How Brands Are Crushing Their Engagement on Twitter
Twitter is an excellent platform to increase brand exposure. You can tweet messages that drive engagement to your blogs and website.
54% of Twitter users reported that they have taken action after seeing brand mentions in Tweets as reported in the Twitter blog.
Retailers gain an advantage when they respond to tweets from the customer's that have a concern with a company. Many will take their gripes to social media. It's important to respond accordingly to help direct consumers on how you can work together to resolve any complaints.Your audience will like that you are diligent in making things right.
What makes brands successful on Twitter?
Social media puts you in the driver's seat helping you gain new customers.
Additionally, the power of consistently using your digital marketing tools such as blogs and weekly newsletters is an important one. From steadfast efforts, customers will look forward to the continuous manner where you bring them new ideas and information.
It's not how much you tweet; it's about the quality of the content. The idea is not to get muted or blocked from followers for posting too much of the same information over and over again.
Targeting your audience with relevant knowledgeable information is productive to driving brand awareness and sales conversions.
Don't use your competitors language to talk about your business. You'll end up promoting the other business and not giving your brand the unique identity it deserves to attract customers.
Personalization goes a long way in developing relationships and likeability.
It’s okay to get personal, especially if you are a corporate influencer. For example, if you are the CEO or Vice President and you have a passion about something you do in your personal life, share it with your followers.
Your audience will have the opportunity to get to know you personally. Being genuine will go along way with in developing your brand.
How Many Twitter Hashtags Should You Use?
Twitter recommends two hashtags per Tweet as a best practice. The hashtag can be used anywhere within the phrase of your tweet. Hashtags allow users to search and follow topics they are interested in.
The use of hashtags should be used for popular and trending topics within your niche and subject of the tweets, such as #SEO, #business #coaching, #ecommerce, etc. Look to see what is trending that day like #nbafinals and #nba. Reach outside your normal circle and share some of the most popular tweets.You may gain some followers that are basketball lovers looking to learn about #ecommerce.
Social tools like Sprout Social monitor relevant keywords and manage Twitter campaigns.
Many of the biggest brands are using Sprout Social, like Tito’s Vodka, Glassdoor, NBC Universal, and 1,000's more.
It’s Time to Get a Little Emotional
Becoming proactive by having conversations with other industry executives within your vertical, even competitors gives you more exposure. Don't be afraid to stir up a little controversy. Start a discussion with a question so the audience can post comments on the subject you're tweeting about.
Reply to comments with your industry knowledge helps build authority, especially if your building a new business.
Think Before You Tweet
It’s a good idea to stay out of politics. In today’s world, the simplest comment can rub someone the wrong way and backlash an online war and take focus away from your brand.
Nowadays, politics can stir up angry emotions. It's best use positive messaging to influence an audience. In fact, many brands chose to use charitable giving to make a stance about issues of concern.
In some cases a little politics can work for your brand. Make sure you understand who your audience is. Getting political without making a stance can be one of the best social media marketing agendas for a company.
Who gets this right? Individuals and brands that use social listening tools to identify what the audience cares to listen to.
Stay away from personal opinionated rants geared towards negativity. This is especially true if you’re a senior level executive for a publicly traded company or one that is about to go public.
Personal reputations maintaining a positive image go a long way.
It's ok to talk about issues happening around the world, but cruelty and racist comments against any person will only backlash against you.
Produce Infographics
People love to share visuals if they find them valuable. They're most likely to share with other colleagues & friends, giving your brand more exposure.
Host a Conference or Live Event on Twitter
Host a roundtable discussion in advance so people can join in on the chat and ask questions between other users.
Design a landing page on social media where users can opt-in for a special event. Place referring links on all social media pages for invites.
Spend time using data analytics for insights to what's trending in your industry and tweet about it.
View other’s live posts to get takeaways for visuals and content to spark ideas for your event. By innovating your own style, your brand becomes more distinctive form the competition.
Leveraged Use of A Pinned Tweet.
Customize a profile image, with a brief biography of your company that links to your website at the top of your Twitter page.
Forget the old cliché of the typical sales funnel where you tell people:
"buy your product and service because it says it does this or that."
Once the audience relates to you personally, they're more likely to visit your website to see about the services you offer and the products you are selling.
The Best Method For Commenting on Twitter
Don't put a comment on someone's Twitter page without using your name and introducing the company you're with. If they like the Tweet response, they're more likely to go directly to your website to see what you're all about. It’s called curiosity.
