If you really want to get the most out of Twitter, your feed needs to be engaging and interesting. Here are five things you can do to market your business on Twitter more effectively.
Twitter gives you access to over 321 million active users a month, with 126 million people using the site daily. Among them are potential clients/customers, business partners, sponsors and community leaders, all of whom can contribute to your business – whether in the form of sales, growth opportunities or image-building – in a meaningful way. Naturally, your Twitter account must be engaging enough to keep you front-and-center in people’s minds. Here are some ideas on marketing your business effectively on Twitter.
1. Don’t just tweet blog posts
Awesome blog posts are shared generously by Twitterati, but that doesn’t mean you should limit your tweets to blogs only. There’s so much you can share to keep your Twitter account diverse, interesting and buzzing. We can’t put a number to it, and what you can share is only limited by your creativity and imagination. These seven tweet ideas are just the tip of the Twitter content sharing iceberg:
- Have you come across a new tool or app that your target audience will find useful? Write a short description and share the link to the app/tool.
- Is there an interesting discussion around one of your Facebook posts or any Facebook post concerning your industry? Highlight and link it to start a Twitter conversation.
- Have you joined a new community or forum? Spread the word with a user name/link tweet.
- Is there an event coming up that could be of interest to your community? Flag the event and include a link to the details.
- Discovered a useful Google Chrome extension? Share it to let your follower know you are serious about helping them.
- If you’re off to an event, share the hashtag and link to the event during, before or after.
- Link to a YouTube video of interest to your industry/niche.
You cannot expect people to buy from you or associate with you without first earning their trust. With Twitter, the focus should be on building a community of loyal followers who trust you to deliver quality, authoritative content and answer their questions. You can, of course, link to your service page, offer a teaser/sound bite of your upcoming product and announce your blow-out sale or discounts. However, you should avoid creating noise with overt marketing messages on Twitter or any social media site for that matter.
RELATED: How to Write Good Tweets
2. Follow trends and hashtags
Keep an eye out for trending hashtags and topics and see how you can make a relevant connection to your brand. When you put your business among the trending topics, your handle will be seen by people searching for tweets surrounding that particular hashtag. Use Trendsmap to stay on the pulse of the top trending hashtags on Twitter for any location in the world. You can also use Google Trends to understand what your audience is searching for online and create valuable, useful content around it. Tagging your posts with one or more trending and relevant hashtags is one of the simplest ways of reaching new users. But do it with care: avoid using too many hashtags or attaching hashtags to irrelevant content as this may be perceived as Twitter spam.
3. Get in on potential local customers
One of the advantages of Twitter as a marketing tool is that it enables you to reach out to potential customers in your own backyard. If you want to connect with local customers who live and work near your business, Twitter Advanced Search will bring up a list of people who are tweeting from or near your location. You can start following them to add them to your list of potential local customers. Once you’ve done that, the next step would be to engage them and build your community of valuable followers.
4. Create Twitter coupons
Social coupons have been seen to motivate purchases. Creating one for Twitter is easy. With a social coupon platform like TwtQpon, you can create three types of online coupons on Twitter:
- A percentage online coupon, such as “50% off”
- A money discount online coupon, such as “$35.00 off”
- A free product in-store coupon, such as “FREE Pillsbury Sweet Rolls Package with the purchase of Two Fragrance Boosters”
Twitter coupons offer a mutually beneficial social opportunity. Your followers are likely to find them quite irresistible!
5. Track mentions and respond when you spot a business opportunity
Tracking brand mentions and keywords is a good way to listen in on what’s being said about you. Customers are increasingly using social media channels – including Twitter – to complain about or ask about a product. You can use Twitter as a customer service channel to clear the air about a rumor surrounding your latest launch or apologize and assure action if followers have posted complaints. Tools such as Twazzup and Hootsuite are useful to make tracking mentions easier.
By monitoring Twitter conversations, you can also come across potential sales opportunities. For instance, say you are an accounting firm in Florida and set up a search for “accounting firm Florida” or “accountant Florida”. When you find someone in Florida tweeting that she is looking for an accounting firm for her home business, you can jump right in and invite her to visit your establishment or direct her to your website.
