Can Twitter help you grow your business?
The answer is a resounding yes! For those who don’t know what Twitter is, to quote Hugh Hewitt, “Twitter is instant messaging made available to the public.”
That’s the long and short of it.
So Is Twitter an Important Social Media Tool for Businesses like yours?
Simply put, twitter should be a key tool in your marketing mix if you are looking to growth hack your business. Current estimates of total users on Twitter is over 300 million strong with an estimated 5 to 10 thousand new users daily. That is a great business opportunity for you.
With Twitter, you can post short messages of 140 characters (or tweets) as many times as you like. The good thing about Twitter is that there is a lower barrier of entry. You don’t have to accept friend requests before you start seeing other people’s updates.
All you have to do is follow other people on Twitter to see their tweets and when they follow you, they see yours. So what your business will benefit from is a constant stream of communication with your customers.
High profile people, industry leaders and experts all use Twitter so it is well worth your time and investment. Why don’t we hear what some social media experts have to say about Twitter.
Neil Patel, Quicksprout
Neil Patel is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom grow their revenue.
“When people click a link in a tweet, there tends to be a chain reaction: The more people clicking on your article via Twitter, the more exposure it gets.”
“When more people read your article, more people are likely to share your article. Your social signals will likely rise, which improves your SEO. More activity on your site will also increase user engagement metrics. With all the extra traffic, you’ll also gain more conversions, more sales, and more revenue.”
Larry Kim, Wordstream
Larry Kim is the founder of WordStream. He provides internet consulting services while managing a team of engineers and marketers to develop and sell software for search engine marketing automation.
“Most social media marketers already know that it’s important to leverage trending Twitter hashtags wherever possible.”
“What you might not realize is the extent to how ridiculously powerful a trending hashtag can be in terms of boosting the visibility of a tweet, or how huge the benefits are for your overall social presence.”
Kim Garst, Boom Social
Kim Garst is the Founder and CEO of Boom! Social, a personal branding and social media business consulting firm
“Twitter is my #1 source of social media referral traffic and consistently in the top 3 sources of my website traffic. As a whole I drive traffic to my free offers, which lead to “top of funnel” products and services with amazing results and the important part is, I can do it all for free!”
Some top businesses have even reported their success stories with twitter.
Computer Giants Dell use Twitter extensively. In fact, their Twitter account brought in $2 million in sales in the first 2 years of its operation!
Simply Measured, released some in-depth information about how the top businesses in the world use Twitter. Their report analyzed tweets from the Interbrand 100 and Forbes 100 best small businesses and discovered that their Twitter engagement was very high.
Successful businesses both large and small all use Twitter extensively and so should you.
So how can you effectively use Twitter to grow your business? Here’s how
It’s one thing to create a Twitter account, it’s another thing entirely to have an account that has multiple followers with healthy engagement. To reach out to your current customer base, appeal to new prospects, and win at social media marketing, there are several things that you need to do right.
You have to determine your purpose on Twitter. This is important because it allows you to create the best content for your followers. Twitter users are very diverse and there is a tendency to want to appeal to everyone while trying to sell or promote a particular product or service.
So focus on your expertise and specialize on that. A focused social media marketing message will attract users with similar interests.
An essential aspect of connecting and engaging with your followers is direct communication. If your business strategy is to sell, influence or promote, then effective communication is key. This would involve direct messaging and engagement with other users.
If on the other hand your business strategy is to use twitter as a tool for market analysis, provide customer service or to keep up to date with what’s trending, then you would need to follow appropriate twitter handles and utilize hash-tags to filter content to get the most relevant information.
Now that you’ve determined your purpose on twitter and know the content you wish to post to your followers, you’re half way there! For your business to truly prosper on Twitter, drive awareness and enhance revenues, you need the ultimate form of customer engagement- getting clicks.
This involves users following links in your tweets that would redirect them to your website, blog or all the way to the store to buy your product.
Getting clicks has proven to be notoriously difficult but these following tips should get people clicking on your links in due time if you keep at it. A little patience is required here because social media marketing like all other digital marketing strategies require time to start seeing results.
1. Use the Right Headlines
With millions of new tweets pouring in on a daily basis, sifting through them to find what’s relevant and interesting can be a daunting task. The sheer number of updates has turned people into scanners glancing at tweets for nanoseconds.
A study on copyblogger revealed that 80% of readers won’t make it past the headline. So it is imperative that you capture your reader’s attention. There are a lot of things competing for our attention, so your headline must awaken curiosity and pique interest to your benefit. According to wired the perfect headline can increase traffic by over 500%.
You should checkout the headline analyzer at AMInstitute and Coschedule to help you get your headlines right. i use them as well and they provide amazing results for me.
2. Use Images
A picture is worth a thousand words, quite literally. Images have the capacity to attract users instantaneously. The attention span of a human being is 8 seconds. 1 second shorter than a fish! Images increase attention spans by 82! This is because people are attracted to colours.
Ever wondered why road, danger and warning signs are in colour? Because people are likely to remember them so always include images especially when you are using Twitter as a social media marketing tool to promote your content.
Neil Patel also highlights the importance of using images, in particular infographics. “Infographics are one of the 15 types of content that generate massive traffic. Regularly sharing well-designed, interesting infographics can take your search traffic to the next level. I’ve been using infographics for a long time to drive targeted organic and social visitors to my blog.If your infographic is high-quality and helpful, people will link to it. Even in social media marketing, using images can make the difference.”
3. Keywords and Hash-tags
Keywords enhance your exposure on the internet, so it is important to find keywords that best describe your business or the products and services that you offer. #Hash-tags allow readers to find your keywords on Twitter.
Keywords and hashtags complement each other because hashtags make your keywords more searchable and helps connect you to users with similar interests and become part of a trending conversation. Of course try to limit the hashtags you use to 2. Anything more than that drops engagement to 17%
4. Post at the right time
To ensure that your tweets get the most engagement, they need to be posted at a time when users are most active. Engagement levels on Twitter may vary on the type of industry or other factors so do your research.
New research is constantly coming out on when the best time to post is. Social media scientist Dan Zarrella says Tweets on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays had higher click through rates than any other day of the week.
There are other tools like buffer that can help you schedule your tweets at different times of the day or different days of the week. You can schedule the posting of your tweets months in advance and it even has a handy analytic tool to help you determine your optimal days and times.
5. Keep it short
Tweets are limited to 140 characters so they are short. But keeping those characters shorter can be good for retweeting. It allows other users to add their own comments and ideas. Try and keep the length between 70-100 characters. Retweets lead to more exposure and potentially more clicks.
6. Follow the Right People
Following people is one of the fastest ways to get more followers. When it comes to business, you want to follow users who are relevant. This can include your customers, partners, and even your competitors. Following users who aren’t relevant to your business is not going to get your messages across to the people who matter.
Don’t stop there! Always check your standing on the internet with social media tools like klout, tweetdeck or Social bro so you know you are on the right track.
Gauge your influence on multiple social networks because it matters. Here is an expert guide detailing the most useful twitter tools and how to use them. 20+ Tools to Turn You into a Twitter Power User
Conclusion
Twitter no doubt has its place when it comes down to content marketing. Mastering how to use it effectively is key if you want to drive traffic and revenue to your business.
If you are able to implement these simple tips, you will grow your business by 110% in no time!
Do you have other social media strategies on how to effectively use twitter that you would like to share? Let me know in the comments below!
Image Credits
Feature Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
In Post Images: FreeDigitalPhotos.net, hubSpot.com, danzarella.com
Khalid Ibrahim
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