Here’s the big question? What are the standout tactics being used by companies to achieve Twitter success.
Cisco
@Cisco tweets out engaging information to their audience, Cisco tweets informative news about the company and behind the scenes videos about events happening at Cisco.Talking off topic is a great idea to break things up.
They even made a tweet comment, "Between fire and ice, there's a bridge.Thank you, #GameofThrones" for connecting so many people around the world for the past 8 years."
Adobe
@Adobe has almost at 1 million followers. Tweeting about charity events as well as their products brings life to their brand. Adobe does not tweet opinionated messages.They share tweets that are current topics within the political environment such as diversity and inclusion for women in the workplace. Here is an example:
Adobe tweets out important issues for the public and to their employees making them aware of current events - whether it's women’s rights or political topics. Adobe is a people company - they show off digital GIF creations that are made with their products.You look and say, "How cool that is!" It encourages you to sign up for Creative Suite and create something awesome of your own.
Intel
If you're into all things tech...you'll dig @Intel with 4.8M followers.
Intel's products are the high velocity chips used to run businesses at higher speeds to increase productivity. Intel tweets about next generation chips used on just about every computer and tech gadget out there. If you're into super-duper productivity for your business, Intel keeps you up to date by tweeting empowering information about the computing world everyday.
Bill Gates
@BillGates has 47.3M Followers and follows some of the most interesting and prominent 198 people on Twitter. Bill loves to share with the world what he learns from reading books.
Bill Gate's book list is relevant to what is happening in the world presently and what happened in the past. Bill Gates is a philanthropist supporting many causes that need attention in an underserved world. If you care about the world and our future, you'll want to keep up with Bill Gates.
Neil Patel
@NeilPatel has 333k followers. Neil's expertise in all things digital for SEO and marketing is what Google is to search.
In fact, I think Neil can actually predict the future for all things that are going to happen around digital marketing. Neil is a product of his own brand - a master marketer.
Neil works with big B2B businesses and B2C companies. Neil Patel and his self-created empire make it a point to pay attention to the small business person and the entrepreneur. Anyone can find Neil's expertise for free with his outbound marketing information on social media.
Neil Patel is an example of how important promoting your brand on every social media platform at the same time. You never know where your customers are at any given moment, whether its Twitter, LinkedIn, Podcasts,etc.
If you want to succeed in marketing, follow Neil. He certainly pays attention to his audience as you will see him send thank you's to folks that comment.
Gary Vaynerchuk
@garyvee has 1.9 million followers. Gary has an intense amount of energy and talks about what he is passionate about.
Gary uses a ton of videos to market topics he is promoting to get the word out.
Gary Vaynerchuk is very good at convincing people to take action in a New York minute about his beliefs and principles. His personality is his style. And for him, it works across all social media platforms he uses, from LinkedIn to Twitter.
With Gary, at any given time you will always see fresh posts. Can you keep up with Gary? He certainly can keep up with his audience around the clock.
Oprah Winfrey
@Oprah absolutely crushes it on Twitter and every medium she touches. She has 42.2M Followers. How does she do this? She talks about the topics people really want to hear. She teaches, she loves, and she surrounds herself around the best people related to the topic she is speaking about.
Christine Teigen
@chrissyteigen has been a recipe for success. Married to John Legend singer songwriter and winner of this season's “The Voice.” Christine has 11.2M Followers on Twitter and and she's successful about getting up close and personal with her fans. She not only market s about her line of kitchenware, but about real life. Her fans adore her!
Takeaways
Measure everything. Spend your time learning about how the audience is reacting to you.
By listening to your customers you can better understand what they want to hear. Your audience is most likely to share relevant information that is meaningful to them and recommend your brand organically for you. Be mindful of your audience.
Practice being unique, but still maintain to be true yourself or brand.
It's a great idea to have your employees involved by having them share company content.
Knowing how to communicate with your customers on social media is the key to true success. Speak in your customers language. Are they millennials or baby boomers? You will be rewarded in return when the audience feels part of a community they can engage with.
It’s not about the number of followers, it's about how many are converting to your end destination.
Keep it fun, keep it simple, keep it positive.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Author: Leslie Cohen is an experienced content writer. Formerly a published contributor for CBS News Local Los Angeles and currently Managing Partner for CWEB.com. She currently works with companies producing content and advising them on strategies for new products coming to market. Her specialty is writing white papers and guides, and producing full scale copy for websites- from creatives, blogs, product descriptions, and direct response marketing.
