Twitter is one of the popular social media platforms and microblogging tool which supports messages also called as tweets that are limited to maximum of 140 characters. Twitter was reportedly having 317 million monthly active users as of Q3 2016 and more than 600 million Tweets are posted daily. Twitter is a powerful social media marketing platform where you can share your views with your prospects and existing customers in real-time. Â You can start engaging conversations with potential customers and grow your business through real-time tweets. You can also use Twitter for branding, networking with your customers and driving traffic to your website.
Choosing your Target Audience:
In order to come up with an effective Twitter marketing strategy for your business, you should first know who your target audience are. You should have some understanding of who your prospective customers are and what type of tweets they follow. You should have a clear picture of the user demographics including their age-groups and what types of content your followers prefer to read online. Only if you know the taste of your target audience, you will be able to post relevant and valuable content which your twitter followers will like to share or retweet. You can use some free tools which are available online to figure out your target audience.
TwitterCounter â This is a powerful analytics tool where you can enter any keyword and you will find relevant users along with their followers and following count. You can link your Twitter account with TwitterCounter and start following highly ranked users based on number of followers.
Tweepi.com â This is a popular tool which helps users to follow the followers of other popular twitter users. Itâs an effective way to attract target audience to your twitter page since the standard twitter etiquette is to follow back your followers.
Twellow.com â This is like an Yellow page of Twitter where you can find various twitter groups such as âAdvertisementâ, âEducationâ, âFood and drinksâ etc. which will represent your target audience. You can find users who have the maximum number of Twitter followers in the specific category related to your business and start following them. Once you start following such people, they will follow you back and your tweets will start appearing in their Twitter stream. Once they start viewing content related to your business including the posts you share on your Twitter page, they will retweet them which will drive more followers to your account.
One such example of a business that increased their black Friday sales by 353% and website traffic by 189% through effective twitter marketing based on target audience is MVMT Watches. Though they have customers from wide range of demographics, they focused mainly on men of age-groups 18-34 especially in US, UK and Australia. They also showcased their seasonal deals to customers during holidays through Twitter which boosted their revenue enormously.
Designing an Attractive Twitter profile:
In order to have a good impression among your target audience, you should first create a captivating profile for your business with interesting bio, customized page design, engaging tweets and good profile picture. You should hire a graphics designer and come up with custom background for your twitter profile which will reflect your brand among the target audience. Also come up with a precise and interesting bio that will express the motto of your business. You should have an attractive profile picture and you can probably use your brand logo for same. Also you should include links to your business websites and blogs in your twitter account to drive traffic and present your followers with valuable content related to your business. Â Make sure your tweets are engaging and stimulate conversations among your followers as this will help you get more business and new customers.
Plan your Tweets based on various Upcoming Events:
As part of your marketing strategy, you should plan your special Tweets based on the upcoming events. For instance, you can post relevant links on posts about Thanksgiving during November end when Thanksgiving Day is approaching. Similarly you can post Christmas-themed tweets few days ahead of Christmas. You should plan your tweets ahead for such holidays and special events with quality content and make use of trending topics and hashtags. This will help you get more followers for your twitter page. Also if you are hosting any free events to promote your business in your locality, you can post some promotional tweets in advance in your twitter page to get more visitors. Planning your twitter marketing campaigns in advance is an important part of designing your marketing strategy. One such business that schedules their tweets based on upcoming financial events is anyoption and they have improved their customer base with help of effective Twitter marketing campaigns.
Come up with effective twitter marketing tactics for your campaigns:
Once you have designed an interesting profile for your business, you should come up with various tactics to promote your business among prospective customers. Some effective tips are,
- Researching twitter users with high number of followers and start following them.
- Link your Twitter account with other social media websites like your Facebook page, YouTube channel, Google Plus profile etc.
- Come up with interesting and relevant content which will promote engaging conversations among your twitter followers. You can post the links of such content using hashtags like #mybrandtips, where mybrand refers to the brand name of your business. Hashtags based on specific category like #fitnesstips, #yogatips, #cookingtips etc. will attract interested target audience.
- Categorize your most influential followers and put them in separate Twitter lists to post relevant content based on their preference. You can make use of URL shortening services like bit.ly to post links of interesting topics that you feel will be enjoyed by your influential followers.
- Always post your Twitter handle in your company website, blogs and other social media pages. Also make use of direct messaging and relevant Twitter chats to engage with your Twitter community.
- Make use of free tools like âDigg Diggâ WordPress plugin and âClick to Tweetâ to help users share posts directly from your company website or blog. By making it easier for users to retweet or share your posts, you can increase your followers and drive more traffic. Add buttons like âFollow me on Twitterâ on your marketing e-mails, newsletters and company website.
Analyse your performance and review your marketing strategy:
You should constantly review the performance of your marketing campaign through various metrics. Some data points you can consider are the number of tweets published and retweets posted by your followers. You should also keep track of new followers on daily basis for your brandâs twitter account. You can make use of Google analytics and other tools to find out the visitor statistics from your Twitter pages. You should keep track of engagements and discussions happening in your Twitter account and number of active conversations.
Tweet Counter is a powerful analytics tool to keep track on number of Twitter followers, tweets posted every hour etc. You can also make use of tools like Tweriod to figure out when your target audience are active online based on which you can schedule your tweets. You should establish clear marketing goals before starting your campaign and keep track of various statistics to check whether you have achieved those goals. Some examples of marketing goals can be like,
- Increase retweets and @mentions by 20%
- Generate at least 100 leads every month from Twitter
- Maintain response rate to customer queries/complaints above 80%
- Improve referral traffic to your website by 40%
- Obtain at least 200 new followers every month in your Twitter account etc.
You should also review your marketing techniques constantly and update them based on success ratio.
By adopting the above techniques, you can increase your twitter followers and drive more traffic to your website. Through effective Twitter marketing you can promote your brand, enhance your customer base and boost revenue.