Social media platforms are plentiful in the digital age. They offer a variety of services and features that can drastically expand your connectivity with others, and their networking nature makes them perfect to help you promote your business.
Easily, one of the best sites to use with this intention is Twitter. With approximately 330 million users and 500 million tweets published on a daily basis, it’s a very active site to post and share on, and is even used by some of the most famous Entrepreneurs. If you were to go to the explore page right now, select one of the trending stories, and then set the posts from ‘top’ to ‘latest’, you’ll find that newly created posts relating to it or shared tweets of the original are happening in seconds. This interpersonal relationship between a brand and its consumers on the app allows content to go viral easier, and a is good reason why you should be using Twitter to advertise your own company. Here are four tips to consider on how to make the most of your business on the platform:
Content
What would social media be without content? Content is the first and foremost reason that drives users to the platform. There are countless topics to post about regarding your business, ranging from what it does to what you’ll be doing shortly. The only question is how you are going to do this.
You should be doing more than just writing about your business. As with Facebook – and pretty much any other social media site – there’s a plethora of features at your disposal, including (but not limited to):
- Photos. These can be of your products or employees who are enjoying their work.
- Gifs. They can show, in brief, how something works, providing an easy understanding for users.
- Videos. A more detailed look at your service, product, and who is working for your business. This can include interviews with employees and satisfied customers.
- Polls. Want to know something about your audience? Ask a question and let them select their answer.
The important thing here is not to limit yourself to one particular style. Different people are more engaged by different styles of content, so display a variety of different media to maintain customers and gain new ones.
Hashtags
They’re everywhere. The number sign, or # symbol, has a rich history to it. Its early uses for the internet were on an IRC in 1988, but it wasn’t until 2007 when it properly became known as a hashtag thanks to – unsurprisingly – Twitter.
You’re probably wondering “how do hashtags work” and “what purpose do they serve”, aren’t you? Well, the answers to those questions can be provided in one fell swoop: it’s purely a method of indexing. By typing in a word or phrase that has received the hashtag treatment on Twitter – or any search engine, for that matter – it will show relevant content that has the hashtag applied to it. Obviously, a major contender for what you could hashtag will be your business’ name, the service/product it provides, as well as any upcoming events that might be taking place that you’re involved in. You could also jump onto the bandwagon of a new trend as a way to promote yourself, but don’t get too cocky. You may find that what you do will be viewed as cringe-inducing.
Interaction and direct messaging
Remember – Twitter, just like all the other social media websites, is a social network. You’re not alone. Just like a crowded city square, it’s filled to the brim with many, many people. As with a person who you’re in the same room with, there’s nothing stopping you from speaking to them.
It’s good practice to interact with users, especially if they are customers. If they’re praising you for the work you’ve been doing and are satisfied by what you’ve done for them, reply to their post or comment to say that you’re glad about that. Customers who enjoy what you do and fully endorse it, called influencers, are a good way to promote your brand by showing other customers how pleased they are. These could even be well-known individuals, so you should mention them on your posts (using the @ symbol) or vice-versa as a method of endorsement. This will encourage others to seek out your business.
However, not all customers might have nice things to say; they could be issuing a complaint. While you can certainly discuss it by replying to their comments, the best thing you should do is to carry the conversation over to a direct message (DM for short). DM’s are a perfect way to handle customer service affairs, partly due to a tweet’s 280-character limit and how some customers wish to keep things private.
Tweet regularly, but have a schedule
If your business is active, so should your Twitter. There is a lot of debate as to how often you should be posting on Twitter, but it’s generally ideal to make at least 1-5 posts in a day. This may vary depending on what your business’ strategy is, but you should also be taking into account events that are taking place.
This is why you should still rely on a schedule. By doing so, you’ll know when your tweet will receive the most engagement, although the times this will happen will differ depending on your audience. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tweet outside of scheduled hours, especially if you’ve been mentioned by users and are needing to resolve an issue that they’re experiencing.
You should also make posts live during an event as it occurs, as this will be a great way to get a topic trending. Instead of just simply posting a new tweet each time, you can reply to the original one you created so that newcomers can read the thread and follow the story as it unfolds.
In Conclusion
Twitter is one of the most active social media sites that’s still being used to this day. It offers a large array of potential content for you to post that appeals to different individuals, while also allowing you to follow trends and create new ones using hashtags to help you get discovered. To show that you care about your business, let alone your customers, you must listen to what they have to say and respond to it, all while ensuring you create posts regularly with a schedule you have developed.
These were just a small number of tips that can guide you with using Twitter for your business. There are many other things that need to be taken into account. If you would like to learn more, contact us today at Floodmaker.