Online advertising is now more effective and inexpensive as ever and Twitter has become a go-to platform for meeting business’ goals with these two concepts in mind. But this form of advertising is a two-way street that may seem overwhelming. It involves conversation, community, and knowing how to interact with your customers (and potential ones) in a way that only your business can.
Ultimately, there are three major problems that businesses face when using social networks such as Twitter:
- They don’t know how to use them
- They don’t know how to use them effectively, or
- They don’t have time to learn about or engage with the platforms.
If you’re running into any one of these problems, worry not! Here are a few tips and tricks that will save you time from searching through meaningless answers and unhelpful tutorials.
Create A Twitter Account For Your Business
In order to properly advertise on Twitter, you need to create an account. Simply spreading hashtags around and getting people to tweet about your business is good for events and trends.However, when you’re trying to establish a social presence, an account on the social network is key. Sometimes literally! An account will give you access to Twitter’s advertising page, where you can create cards and promote your tweets.
Identify Your Business Goals
There has to be a purpose behind creating a Twitter page and creating a social presence. Are you looking to gain followers who can become loyal customers? Are you creating a campaign and want to get people talking? Or do you simply want users to be aware of your brand? Having a clear reason for being on Twitter with an end goal in mind will make your results more identifiable. This will save you the trouble of wondering what you’re doing right or wrong and why.
Hire Brand Ambassadors
Having representatives for your brand will get the ball rolling for your online marketing efforts. Having actual users on Twitter to talk about you and spark conversation can lead to powerful ways of being found online. You can find people who are already loyal customers and hire them to express themselves with your brand. You can also have your employees tweet about your new product. Anyone who is more than happy to be an advocate for your brand will create more customers, more advocates, and more loyal customers. The more brand ambassadors you have, the better!
Get Twitter Cards
Twitter users scroll through tweets faster than the swipe of a thumb, so your advertisement has to be eye-catching. Luckily, Twitter has an outstanding way to make your advertisement noticeable using Twitter cards. These are images, gifs, or videos that are embed with a link to your account or landing page. What makes these cards stand out is that they zoom in and out of your image – something that no other form of media on Twitter can do! Because of this, Twitter cards allow your advertisement to stand out and make users do a double-take when scrolling through their timeline.
Now down to the specifics. When creating advertisements in the form of Tweets, it’s important to remember the following:
HARD SELLING WILL NOT WORK
I capitalized this section title because it’s the NUMBER ONE way to start your Twitter advertising in the wrong direction. A call-to-action has to be relayed around your campaign or social network. Simply urging people to buy your product or service and dropping links left and right will not get you the results you’re looking for because 1)people know when they’re being sold to, and 2)there’s already too much of that going on. It’s spam! Unless you have something to offer to make it worth their attention, users will simply keep scrolling.
If you decide to use hard selling anyway, try an approach that offers value 90% of the time, and your call-to-action 10% of the time. This method is called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, meaning you repeatedly give them whatever you have to offer without a catch, and the amount of reciprocity will bring them in for a right hook to buy.
Be Relevant
Just like Tumblr has a unique audience, Twitter has a userbase that’s all about short and sweet. Describe your campaign or business in 140 characters or less, and apply holidays, new releases, or special events to your tweet to be a part of what’s going on in the present.
Stick To The Trends
Hashtags created on your own are less likely to spark attention than hashtags that have already caught fire. Luckily this social network also has a “Trending Now” section, which allows to you to find out what people are talking about on Twitter. If you can tailor whatever hashtag is being used to your business or campaign, you know how to properly use Twitter. If you can find these trends before they appear, congratulations, you’ve mastered this social network!
Identify Your Market Audience
Follow users that fit your target market, and create a majority of tweets that are designated for that audience. They’ll begin to follow you back and engage with your posts. However, if you’ve caught the attention of another market that’s giving you a lot of attention, keep doing what works and innovate from there. For example, if you’re a custom home builder in San Antonio looking to reach millennials but are finding stay-at-home mothers retweeting most of your content, make a majority of your content relative to mothers and create the transition to engage with their children.
Use The Platform
Don’t just throw content and run! Engage with people who reply to you. Scheduling your posts with a social media management dashboard is an efficient way to get your tweets out in a timely manner, but automating a conversation or reply is a no-no. People appreciate authenticity, so be a face behind your brand as often as possible.
Study your Analytics
Being able to interpret analytics is a powerful way to be effective at Twitter. There is a Twitter page dedicated to showing you how much activity is going on throughout your page. To be able to understand how many views, retweets, and followers your page is getting over a period of time will allow you to see the results of your campaign, event, or advertisement, and adjust your strategy to improve the outcomes of your goal.
Remember: You don’t have to engage in your Twitter campaign alone! Social media marketing companies like Digital Marketing Sapiensprovide solutions designed to achieve your goals. You’re an expert at what you do, but you don’t have to be an expert in internet marketing. That’s what we’re here for. Contact us to see what Digital Marketing Sapienscan do for you.
By Ramil Rodriguez, Digital Sapien
This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com
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