Since launching in 2006 Twitter has exploded onto the social media scene and has not only become a way for people to share their thoughts with friends but an excellent tool for businesses to connect with customers. While many firms have a social media strategy in place those that are the most successful continuously measure and monitor their Twitter success to evolve their strategy.
Is a Twitter marketing strategy needed?
Everyday there are 500 million Tweets sent and in total there are over 310 million Twitter users. Being able to send short business related updates, engage with potential customers and reach a wider audience can prove valuable for businesses that use the social media platform to their advantage.
Incorporating Twitter into your overall marketing strategy can help your business in a number of ways, from driving traffic to your website to increasing customer satisfaction with better and more engaging customer service. It can also help you maintain a competitive advantage by allowing you to keep a close eye on industry and competitor trends and see how your potential customers view your brand and activities.
Measuring your success
Creating a Twitter account and posting regular updates is just part of what should be involved in your Twitter marketing strategy. Measuring the success of your campaigns and reach of your Tweets should form an important part of your strategy. Seeing what is working and where improvements need to be made is vital for getting the most out of using the social media platform. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools and options for measuring your Twitter success.
- Track your links
If you’re using Twitter to share links, particularly those that link back to your website, you should make sure these links are traceable. This means you’ll be able to see how many people are intrigued enough by your content to learn more. Having a look at what is enticing customers to click on a link you have posted means you can make adjustments to future Tweets to improve your level of engagement.
- Chart your follower growth
If you’re posting interesting content and links that your audience want to know about you’ll notice that your number of followers grows too. Likewise, if users are finding your content boring or irrelevant they’ll stop following you. As a result, charting the number of followers you have is a useful indication for the quality of content you are sharing.
- Retweets and mentions
Twitter allows you to view how often your Tweets are shared or how many times you are mentioned in a new Tweet. This information will demonstrate how engaging the content you are sharing is and can give you an insight into how your customers view your brand. Retweets service your analytics as a health-indicator for your audience and what they like and expect from your brand.
Growing you followers
While not the only indication of success, the number of followers you have on Twitter is important. Without followers your message won’t be read and shared so growing the number of followers you have can help you boost your Twitter marketing strategy. There’s no single way to increase your followers but instead you need to use a combination of methods to reach more people.
Try following these tips to help grow the number of followers you have on Twitter:
- Search for professionals in your industry – Connect with people working within your industry. It can be useful to inform your own content marketing strategy and you can look at their followers for those you may want to engage with.
- Tweet regularly – People will delete and unfollow accounts that are inactive or post only sporadically. Make sure your tweeting regularly, 2-4 posts a day is a good benchmark.
- Don’t make it all about marketing – While it can be tempting to use your Twitter account to market your services and products only, your followers will quickly become bored. Instead post a mixture of promotional Tweets with interesting news and comments your audience will want to read and share.
- Inject some personality – You want to maintain a professional image while using Twitter but you need to strike a balance and inject some personality too. User are more likely to share your content this way, helping you to grow your followers.
- Time your Tweets – If you don’t have a dedicated Twitter marketing strategy it can mean Tweets are posted whenever you have a few spare minutes but you should think about what time your audience will be using the social media platform. You can use tools, such as Hootsuite, to schedule Tweets for the best times.
- Search for relevant topics – Keep an eye out and search for trending relevant topics on Twitter and then use these to engage and connect with new people.
Improving your Twitter engagement
While the number of followers you have on your account is important, the amount of engagement you have with your audience is arguably more valuable. Even statistical studies have shown this. Having fewer followers that engage with you, look forward to reading your Tweets and are potential customers means you could have a better opportunity to convert your Twitter marketing strategy into sales. Twitter engagement can encompass a number of different actions, such as retweeting a Tweet, clicking a link or responding to a Tweet you have posted.
Improve your Twitter engagement by following these tips:
- Engage with other users’ content – While many businesses are tempted to share only their own content, engaging with others and posting their videos, images or updates will boost your engagement.
- Share a variety of links – While promoting your brand is a priority in your marketing strategy sharing a variety of links is key for keeping your followers engaged and interested.
- Respond to Tweets – Twitter should create a two-way conversation between you and your customers. So don’t expect customers to respond to your Tweets if you’ve not doing the same.
- Utilize hashtags – Hashtags are an essential part of Twitter usage and can help boost engagement and reach a wider audience. Tweets with hashtags are more likely to be shared but use sparingly with one or two relevant tags per post.
- Post images and videos – Typically videos and images are far more likely to be shared than a simple written message. Social media platforms allow you to share information through a variety of forms so take advantage of this and post a wide variety of content.
