App Promotion and more. Most of them have no minimum spend, with affordable options available for every budget.
Build your Twitter account quickly
For an instant credibility boost, there is always the option of buying Twitter followers. Social media growth specialists like Media Mister make it easy and inexpensive to buy genuine, quality-assured Twitter followers.
The more followers you have, the more engaging, engaging, and authoritative your posts are. Buying followers can also be very useful in inspiring other Twitter users to follow your profile organically.
Pin your important tweets
Including a pinned Tweet at the top of your timeline is something you should do at all times. This pinned tweet is the first thing everyone will see when they view your profile. Therefore, it should be the most important tweet you’ve posted recently, or a tweet that gives the right first impression.
Monitor Twitter Keywords and Use Social Listening
Social listening tools automatically monitor the web’s major social networks for mentions of your brand name. Whether positive or negative, you need to know what is being said about your business and where.
Additionally, keyword research as the basis of your Twitter SEO strategy should be ongoing. Use keywords to search Twitter for tweets relevant to your business and use them.
Use Twitter Lists
Twitter lists can be useful for dividing your feed into a series of topics, to keep things organized and accessible. How you use lists for your business is up to you, but they can be great for keeping tabs on your competition or monitoring who interacts with your content most often.
Configure UTM tracking
Finally, UTM tracking provides essential information about website visits generated by your Twitter campaign. Using Google Analytics, you will see how many people visit your website after clicking on links on your Twitter pages.
However, you will need to set up UTM tracking to see which of those clicks are from organic tweets and which are from Twitter ads. Essential for accurately tracking bounce rates, conversions, and sales.
Conclusion
Twitter holds remarkable potential both as a promotional platform and as a brand building tool. It can also provide a level playing field for businesses of all sizes, as the vast majority of its features can be used for free.
Paid promotion – including buying followers and other social proof – can be ideal for launching a successful campaign. But as is the case with all social networks, it will always be the quality of your production that will determine the result.
Johny Walker has been a social media expert and web traffic consultant for over 10 years. In 2012, he launched Media Mister, a social media marketing company that helps businesses achieve an affordable social presence.
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