If you find yourself asking what the relevance of a #hashtag is or how #TBT could benefit your business, maybe it’s time to do some Twitter research. Twitter is a fantastic tool for businesses to connect and engage with their consumers in a fun, non-invasive way. Plus, it’s user-friendly and fairly simple.
If you do choose to use Twitter for your business, you’ll need to invest some time into developing a Twitter-specific marketing strategy. Keep in mind some of these Twitter tips when preparing your tweets.
Be consistent. More than anything, be consistent with your Twitter usage. Post on a regular basis to stay relevant and fresh. There are dashboards that can help you plan and schedule tweets in advance (like Hootsuite.com), but it’s also important to tweet in live time as well.
Learn the art of the #hashtag. Hashtags are used as a conversation starter. When you log into Twitter, it will show the trending hashtags and popular topics of the day. Perhaps these hashtags are relevant to your business. If so, join the conversation! Regardless of what you choose to hashtag, keep it simple. Stick with a maximum of two hashtags per tweet. Check out Hashtags.org, which has some great resources to help businesses improve social networking strategies.
Example: #TBT, or “throw back Thursday,” is a fun way to reminisce and remind people why they liked your business in the first place. It happens on Twitter every week on Thursday.
Get visual. Photos, collages, infographics. Tweeting a photo or video can boost your retweets by 35% or more. Retweets get your business in front of more eyes. And get creative with it! It doesn’t have to be designed by a graphics guru to be effective. Snap a photo of your staff during a typical workday or tweet a photo of an event you are hosting. Don’t forget @mentions to get even more retweets and engagement.
Example:
Tweet Donuts
Use Twitter as a marketing supplement. Twitter is a great way to get people to talk about you, but you also want them to talk to you. Make sure to capture email addresses or host events that your customers can attend. Run promotions or offer incentives if they tweet you while visiting your store or event.
Example: A client could Tweet a message like this and then be entered into a raffle for sending out that tweet:
@creativespot for a #lunchandlearn on social media marketing.
Like any marketing communication, your Twitter presence should be thoughtfully planned and executed. Spend time researching and developing a strategy that will work for your business. It’s ok to trail and error. Social media is meant to be fun—so have fun with it!