Twitter, the online social networking and microblogging service known for "tweets", are getting more and more popular among businesses. Although Twitter's user base is smaller than Facebook and has different type of approach, Twitter is more likely to attract power users who want to engage with brands on social media.
Twitter allows brands to have authentic real-time conversations with their customers, regardless if it is for customer service, general feedback or a promotion. With 140 characters, messages/tweets that are kept simple can drive more people to recognize a brand. This is because small messages usually convey information that are straight forward.
For brands, Twitter is a technological advancement that is companies to solve age old problems - reaching customers; increasing engagement and awareness; and developing loyalty.
Creating Your Objectives
The first point to understand before doing any campaign for your brand on Twitter is is to figure out what are your overall business objectives, and to understand how social media and Twitter will be a contributing factor in the overall strategy.
With these objectives clearly in mind, the next consideration is to figure out what you will be measuring against. This is done by figuring out whether you want your Twitter followers to create a funnel, or subscribe to newsletters, etc.. After your objectives have been identified, then a strategy and implementation plan comes next.
Below are several typical usages for Twitter:
- Sales Channel. Brands use Twitter to announce deals or offer discounts and coupons.
- PR or Corporate Communications. Using Twitter to broadcast corporate messages.
- HR Recruitment and Careers. Providing information for hiring new recruits.
- Customer Service. To to create relationship to customers, hear what they have to say about products/services and reply for complaints.
Boosting Your Brand
Twitter has replaced traditional media in many ways. The social media has unique growing influence and differences that are seen to be original and different to help companies overcome problems in branding their business. Twitter accounts should typically have a combination of the four components below:
- Conversation is what makes Twitter social. Communication is what keeps the conversation going. Accounts that doesn't contribute to two-way communication can quickly viewed as spam accounts.
- Content creation and distribution on Twitter is suitable to deliver information that are created by companies.
- Curation is common on Twitter. Rather than focusing on your own contents, you can use Twitter to uncover the most relevant news out there. Social curation enables marketers to tap into what people are already saying and then use it to promote their products in an effective and authentic way.
- News has been on Twitter since the very beginning. As a real-time source of information, Twitter is a place where news can go viral.
- Customer Service is also common on Twitter. People can engage in conversation directly with the people in charge easily.
There are several ways you can use to grow your brand on Twitter. These include integrating your account with bio and link, listening to people that talk about you, demonstrating your expertise to establish authority in a certain field, providing offers, identifying leads to find interesting contacts, creating contests, conducting surveys, and so forth.
Conclusions
The most important point in using Twitter for a social media to grow your brand is to know what you want to achieve. This is done by creating measurable goals and then test them to learn the outcome.
First of all, it's essential to find an editorial line that respects the followers. Secondly, it's important to think of this as a longer-term project, without concerning immediate results. Third, a Twitter feed must be properly managed. And finally, Twitter cannot work as a standalone.
Dealing with a place that has the ability to generate much attention, you must pay attention to what is happening and predict what may happen. Below is some guiding principles you can follow.
- Consider your objectives and allocate the right resources.
- Listen to what people say about you, test your methods and learn to be creative
- Give before expecting in return
By properly advancing your effort on Twitter, being ahead in the world where tweets and share are common is not anymore impossible.