Twitter is a major social media platform and, with the right approach, can do wonders for your business. Engage with existing customers, meet new customers, respond quickly to queries and establish yourself as a go-to authority in your field – it’s all possible. Here, we help you understand why you need Twitter business marketing.
What is Twitter?
Twitter is a free social media platform. It’s used by individuals, groups, organisations and businesses of all sizes. Its purpose is to connect people and share information. If you’re on Twitter as a private user already, you’ll know that people tweet about and during all sorts of events, from Presidential elections to the latest episode of their favourite soap opera. But Twitter is also used incredibly effectively by businesses to promote, share, engage and respond.
The key things to know about Twitter are:
- It’s completely public. Only direct messages are private
- It’s a short-content medium. Messages can only be 280 characters long
- You can follow anyone and anyone can follow you
- It’s about conversations rather than outright sales and promotion
- You can use it to drive traffic to your website
- You can connect with businesses and individuals
- You can schedule posts to help you manage your time
- You can organise your followers into lists, to help you segment and manage your activity
How to create a Twitter business account
Unlike Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, there’s no need to sign up for a company page or business page on Twitter. You simply need to set up an account for your business. This is a simple step-guided process, and is easy to do yourself. There are some important things to remember though:
- Use your business’s name if you can. If it’s taken, use something as close to your name as you can, and avoid unnecessary punctuation or dodgy spelling. Make it easy for existing and potential contacts to find you.
- Fill in your profile completely. Either use a good head shot of you – Twitter users like the personal touch – or a high quality version of your logo. Pictures should be clear, not pixelated. Make sure you write a description of your business that includes the keywords that people might search for when they’re looking for you, or for a business like yours.
- Add your website – Twitter users often go straight to your website, so you must have a link in your profile and you must check that it works.
- Add your location – make sure people know where you are. You are likely to get local followers, particularly if there is an active networking community where you are; and local customers can also find you more easily.
Building a strategy for Twitter
Just like any marketing, you’ll be more successful with Twitter if you have a strategy in place. Decide what you want to get out of this marketing channel and design your content and your approach accordingly. You can use Twitter to attract new followers, keep in touch with existing customers, build a supportive network and improve your brand profile. You may also want to use it to generate measurable leads into your business, so make sure your strategy supports your overall objectives.
In order to design your strategy, you’ll need to know what your competitors are doing. You’ll also need to do some research and reading to see how best to use Twitter for the space you’re in – interactions and strategies will be different depending on your sector. And spend some time on knowing who your audience is and what they respond to. This will help you to focus your strategy so that it delivers the results you need.
Three important Twitter uses for business
Once you have created your account, you need to start building your Twitter community. You do this by finding accounts that are relevant and useful to your business, and following them. This may include suppliers that you use, customers you have, other local businesses in your community, press and media related to your business, and more. Many of these will follow you back, starting to build your relationships. You can use tools to gain more followers, but the most successful accounts add followers by posting useful, engaging content.
So, you have an account and you have started to get some followers. Here are three ways Twitter can help your business:
- Drive traffic to your website: You want to use Twitter as an interest-generating tool, so you need to give people a reason to read your content, be interested in your product or service and take the next step. To begin with, that means sending them to your site. Twitter allows you to post links, pictures and video, so you can make the most of all your content and share it with a wider audience.
- Build your brand: Always remember that everything you tweet is public. So it must be in line with your brand guidelines and with the way you do business. Be authentic, reasonable, humorous, responsive and ethical, and you will help to increase your visibility as a positive brand.
- Promote and respond: Use Twitter to offer discounts, special offers, vouchers, prizes and more. Respond quickly to customer queries and to prospects who are interested in your business. Always be ready to interact and have conversations – offer advice and help on Twitter for free, and you could find someone comes to you for paid services because you have become a trusted supplier.
Twitter pitfalls to avoid
Unless it’s absolutely relevant to your business, try not to veer into non-business conversations on Twitter. It’s easy to do, especially when the channel amplifies contentious content. Keep your content to things that are valuable to your target audience, and keep interactions to accounts that are relevant to your business.
It’s also important to engage with people regularly. There’s no point setting up your account and scheduling content but never responding, sharing or engaging with others. You will get far more engagement and traction if you are visible and active on the site.
Try not to ‘spam’ your followers. This is something you can do without even realising it. Too many sales-led posts, too many tags, too many hashtags – these are all things that will put people off your content rather than pull them in. Be genuine, personable and useful.
Consider advertising
Once you have got used to the platform, it’s worth investigating using it as an advertising channel. Once advertising-free, Twitter now offers promotional opportunities to account holders. That means you can benefit from highly targeted, measurable advertising that helps you get in front of the right people faster. With more than 350 million users, you need to be able to target your audience, and you can decide exactly how much you want to promote, and how much you want to spend. With useful analytics, you’ll be able to see how your ad is performing and tweak it, or use the information to help your next promotion work even better
Need an assistant for Twitter?
For business owners or managers, handling social media can take up valuable time, adding to your costs and preventing you from concentrating on business development. But you can’t afford to ignore it either, so the best option is to contact a virtual assistant. Rates are competitive and because you only pay for the time you use, it’s a much more cost-effective option than hiring someone in.
In fact, an outsourced social media marketing assistant can help you handle all your social media – from strategy and planning to everyday posting and scheduling. They help with advice on the best approach as well as taking the practical, time-consuming management off your hands. It’s the perfect solution to making the most of the opportunity without spending hours of your own time trying to come to grips with things. See how a Virtual Assistant can be your social media hero.
Start focusing on Twitter business marketing today
If you are wondering whether Twitter is the right platform for your business, or you want to use it, but you don’t know where to start, we can help. If you’re short on time and would like to know more about our social media and marketing services or any of our other virtual employees service feel free to call us on 0800 994 9016 or use our contact form in the menu above.