Updated: 31.03.2021
For many organisations, Twitter remains one of the most effective tools to get your business noticed; it reminds your existing customers why they use your services and encourages their continued loyalty, and it grabs the interest of potential new customers who may have passed your business by otherwise. The level of interaction Twitter offers with your desired audience is one of its unique qualities that makes it stand out amongst its competitors.
Harnessing Twitter’s best bits can be simple if you live and tweet by a few top tips. So what is the trick to getting your business’ message across in a mere 140 characters?
1) Ensure your Twitter profile is complete and reflects your brand
It sounds obvious but it’s surprising how many so-called professional Twitter profiles remain incomplete. A succinct description, which aptly sums up what your business does, is essential. No one will bother to follow you if they can’t even work out what the business is. They are also likely to lose interest if they can’t work out where you are. Although we do a lot of our business online these days, customers will at least want to know what country you’re based in.
Twitter allows you to include links in your bio so utilise this to drive followers to your website. You may even link to a Facebook page or blog – choose the link that will benefit your business the most.
And don’t forget the aesthetics. Your profile picture, background and header photo should work in harmony and reflect your brand in the best light. Your logo or a high quality image of your business’ frontage tend to work best as profile pictures. Your header and background can be used to advertise what you do. For example, Digital Glue’s header adds that bit of extra advertising that we couldn’t squeeze into the bio.
If you need a hand branding your business Twitter, then say hello to our design team on [email protected]
2) Follow the RIGHT people
There’s no use following anyone and everyone, and luckily Twitter makes it easy to target the right audience for your business. You can start by simply searching for keywords in the Twitter search bar to track down the audience you want. For example, if you run a camera shop in Manchester then a quick search of ‘photographers Manchester’ will bring up your target audience. Following and interacting with these potential customers will encourage them to follow you and hopefully pay you a real life visit!
To advance on this, you can use tools such as Twitter Analytics to check up on who your followers are following and interacting with. Your circles will gradually begin to expand as you find more and more people in your niche.
3) Talk with and listen carefully to your audience
Building up a huge number of followers is all well and good but it’s the interaction with these followers that is most important. Your followers want to know you’re there and you’re listening. You should be checking for any interaction at least once a day. If an account follows, favourites or retweets, you should ask yourself the following questions:
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Are they a potential customer?
If yes, follow them. A follow is the beginning of a conversation. If they have followed you, then personally thank them. It will show a more human side to your business and encourage their loyalty.
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Can they help your business move forward?
For example, an expert in your field who could be very influential in helping your business grow. Follow them and interact with them. Build a relationship. Retweets or mentions by an influential figure with a substantial amount of followers equals more followers for you!
Always focus on replies and mentions. Every time you check Twitter throughout the day, you should first check for direct messages and mentions, and reply.
Search for your business name. Sometimes, people talk about your business without using your Twitter username. You should regularly check Twitter for people who mention your business name by creating a search and saving it.
4) Make your tweets interactive
It is very easy to mindlessly scroll through Twitter. Keeping this in mind, you need to make your tweets jump out at your followers and grab their attention. As often as possible you should include images, links and videos in your tweets. Text alone rarely makes a tweet interesting. Statistics show that people are more likely to read your stuff online if you include pictures. This means that just by adding photos to your tweets, you can greatly increase the amount of attention they get. Research shows adding an image to a tweet boosts retweets by an impressive 35%.
After all, the most retweeted tweet in history was an image. Although that may have had something to do with the presence of all the movie stars…
5) Know the right times to tweet
Tweeting at the right time is a skill that can make all the difference in growing your success on Twitter. You could compose a great tweet but posting it at 4.12am, when most of your followers are UK based and therefore probably sleeping, isn’t going to achieve the required engagement.
You can use Twitter Analytics to see what times your tweets achieve the most attention. Based on this, use apps such as Hootsuite and Buffer to schedule tweets at certain times. This can also save you precious business time. If you find yourself too busy to tweet in the day-to-day running of your business, take time one evening a week to schedule tweets for the next few days.
6) Keep it relevant
If you sell shoes, tweet about shoes and shoe-related topics, whatever they may be. Don’t confuse and alienate your customers by going off on one about something completely irrelevant. Your personal and political rants should generally be saved for your personal Twitter.
The same applies for what you retweet to your followers. Your retweets should add something extra to the message you are already sharing. Sticking with the shoe theme, if your target audience is businessmen looking for smart shoes, retweeting the latest Twitter beef between Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson is more than likely not going to engage them, and they’ll soon be clicking that unfollow button.
Start your week by brainstorming conversation topics and themes for the next few days. Use Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule tweets centred on these ideas. Use the same hashtags so your followers become familiar with the discussion and join in.
7) Don’t be afraid to repeat
According to recent studies, the average life-span of a tweet is just 18 minutes. This means that the largest number of impressions and interactions your tweet will get will be in the first half hour or so. This life-span increases based on the number of active followers you have. Having a large number of followers helps with the impressions side of things. If another user with 1000 followers retweets your tweets, then it means that another 1000 people will be potentially seeing your tweet. Therefore interactions that your tweets get extend your tweet’s lifespan substantially.
This means you can afford to repeat the same information in your tweets. Want your followers to check out something on your website? Tweet the link every couple of hours, simply editing the tweet’s text slightly every time. Your followers that may have missed your first or second tweet with the link could catch it the third or fourth time.
If this has tickled your Twitter tastebuds and you want to learn more, get in touch with the team at Digital Glue and ask us how we have helped other businesses grow by utilising social media well.
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