Social media is an important element of a modern marketing strategy and it’s imperative that all businesses, serious about engaging with their customers, have an active Twitter presence. Any company can, in principle, create a business Twitter account. However, many brands spend a great deal of time and effort on their Twitter feed without seeing the results they want. If you can identify with this problem, it is time you took steps to make your business Twitter work for you. Careful management can rapidly make your account into a lead-generating powerhouse, while attracting more and more followers. Take a look at these hints and tips that will ensure your business Twitter feed is the best it can be:
1) Build your follower base
Take some time to carefully select accounts to follow using your business Twitter profile. Don’t just follow anybody; choose influential decision makers and organisations within your industry that come with a high social authority rating. Social authority is a gauge of how influential a user is, based on several criteria including their number of retweets. The higher a user’s social authority, the more potential they have as a contact on Twitter. Determine a user’s influence using an app such as FollowerWonk, and strategically plan who you wish to follow based on the kind of content you feel is useful to your business.
2) Engage with and identify influencers
Through engaging with influencers in your own field of business, you will create opportunities to gain more followers, which in turn will drive increased traffic to your website. ‘Influencers’ could be regulatory bodies, top level competitors, funders, inventors or entrepreneurs. Each industry will be different.
The way to begin engagement is to follow the account, then to selectively retweet their content and begin public conversations using @mentions. Highly influential users will have a follower base that probably includes many of your target customers, even if the influencer themselves is not a sales target, so building bridges in this way is a good way of netting yourself followers and potential leads.
3) Implement Twitter cards
You can set up your account to ensure that when people share your posts, an image from your website will show up within their tweets, thus showcasing the information contained on your site to the world. This is an easy way of turning Twitter into an effective traffic generation tool.
4) Manage your contacts by using Twitter lists
When you’re following a lot of people, you may begin to feel a little overwhelmed when you look at your timeline. It can be hard to keep track of the most relevant content among a flood of retweets, Gifs and ‘memes’. If you want to keep track of certain people and ensure you don’t miss any of their tweets, simply add them to a Twitter list that you can follow instead of or alongside your timeline.
The great thing about this is that you can keep these lists private if you wish and you can even subscribe to public lists that other people have created. If you’re looking for existing Twitter lists, there are a few ways you can find them: Simply look at an influencer’s profile to see if they have any public lists; Google site:twitter.com inurl:lists ;
Look at the lists you’ve been added to yourself. As your own influence grows, you may find this happening more and more. By this you can get an idea of how your Twitter management strategy is raising your own social authority.
5) Recruit email prospects as Twitter followers
The businesses on your email list are ready-made Twitter followers in waiting, because they already have a proven interest in your company. Many, if not all of these leads will already have Twitter accounts, giving you another way to keep in touch. Send them all an email invite to follow you on Twitter, and be sure to keep a Twitter link on all your communications. When these prospects have become followers, you can target them with Twitter Ads to tie in with your email campaigns. This can be a very effective source of new leads.
6) Know the importance of using the right hashtags
Through using one or two well thought out and relevant hashtags, your tweets will be seen by the companies you want to reach out to. This is a simple and easy way to manage Twitter account interactions. Hashtag management is an in-depth topic that deserves an article all of its own. For now, start using your brand name as a hashtag in all your important tweets e.g. #JDRgroup.
You may also wish to use a promotional hashtag, such as #SMWorkout, or a client name if you want to give them a shout out. However, don’t overload your Tweets with hashtags. Restrict them to two or three at the most in order to leave room for retweets. The great thing about hashtags is that you can search them to determine the reach and impact of your brand on Twitter, including the number of shares and retweets. Find out more information about hashtags here: The Power Of The Hashtag And How Important It Has Become
7) Take a look at your competitors
Do some detective work and research who your direct competitors are engaging with on Twitter. You want to be interacting with this follower base too. Looking at your competitor’s Twitter account will also show you what hashtags and @mentions they’re using and can help you identify businesses and brands you should be connecting with.
8) Monitor Twitter for specific keywords
Through using a tool like TweetDeck or Hootsuite, you can set up a search for relevant keywords and see when and where they are mentioned. Whenever you spot one, you can respond to the tweet with an @mention or retweet and begin to build new relationships that matter to your business.
9) Use the pinned Tweet facility
Set a relevant and engaging pinned tweet at the top of your timeline so it’s the first thing people see when they look at your account. Pinned tweets are perfect for drawing attention to core information about your business.
10) Use Twitter Analytics
Twitter Analytics enables you to easily see how much engagement and how many views your tweets receive. This will allow you to figure out the types of post your audience respond best to and will help you tailor your future tweets in order to optimise customer engagement.
Taking these ten tips on board will give you a greater understanding of Twitter as a business platform and how it can be used effectively to generate leads. By implementing these suggestions you will see better returns from the time you invest in Twitter. Focused Twitter management can, and does, produce profitable effects for your business.
