How To Use Twitter For Digital Marketing
Twitter was never meant to be a business marketing platform, but many brands have managed to use it very effectively for this purpose. For the novice, Twitter poses a huge headache – how do you grow a large following and promote your business with just 140 characters of text? Here are our top tweeting tips.
Use A Personal Profile
Many businesses set up corporate profiles, and while this is a good idea for larger companies, Twitter works best when used by individuals. Twitter is about communicating with like-minded people, and you will get much more engagement if you tweet as yourself. Customers, clients and prospective business partners want to communicate with a person, not a faceless corporate entity.
Let’s look at a few CEO v’s Brand examples to help demonstrate this concept.
- Richard Branson 9.22M – 226K Virgin
- Jeremy Corbyn 696K – 367K The Labour Party
- Jeremy Clarkson 6.55M – 1.95M BBC Top Gear
OK, these are very high-profile celebrities, but it does demonstrate that people are far happier to follow an individual than a brand. While you may not have the celebrity status of some of the top CEOs in the country, you can be sure that people will still be more interested in talking to you than to your company badge.
Don’t Be A Salesman
Avoid the temptation to do nothing other than promote yourself or your company. This follows on from above, but needs emphasising. To start with, you need to build a strong following and this is impossible if all you do is tweet about your business. Do that, and people will be put off for good.
Share Information
Twitterers who share good quality, timely and unique information will build a larger audience than those who just write random posts with the occasional business promo thrown in. You want people to be surprised, enthralled, intrigued or simply shocked with your tweet – by triggering a positive emotional response you will increase engagement, which will grow your social media profile.
Make People Laugh
People respond to humour very well on Twitter. If you want more followers, crack a few jokes now and then. It’s no surprise that some of the most popular celebrities on Twitter are comedians – they provide some light relief during the working day after all. However, don’t try to be the next Ricky Gervais or Stephen Fry, still be yourself. Also, always think carefully before you joke around – it is very easy to offend somebody with an attempt at humour, and this can wreck your reputation. Look at @Innocent for a masterclass in using humour.
Ask Your Staff To Link Up
It can be hard for a business to make headway on Twitter, but one way to kickstart a campaign is to ask staff to retweet and reply to tweets. This can help to quickly build up some engagement on your profile, which should help to build your profile faster.
Join Follow Friday
Follow Friday used to be much bigger on Twitter than it is today, but it is still a good way to politely ask for some new followers. Simply use the hashtag #FF when connecting with people and hopefully they will follow you back – remember to follow them first though!
Ask Questions
Some people love to help, and others just love to look clever. Either way, asking a specific person a question that is relevant to your business is a good way to encourage them to reply and engage with you.
Stick To The Plan
Most people give up on Twitter before it brings in any business. Our biggest tip is to set a tweeting schedule and stick to it. Even if you are just making a few tweets every Friday lunchtime, make sure you never forget. Use scheduling tools if you will be away, and install the app on your phone so you can easily tweet from any location.
If you are struggling to gain any meaningful traction on your Twitter account, or other social media platforms, contact FSE Digital today. Our social media managers will be able to advise how you can grow your audience and make Twitter part of your marketing arsenal.
