Digital marketing is providing some serious competition to traditional marketing these days, and the borders between consumers and businesses are blurring more and more every day thanks to social media. But to use this situation to its advantage, brands must include a specific platform in their social media strategy: Twitter. Why use Twitter for business and not just pleasure, you ask? Well, read on and you’ll find out!
Brand Awareness
Perhaps the most basic function of any business social media strategy is to increase brand awareness online, making sure that consumers and potential clients can instantly recognise who you are. One of the main advantages of using Twitter for business is that the platform makes this a pretty easy affair. Twitter comes with all the resources you need to spread your brand’s message far and wide – including an entire advertising platform ripe for the using.
Often, however, businesses are left unconvinced because their content is glossed over by target users time and time again. Imagine if you will that Twitter is a high-speed motorway. Your brand message has to be simple, bold and engaging enough to draw your target market’s attention as they speed along. When you find that winning combination, you’ll quickly find you’re recognised online more often than you ever thought possible.
Audience Research
Thanks to Twitter’s huge user base, you’re pretty much guaranteed to find your target market on there somewhere. Whether you’re looking to engage with businesses of a specific industry in the North West or any student in the United Kingdom, there’ll be a sizeable chunk to analyse for your strategy. That analysis can take place using either the content they share, the people they follow or the words in their biography. If instead you find an account with all the followers who fit your target market, simply employ a tool such as Follower Wonk to find out more about them and adjust your social media campaign accordingly. Easy!
Customer Service
There’s no escaping consumer feedback in some form or another. Whereas obscure reviews on different sites can be ignored, to a degree, angry words on Twitter make for an unavoidably awkward exchange. Using Twitter for business to customer interaction allows you to respond to these complaints (and the positive comments too), saving more heartbreak than you yet know, and will help your social media management team to generate loyalty and trust for your brand. Don’t forget to train any in-house social media staff on responding politely, however, or you’ll see the situation spiral out of control.
Content Distribution
A key part of any social media strategy is content – and Twitter is an ideal channel to distribute this content and watch it soar. By targeting content towards the right users through popular hashtags and conversations, a brand can easily get its message out to the right people. Even better is the ease with which things are shared on Twitter, making for a juicy increase in impressions.
Creative Thinking
Being limited to 140 characters can be an absolute pain, but let’s look at the glass as being half full, shall we? This is a chance for your business to get creative with its social media strategy and use visual content to get across however much of your message you can’t express in words. It’s also a chance to give your brand a unique tone and voice that will contribute to its digital identity.
Keeping in Touch
Above all else, Twitter is a conversational platform. We’re not recommending you go off and shoot the breeze with internet users on irrelevant and random topics, but by including some of that conversation in your social media strategy, you’ll soon find yourself building fantastic relationships with your target market. This freedom to engage with your customer base is one of the greatest benefits of using Twitter for business ends, and will pay you back dividends.
We’re a social media agency in Manchester and we love showing brands how to use Twitter for business marketing. If you’re looking for a helping hand in getting your tweets off the ground, get in touch and we’d be happy to provide a consultation.
Happy tweeting!