We are now living in an almost completely digital age. For small business owners, this means social media has become not only a place for updates, but a fully-fledged marketing canvas. It isn’t as easy as simply uploading content, however; like anything in business, thorough knowledge and strategy is needed to succeed. Master these tactics, though, and you’ll be reaching more prospective clients than ever before.
Twitter is often overlooked as a marketing tool in favour of other networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, but its value shouldn’t be underestimated. The site hosts many features that you can use to your advantage. Here’s why and how you can get the most out of Twitter for your business.
Abundant opportunities to show expertise specific to your industry
Twitter provides to-the-minute information, allowing you to understand what’s going on in your industry at all times. You can search key terms or use hashtags to find more specific conversations. What this allows you to do is find people who have in interest in your area and communicate with them. Simply jumping into conversations where you can add value helps to position yourself as an expert in the field.
In short, you can achieve the end-goal of creating lengthy original content like blog posts in under 280 characters. Of course, this isn’t a substitute for in-depth content, but it is a fantastic way to further your standing as a leader in your field and place yourself in consumers’ eye-line with little effort.
Visibility doesn’t rely on followers or likes
Unlike Facebook, where only those who have liked your page can see your updates, Twitter allows you to be seen by a whole community if you know how to brand your tweets correctly.
Hashtags are a fantastic way to do this. Using the relevant hashtag for the subject of your tweet means anyone who clicks on or searches for that term will see your post. The art in this is either finding a pre-used popular hashtag for the subject or creating one yourself that is easily searchable to maximise your visibility.
A line of direct customer support
Twitter can be a fantastic place to answer FAQ or customer support queries. This gives the public a view of your customer care, answers the same question for others without you having to constantly repeat yourself and places your brand onto the timeline of users who follow the question asker.
Retweets can go a long way
While on Facebook some users may be reluctant to share posts they agree with or endorse for the fear of clogging up their friends’ newsfeeds, on Twitter, sharing is very common.
A simple re-tweet from somebody else means your post will then show up in their followers’ timelines. If somebody else then likes or re-tweets it from there, the roll on continues – and all of a sudden your post has the eyes of hundreds or thousands of people. It’s no wonder that Twitter is far and away the easiest platform to go viral on. Writing tweets that can be easily shared can be a winning formula for your business.
Promotion is tried and true
The old adage of “you don’t get anything for free” is partly true in the case of Twitter. No doubt you’ll be able to make marketing inroads without paying for promotion, but it’s no secret that the benefits are reaped tenfold with it.
Promoted tweets can be seen in a number of ways. Twitter officially states that promoted tweets can be seen in the following manners:
- At the top of relevant search results pages on twitter.com;
- In search results for a promoted trend (users may also see a promoted tweet in the search results when they click on a Promoted Trend);
- Home timelines (based on an algorithm of relevancy, based on interests, demographic, region etc.);
- User profiles; and
- Official twitter clients.
You can also choose to market your tweets to a particular demographic or region, giving you the best chance of connecting with those who are more likely to be interested in your services or products.
Is Twitter right for your business?
Twitter is fantastic for service-based businesses. Given the site doesn’t revolve around photos and videos (though they can be utilised), your words are given more focus. For service-based businesses that perhaps don’t have as much visual content to contribute, this is perfect.
Any business that receives a lot of customer service enquiries will be well-suited to Twitter as well.
Need a hand with your social media marketing?
We realise that for some people, constantly managing every aspect of your social media marketing can be exhausting or just not realistic. We can help: get in contact with us today for top-class assistance. Our market-leading expertise in social media engagement and planning will guarantee you results.