Before the likes of Instagram and TikTok ever came onto the scene, Twitter had risen to become one of the most popular social media sites available and remains so even today. Twitter, along with many social media sites, is used daily by not only the everyday person, but also by some of the biggest (and smallest) businesses out there as yet another advertising and marketing stream.
Sometimes, it takes users a while to even realize they are being advertised to. Twitter advertising and marketing has become so baked into the social media platform as businesses have learned how to post content that is relevant and seamless with users’ typical Twitter experience.
Twitter offers businesses the chance to advertise to every type of demographic possible – whether they are current customers or not, allowing them to discover new products and services in a more or less non-intrusive way; something that traditional marketing channels may not have the power to provide. However, it takes more than just a tweet every now and then for a business’s Twitter advertising strategy to be successful. Be sure that your company takes advantage of the following tips on how to use Twitter for business in order to fully maximize the potential of this mega-platform.
Keep tweets short and sweet (or not)
The biggest thing to remember when your business is considering Twitter advertising is that your content is limited in terms of the number of characters available for each tweet. This means that businesses need to find a way to advertise themselves as succinctly and as cleverly as possible, while still making sure the content stands tall above the rest.
The truth is a lot can be said in 280 characters or less. You just need a way to find a way to connect with followers that syncs with your brand image, to ensure your business sticks in the minds of your followers.
A perfect example of a brand with a Twitter marketing and advertising strategy that is informative, clever, and most of all, relatable, is Wendy’s. Here are a few examples of how they do this:
- Casual tone: The Wendy’s Twitter advertising team adopts a friendly and casual tone with their tweets, using common slang and speaking like a regular human instead of a major operation, which can be very appealing to the average Twitter user.
- Timely tweets: The tweets put out by the team often refer to popular trends and current events and how they relate to them, which helps with both relatability and steering the highly-visible conversation back toward their products (in this case, their menu).
- Clever and diverse content: Wendy’s posts a lot of diverse content and leverages some of Twitter’s other popular tools, such as the polls feature, encouraging followers to interact with them and participate. The team will also reply to tweets posted by followers and even their competitors to poke fun, incite debates, and drum up lots of media attention, which is an advertiser’s dream.
Those are some of the ways that this business has leveraged Twitter for their specific advertising and marketing needs. However, what works for one business might not always be the case for others. So, it is crucially important that your business figure out what works for you and to switch things up if your current strategy doesn’t seem to be working.
Include images and other media
Ideally, when you post a tweet to your business’s Twitter feed, you don’t want your followers to scroll right past it without even registering what it’s saying. Chances are though, if your tweet only contains text, that’s exactly what they’ll do (especially if they are not overly familiar with your business). People are visual creatures. So why would your business’s Twitter followers be any different? Liven up your Twitter advertising with some visual content to catch their eyes and to, hopefully, leave an impression.
Visual content can take many forms. From photos, to graphics, to videos, there are a bunch of ways to help your feed look a lot more exciting and eye-catching. Even though you’re limited to 280 text characters per tweet, adding images is an easy way to add an extra 1,000 words or so!
On the other hand, sometimes less is more. Depending on your business, it may not make sense to go overly flashy by including multi-media elements with every post. Despite what you may be thinking, it can be possible to have too much of a good thing. Twitter marketing professionals who mix up their content regularly have a higher likelihood of finding that perfect ratio between multi-media and text posts that can engage followers while also effectively promoting their business.
Retweet to increase engagement
It’s important for Twitter marketers and advertisers to engage with the Twitter community on behalf of their business in order to drum up interest and promote their products and services. And not just that, advertisers need to show that the business is competent and competitive in its field, whether that be the restaurant industry, technology, retail, etc. This invites a higher level of trust from followers and helps to ensure that these followers view the business as the real deal.
One way to increase engagement from your business’s community is to retweet posts from accounts that are creating interesting content relevant to your business market. Retweet posts from recent studies conducted in your field; informative infographics; and tweets from your customers (especially if they are recommending your business to others). As well, as counterintuitive as it may seem, don’t be afraid to retweet your competitors. You can still gain followers and market clout this way, especially if you build onto the tweet adding your own information demonstrating your expertise in the industry.
Retweeting others also breaks up your business’s Twitter feed so that it is not just filled with posts from its account. You want your business to be an engaged member of the overall community rather than stuck in its own little silo.
Leverage hashtags to extend reach
Hashtags are also a great way for your business to expand your Twitter advertising and reach users who may not actually follow your business’s account but follow a related topic on the site. Research some of the most popular hashtags in your industry and use them in tweets so that any users who may be running adjacent to your business will discover you and become part of your Twitter community.
The importance of hashtags is vital to your business’s visibility on Twitter. Like mentioned above, sometimes users follow hashtags rather than specific accounts in order to get a well-rounded sense of an industry so it’s important to get on their radar. As well, we all know that great hashtags have the power to turn viral. If your business can leverage a viral hashtag to promote itself, this will further increase the visibility of your account. So be sure to keep an eye on the trending hashtags and jump on any that are relevant to your field (or any that are simply fun) and join the conversation!
Maintain an active presence
A fatal mistake for any Twitter advertising strategy is inactivity. The more you tweet, the more you are seen by your followers and others in your industry. It’s crucial to maintain an active presence on the platform to optimize engagement and bolster traffic to both your page and website.
Depending on the size of your organization, it may or may not be feasible to dedicate a full-time resource to your business’s social media advertising and marketing. This is why an automated Twitter scheduling solution can help ensure your business is tweeting regularly in order to maximize your visibility. An automated solution allows Twitter advertisers to plan, create, and schedule months worth of tweets ahead of time and have them post to your business’s feed automatically when the scheduled time is reached, saving so much time and manpower!
“But what about everything you said before about engaging and interacting with followers?”
Scheduling and automating Twitter posts is meant to supplement these other Twitter practices, not replace them. For example, maybe your business has one or two days a week where you are able to devote the time and energy to like, comment, retweet, and otherwise engage with the Twitter community on behalf of your business. That leaves at least five other days where you need to uphold your presence. By having some automated posts in your back pocket, this reduces your need to worry about being on the platform whenever you have a spare minute, because you know that your feed will continue to be updated on a regular basis and your Twitter advertising strategy will remain on track.
Looking for a tool to improve your Twitter advertising?
Twitter an extremely beneficial channel that can do wonders for a business’s overall visibility, so it would be foolish for marketers and advertisers not to consider as part of their marketing plans. But, you may need help in the automation department if you want to really make your presence known on the platform.
SimplyCast provides a Twitter automation and scheduling tool that Twitter advertisers can use to beef up their Twitter strategies. This tool allows advertisers to post links, images, and other multi-media to help with the diversification of content. A character counter also ensures that all tweets are 280 characters or fewer and auto-follow and auto-message features can be enabled as well.
Request a one-on-one demo of the SimplyCast Twitter automation solution by clicking the button below and let us know if your business has a use case that we may be able to help solve with our all-in-one engagement automation platform!
