Have you been dodging Twitter for marketing your business? You are not alone. The thing is Twitter is not the easiest social media platform to understand, but it is an amazing marketing channel you should have in your arsenal. So I am here to shed some more light on how to make it work for your brand and the type of marketing strategies you should use.
Twitter Basics
How to get Started
Unlike other social media platforms you don't need to have a business account on Twitter. In fact, you don't need to have anything different than just an ordinary account like everyone else. Creating it is easy. Sign up with your email address (professional email, I'd recommend) and a password. Much like Instagram, you will then have to create a handle (username) which is unique. Make sure that it isn't too long and try to minimise the non-alphanumerical characters. Too many of those make it harder for people to find you.
Next steps include choosing a suitable profile picture (best choice - your logo) and a cover photo. Your cover should be something that grabs the attention and relates to your brand, product or service. Currently, you can't upload a video to your cover, so stick to images.
Don't overlook your profile description. The rules of a great Instagram bio apply to Twitter as well:
Emojis
Keywords
Call to action
Emotional message
Hashtags
Website link
If you want you can also add the "birthday" of your brand.
What to post on Twitter
Remember the content ratio rule? It's still 70/20/10 and it applies to Twitter too. Most of your tweets should be educational, inspirational or entertaining. Users who are fluent in sarcasm and have a witty approach to various topics become Twitter stars really quickly. Brush up your copywriting skills. Also, you only have 280 characters to work with so use them well. You should post pictures, quotes, videos and polls. You can create fantastic images using these Canva templates. GIFs steal the show on Twitter! 20% of your content will be retweets and from time to time you can through a pinch of a sales pitch.
Who's on Twitter
Here are some quick stats on the kind of people who use Twitter.
There are 330 million active monthly users on Twitter
25% of all men on the Internet use Twitter (21% for women)
The majority of users are between the ages of 18 and 49 (18-29 being the largest group)
Over half of Twitter users make more than $50,000 a year.
The top 10 countries using Twitter are USA, Japan, UK, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Brazil, India, Mexico, Spain, France.
Want more detailed statistics? You can find them on Statista.
How to Get Followers on Twitter
1. Consistency
As every other channel, posting frequently and consistently will be the most successful way of gaining and retaining followers. The interesting thing about Twitter is that you are expected to tweet an average of 60 times a day. That's sounds like a lot of work. But here comes the good news. It's ok to repeat content on Twitter and thank technology, you can schedule and automate a great deal of it.
2. Twitter links and items on your website
Add Twitter buttons on your website. A lot of your website visitors may be Twitter fans and they would be interested in checking your Twitter profile as a potential way to keep in touch with you. A step further would be to add Twitter feed to your website. If your content is good and brings value, people who land on your site will be lured to follow you on Twitter.
3. Hashtags
Use hashtags. I can't stress enough how crucial your use of hashtags is on Twitter. Here you can't include as many of them as on Instagram because you have 280 characters limit and people actually care about what you have to say with so little space. Your tweets need to be concise and full of value to the reader. A relevant hashtag at the end would do the trick.
Another approach to the use of hashtags on Twitter is checking what's trending. This would be the starting point of your content creation for the platform. People are interested in seeing your take on a popular topic and also you get the highest exposure by using the trending hashtags with a well-written tweet.
4. Interaction
If you have been reading MBC blog or done some level of social media marketing, by now you know that interaction with others is essential. On Twitter, you can benefit a lot from interacting with popular or celebrity accounts. If you have something really smart or interesting to say people will acknowledge you even if the account holder doesn't. If you get popular followers, though, the others will come before you realise what's going on. Start with accounts that have 500-1000 followers. Reply to their tweets and tag them in yours and get them to follow you. Gradually move to more and more popular accounts and apply the same tactic.
5. Paid Advertisement
Like Facebook, Twitter offers you the opportunity to sponsor your account and tweets so that you get more followers for a certain amount of money. While Twitter have improved their user data available to marketers, I still find Facebook profiling for ads much more detailed and indepth. So I'd rather put the work to build my follower base organically on Twitter than paying for it. But if you have the budget, certainly go for it and save yourself some time and efforts. Remember that to keep your followers you will still have to tweet frequently.
Marketing Strategies for Twitter
1. Plan your content
Have a content calendar and create the content you are going to be posting for a month. You can repurpose some of your blog posts by taking bits and pieces and turning them into tweets. Well written, SEO-friendly blog posts can be fully used as series of tweets. If you are looking for examples, check the "Why Is My Site Not Making Sales" post on our blog. I used 95% of it on Twitter, generating about 50 tweets. Use scheduling tools like Tweetdeck, Buffer or Hootsuite. You will save time and daily efforts.
Also, use the IFTTT app to automate some of your tweets. For example, you can set your account to retweet every time when a specific Twitter user tweets. You can automatically like someone's retweet of your tweet or you can make the app retweet everything that's posted with a specific hashtag or mentioning your account. Really, the possibilities are endless. Just be careful not to overdo the automation, because too frequent tweets and retweets can be annoying and may have a negative impact on your follower base.
2. Create Twitter Moments
Twitter Moments can be used as a mini blog. They are particularly good for fashion, beauty, entertainment, travel and lifestyle businesses. They are a collection of tweets from different accounts that interacted with a tweet of yours. If you create a moment on a trending topic you have fantastic chances to get noticed by millions. If you've never seen or created a Moment go to Twitter now and click on the Moments tab. It has a lightning symbol.
3. Find the people who need you
This is a very quick and smart marketing strategy to use on Twitter. Instead of waiting for customers to find you, you go find them. It's super easy. Go to the search bar and type "I need a" or "I want a" followed by the product or service you offer (or something related to it). You will see all the people who are tweeting about the things you sell and you know they want to buy. What a better way to define your target audience? Interact with their tweet and see where this leads you.
One last thing before I wrap up this post - set your expectations realistically. Your account won't grow significantly during the first couple of months. And if you give up or start slacking at that point it won't grow ever. So follow the advice I've given you and be patient. Apply continuous efforts, even when it seems they aren't paying off, the results will delight you in the end!
Don't forget to leave your questions and comments below. Happy Tweeting!
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