Twitter is often overlooked by small companies as a marketing tool to increase their customer base. However, through consistent marketing, businesses have the ability to reach a wide range of potential customers and build a loyal following. Show
What is Twitter?Twitter is a communication tool that allows you to send out messages (tweets) up to 140 characters long to people who subscribe to you (aka followers). Your tweets can include a link to any content on the web (ex: blog post, website page, PDF document, etc.) or a photo or video. People follow (aka subscribe) to your Twitter account, and you follow other people. This allows you to read, reply to and easily share their tweets with your followers (aka retweet). How to Use Twitter as a Marketing Tool1: Identify Your GoalBefore you begin, it’s important to identify your goal for using Twitter. There are typically three goals:
2: Identify Your Niche & Geographical FocusDetermine your niche and try to be as specific as possible. For example, a heating and air conditioning company company might focus on builders, realtors, or people interested in home comfort or indoor air quality. Next, determine your geographic range. It could be Denver, Colorado or a 50 mile radius around zip code 80002. The key is to be as specific as possible. 3: Follow Customers, Prospects & Find Potential LeadsIf your goal is to build company awareness or build & strengthen relationships with customers and partners, follow customers, prospects and others who share an interest is your niche (look up contacts from your email address book or use the Advanced Twitter Search tool to identify these people). Start following people in these categories:
If you are hoping to drive direct leads from Twitter, go to the Advanced Twitter Search tool and enter in your keywords and your main zip code within a range of miles. If you see an opportunity, you can respond directly to them through Twitter. You need to do this carefully as you don’t want to come across as being invasive or “salesy”. Try something like: “Hi @prospect. Sorry to hear about your air conditioner making noise. Check out this article on how to fix that problem (link to article here). If you still need help, please let me know.” 5: Start Sharing Relevant and Useful InformationHere is a rule of thumb on how to share info:
6: Use a Social Media Management ToolUse a social media management tool such as Hootsuite (hootsuite.com) to manage your Twitter account and interactions.
Why should you market your business on Twitter?Because of our audience’s responsiveness and readiness to engage, brands have found Twitter to be an integral part of their marketing strategies. Twitter's audience is just different. Example? People on Twitter spend 26% more time viewing ads1 compared to ads viewed on other leading social media networks. If you want to learn more about what makes our audience different, check out the video below and let Twitter product expert Walt Umanzor (@djFunFacts) explain the benefits of marketing on Twitter. Benefits of using Twitter content for marketing:
Twitter provides two distinct avenues for marketing your business through content: Organic social media marketing and Paid social media marketing. We'll break
down how to align content to each of them right after we talk about how to nail down your strategy. How to create a Twitter content strategyHaving a Twitter content strategy in place helps to: make your content creation process more efficient and intentional, align your content with business goals, and more easily track your content’s performance. Create your strategy:
Understand your audienceBefore you decide what types of content to create or attempt to set realistic goals, you have to analyze your audience. This step is most important because it'll help you understand what type of content resonates with your audience and gets them to take action. Believe it or not, very few brands actually take the time to truly understand their audience which can result in low engagement and wasted resources. To get more insight into who follows you, head to the Twitter Analytics Followers dashboard. This tool gives you a peek into the interests, locations, and demographics of your Twitter followers. Set your goalsNow that you have a better understanding of your audience, it’s time to set goals. Any marketing strategy needs to be attached to measurable goals and Twitter is no different. You can and should make sure your Twitter goals tie back in to your team's overall plan to grow the business. These goals might look different for organic content vs. paid content. Organic social media goals usually revolve around brand awareness or driving traffic through organic Tweets. Paid social media goals tend to be geared more toward driving conversions or leads since you're paying for faster results. Organic social media goal example: Build brand awareness and grow your following by hosting a weekly series on Twitter Spaces Paid social media goal example: Increase site visits through Carousel Ads Once you’ve determined your goals, remember to check back in on them regularly. It's always best to check in and analyze what's working and what's not. Balance your organic social and paid social contentOrganic social content is likely what your business Tweets most regularly. These types of Tweets are a free way to build brand awareness and community on Twitter and can include text, images, videos, or gifs. Paid social content is shared through ad products to help brands reach wider audiences and potential new customers. On Twitter, organic Tweets will show up on your followers' timelines first. The more your followers engage with your organic content, Twitter will start to serve that content to other people who may find it interesting. Paid social content on Twitter will show up in the timelines of whatever group of people you've chosen to target with your ads. With
