The 8 Essential Tips For Your Brand's Success on Twitter

The 8 Essential Tips For Your Brand's Success on Twitter

In as little as 6 years, Twitter has revolutionized the business world, taking a long stride as a crucial marketing tool. Twitter has transformed businesses marketing, customer service and more. From the innovations of Food Trucks using Twitter to change urban dining culture, to the announcement of breaking news before traditional media can publish a report, there is no doubt that Twitter is a powerful medium for humanity and businesses of all sizes. What began as a micro-blogging tool, has become a public platform for conversations, information exchange, business relations, market research, human interaction, and more. As a marketer or business owner are you making the most of this powerful platform? Find out how you can maximize your time and activity on Twitter from these 8 essential social media marketing tips.

YOUR TWITTER PROFILE

Research has found that 3 seconds is all you get when someone is viewing your page. In those three seconds, a viewer determines whether or not they will stay on the page and the amount of effort and attention they will put forth while on it. If a viewer chooses to keep looking, make it worthwhile. Provide enough for them to know you and your brand, but keep them curious enough to keep looking. Remember these tips when putting together your Twitter profile:

• Use a professional head shot / clear picture of you for a personal profile.
• When choosing your business profile picture consider using the logo, a picture of your product or a character that best fits the tone of your business.
• Write a bio that is clear, concise, and include a link to your website.
• Make sure to fill your entire twitter profile: include a background and header image with colors, shapes and styles that users can identify with your brand. This is a great opportunity for you to create your brand image on social, so take advantage of Twitter’s profile customization features.

WRITING EFFECTIVE TWEETS

With only 140 characters allowed, remember every letter or hashtag counts so choose wisely! On Twitter, short and sweet is always the way to go. From a marketing perspective, you want to talk about your product or business in a smart and engaging way, and always remember to put your followers first. Sincerely connect with your followers by writing relevant tweets and interacting via re-tweets, replys and direct messages. Here are some ways you can make your tweets more valuable to your followers:

• Ask yourself: does your tweet provide value, share your expertise or entertain your follower?
• Shorten the links you share with websites like Bit.ly or TinyURL.com and use their analytic tools to measure how many clicks it receives.
• Less is more! Tweets with less than 100 characters have a higher engagement rate than longer tweets.
• Use one or two #hashtags in your posts to make the information more accessible to users with the same interests. #Hashtags are searchable on Twitter, so they can help users find your profile more easily. Tweets with #hashtags receive two times the response than tweets without #hashtags; however, more than two #hashtags decreases engagement by 17% so don’t go overboard!
• Think of keywords that describe your brand and use them in your tweets as often as possible.

KNOW WHEN TO TWEET

Knowing when and how often to tweet is essential for getting the most out of this medium. Be smart about when and how often you tweet, and be considerate to avoid looking like spam. Choose the times and days you tweet wisely to reach your target customer. For instance, if you are marketing to teens, they are typically in school 8am – 3pm. Studies show that tweeting after the school day and on the weekends is a prime way to reach teens. Also take in to consideration time zones - 7pm PST is 11pm EST. When crafting your Twitter publishing schedule, remember to write and schedule tweets that will pique the interest of your target customer and encourage them to re-tweet your message to their friends and followers. The more active and involved you and your business are on Twitter, the more attention and eyes there will be on what you are doing and saying.

• Tweeting is a sure way to get more followers in addition to being the cheapest form of advertising- so tweet smart, and tweet often to reach your target customer.
• Check your tweets often to reply to any mentions of your brand.
• Don’t forget to tweet on the weekends! Research found a 17% increase in engagement rate on Saturday and Sunday compared to weekdays.
• Use apps like TweetWhen or Tweriod to formulate the best tweeting times based on your users’ profile and the success of your past tweets.

DO THE RESEARCH BEFORE YOU TWEET

Have a plan! Using Twitter can be your strongest marketing tool, but only if you know what you are trying to accomplish. We learned earlier that in order to write an effective tweet, you must be helpful and provide valuable content. It is hard to provide valuable content when you are unaware of what your audience wants and needs. Do your research to learn what they want, how they want it, and how your company can do something about it.

• Research your audience. This includes: who is it that you want to reach, as well as who you already reaching.
• Use applications that will help you research the profile of your followers. Use sites like demographicspro to find out who/what/where/when of your Twitter followers.
• Research keywords that your customers are reacting to, and include thos in your tweets.

WHAT TOOLS SHOULD YOU USE

Twitter is not just about broadcasting messages, it can also be a great source for customer / market research, sentiment analysis, competitor investigation and more. To maximize twitter as a marketing tool you should use tools to strategically engage and measure your effectiveness on the platform. Tools can help you identify marketing formulas that work, so you can repeat them to improve your overall success rates. Do not let Twitter overwhelm you; there are plenty of online resources and services that can enhance the way you execute and track your presence on Twitter.

• Get started by familiarizing yourself with the lingo in the Twitter glossary of terms!
• Sites like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sproutsocial help you with publishing, listening and monitoring. For example, the Hootsuite app allows you to send a tweet over text message so you can consistently update your twitter, even when on the go.
• Get organized! Tools like TweetDeck help you filter through conversations so you can find the ones to reply to, retweet or track.
• Find out what your Twitter presence and influence is by using Klout. Knowledge is power!
• Promote yourself on Twitter using PromoJam. Easily create branded Twitter apps like sweepstakes, contests, twee-to-unlock campaigns, download, coupon and promo code campaigns and more with this easy to use platform. PromoJam helps you grow your social audience, consumer engagement, and drive ROI on Twitter.

SMART ENGAGEMENTS

Remember the old saying, “tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are”? While your quantity of followers is important, the quality of your followers is just as important. Tweets are only as successful as the person who retweets it (SEO measurements are formulated taking into account the profile of your users who actively retweets your message). For this reason, it is important to cultivate useful and strong relationships where you help others and get help in return.

• Find the right people to follow based on your interests, organizational involvement, potential clients, and influencers in your field.
• Talk to people directly by using the @username feature. It will notify them and is proven to increase your following.
• Use icebreakers and introduce yourself over Twitter. Mention something relevant to the individual you are trying to reach- for example mention that you read their recent blog post and add what you thought about it.
• Remember to follow people back!

HOW TWITTER HELPS WITH SEO

Twitter not only allows you to share your brand image with the world but can also boost your website’s ranking on search engines. By actively engaging on Twitter through posts, retweets and brand mentions, you will increase the amount of content search engines can fetch when someone searches a keyword related to your company. More traffic means more potential clients; more clients means more sales. 

• Your Twitter bio is actually your meta description (the description that comes up on search engines). Write a professional bio that briefly describes your business or brand using keywords.
• Make sure the profile name matches the website or brand name, for example: if your company is called South Bay Cycling, your twitter name can be shortened to SBCycling.
• Use Twitter to promote your blog or website by updating users on the latest content with the link.
• Have your website visitors follow you by adding a Twitter Follow button to your site. You can also embed your Twitter stream into your website, which dramatically helps with SEO.

You have now learned the essentials for effectively using Twitter to enhance your business. Never forget the Twitter motto, “short and sweet!” Choose your 140 characters wisely and be sure to always put your users first! Making the right connections, staying active, and knowing when to Tweet are all on the road to success when using Twitter.