Twitter's various ad products, you can target audiences based on demographics, location, interests, and more. Ideally, organic and paid social content work together to help your brand reach its goals. Learn more: Organic social best practices | Paid social best practices
Dani Trevino (@d_trev), Social Content Coordinator, Twitter Business (@TwitterBusiness) Create a Twitter content calendarTwitter moves so fast that knowing what and when to post can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. This is where content calendars come into play. Building a content calendar can help keep your content creation process consistent and organized. Your content calendar should reflect what works personally for your team, but in case you need ideas, here are two widely used methods for deciding how to divvy up your calendar. The rule of thirds
The 80-20 rule
Twitter content calendar tip: Holidays, sporting events, and cultural events are all regular opportunities for you to connect with your audience and reach new followers. Don’t worry, we round up all the important holidays and events for you every year in Twitter’s annual marketing calendar. Subscribe to our newsletter. Keep up on news, events, and product updates from Twitter Business. Are you a marketing agency? * By subscribing you agree that we may send you marketing emails about Twitter services. You can unsubscribe anytime. .Twitter content types for organic socialTwitter threadsWe’ve already established that Tweets are a great way to educate your audience and establish your business as an authority in its industry. But what about when you want to use more words and 280 characters aren’t enough? Twitter threads let you kick your Twitter storytelling up a notch. A thread on Twitter is a series of connected Tweets from one person. With a thread you can provide additional context, an update, or an extended point by connecting multiple Tweets together. Threads are also really great for organic reach since they are longer and encourage more engagement. Franchise and small business expert, The Wolf of Franchises (@franchisewolf) recently wrote about a viral thread he penned that earned him over 5,000 followers. Video summariesIt’s no secret that video increases your engagement. Don’t be afraid to get creative with how you use video in your organic social strategy. Here’s a great example of how email & SMS platform Klaviyo (@Klaviyo) Director of Content Strategy Tracey Wallace (@tracewall) used video to promote one of Klaviyo’s recent articles about SMS marketing. Twitter SpacesWith the rise of podcasts and social audio, there’s never been a better time to incorporate Spaces into your Twitter content strategy. Brands use Spaces for everything from news updates to interviews with industry experts. Dolly Parton even held a reading of her newest book on Spaces to promote its launch. You can get even more creative with Spaces, as shown by productivity platform ClickUp (@ClickUp) who has been using the social audio tool to audition industry creators for the company's new brand creator campaign. Twitter chatsHosting a Twitter chat is always a great way to engage with your followers. #PopChat, a weekly Twitter chat series from brand marketing consultant Brianne Fleming (@brianne2k), is a great example of how effective chats can be as a community builder for your target audience. In this case, Brianne uses #PopChat to connect with other marketing professionals. "I started #PopChat on a whim, but it has evolved into such a tight-knit community! It’s a chance to network with marketing professionals, but beyond that, we get to bond over music, movies, sports and pop culture topics too." Brianne says. Brianne's #PopChat hashtag gets approximately two million impressions every week. Her audience comprises 90% marketing professionals and has been sponsored by Attentive, Pexels, Alaska Airlines, and more. Twitter content types for paid socialSome people may not consider ads "content", but just because ads have spend behind them doesn't make the content any less important. In fact, according to Ipsos, 75% of your ad's impact is determined by the quality of its creative. Whether you’re trying to build brand awareness, get more followers, or drive conversions, Twitter’s paid social media products can make sure your content reaches the right people. Twitter ads come in several different formats, so you'll want to make sure you align your content with the right ad type. Here are the different Twitter ads you should use based on your preferred content type. Text
Pictured: Twitter text ad Text AdsText ads have all the elements of a standard Tweet, including likes, replies, favorites and Retweets. Benefits of using a Text Ad: They still have the feel of the regular Twitter content your followers appreciate, but they also help you reach new audiences and potential customers. Trend TakeoverA Trend Takeover puts your brand alongside every other topic trending on Twitter that day in the Explore tab. Benefit of using Trend Takeover Ads: Trend Takeovers allows your brand the option to be seen outside of the traditional timeline to tap into users wanting to discover new stories and products via the Explore tab. You can even spice things up a bit with Trend Takeover+, which allows you to add video creative. Images
Pictured: Twitter image ad Image AdsHighlight your best creative and drive people to your site, app, or take an action in the moment. Image Ads allow you to showcase your brand, product, or service with a single photo. Benefit of using Image Ads: They’re easy to create and can support multiple objectives. They can be Retweeted, replied to, and liked, and they’re clearly marked as “Promoted”. Carousel AdsTwitter’s Carousel Ads are a Tweet featuring six horizontally-swipeable images (or videos) to showcase multiple products or promotions. Benefit of using Carousel Ads with images: Carousel ads are interactive, which lets your audience engage with your ad more than other formats. They’re also easy to create since they follow the same creative specs as other Image ads. Video
Pictured: Twitter Amplify Pre-Roll ad Video Ads |