Twitter for Business: 10 Twitter Marketing Tips & Tricks That Actually Work

 
Social Media • October 5, 2023
 
Twitter is one social media platform that deserves the attention of business owners. Let’s look at 10 tips and tricks for online businesses to adopt in order to use Twitter effectively. Using social media effectively is one powerful tool for expanding your online business, in terms of brand recognition and revenue. If users are already online, scrolling through social media, then getting them to click over to your website (and hopefully buy) is an objective worth targeting. However, your business can’t just launch a bunch of profiles on various social media platforms and expect that customers will come to you. Like any aspect of business, it takes focus and effort to have a social media presence that brings you value, particularly in the form of revenue. Twitter is one of the most visited websites in the world, so it’s one platform that is worth spending time developing for the benefit of your business. Its focus is on public conversation and exposure, so using it effectively will drive traffic and build your brand, which will in turn make you money. But how can you make Twitter work for your business?

Twitter for Business – 10 Twitter Marketing Tips & Tricks

1. Define Your Business Goals

As the old saying goes, time is money, so you don’t want to jump into Twitter without first defining why you’re doing it. You need to be able to answer “why” your business is on Twitter, and once you know the why, you need to be able to answer whether you’re achieving that “why.”

Some examples of business objectives for your Twitter presence include:

  • Building your brand and awareness of your products and/or services
  • Generating sales
  • Increasing customers and customer loyalty
  • Driving customers to your website
Once you have defined your business objective(s), you can then create measurable goals to track your success. For instance, if you want to generate sales, your goal might be “generate 10 new sales per month directly via Twitter.” If driving customers to your website is your focus, perhaps the goal is “generate 30 new sign-ups per months,” with Twitter generating the email sign-ups. As with any time you set objectives, it’s important to benchmark where you are currently and then measure regularly to track progress.

2. Spend Time On Your Username and Profile

Don’t just launch a Twitter profile without some time and attention spent on the username and profile for your business. This step will build your brand the way you want, as well as build trust, and improve results on searches. Your username may be as simple as the name of your business, but the name you choose needs to help people remember your business. Another consideration is whether you want only one Twitter account or multiple accounts, depending on the size of your company and your goals. You may want to bring disparate accounts into one, or if your company has different branches with different goals, you may want more than one account. Then spend time on your profile or bio. Your Twitter bio is indexed by search engines, so it’s a visible first point of contact for potential followers – and customers – on Twitter and outside the social network. It’s OK to have some fun with the bio, if that’s the personality of your business. But remember that a potential follower needs to have a clear understanding of your business and what your brand is about.

Things you should consider including in your bio include:

  • Name: your name or the name of your business. Use the name you’re most commonly known by and keep it consistent across your social channels.
  • Username: your Twitter handle, which is usually your business name.
  • Location: include your physical location if you have one; you can also use “worldwide” or post a phone number.
  • Website: could be your homepage or a landing page where you want to drive customers (the sign-up page, for instance).
Background image: be sure to use the Twitter background image to further display your company. Don’t leave it blank.

You can also think about whether you want to add the following to your profile:

  • A slogan, if your company has one
  • Targeting your audience with a keyword or two
  • Including a call to action
  • Adding another link besides your website
  • Using a hashtag or two
Once you’ve completed setting up or revising your Twitter account with your username and profile/bio, show it off! Add it to your website, your email signatures, and any physical assets like delivery trucks, if applicable. And it seems obvious, but be sure the setting isn’t set to private – you want to be sure to have a public profile.

3. Get Going With Great Content

Now it’s time to actually get on Twitter and do the work to get followers, engage people and turn them into customers. You now have 280 characters per Tweet to create great content on Twitter. It’s true that this isn’t a lot, so it needs to bring value. It’s often more difficult to write shorter content than longer content, so tweets need to be focused, on brand, and easy to read. Make them resonate for followers, or drive them to a call to action.

Some ideas to consider:

  • Use hashtags – but not too many: This will help ensure your content is seen by as many followers as possible. Using hashtags classifies the content so that your tweets are grouped with other relevant content on Twitter. Using hashtags helps other Twitter users find your content easily, and you can use hashtags to find influencers and others in your industry.
  • Help your followers: learn about the interests of your followers and provide them with content they will value. Monitor tweets and respond to your audience. You can also use Twitter to supplement your customer service.
  • Share good content: Don’t be afraid to re-Tweet great content if it’s relevant to your industry and important to your followers.
  • Say what you need to and no more: Sometimes 280 characters is too much. You don’t have to use all the space allowed, if less will drive home the message effectively.
  • Use multimedia as it will drive more engagement: this includes video, images (including infographics) and GIFs. The popularity of videos continues to rise, and people are always attracted to great images.

4. Keep Twitter Unique

While there are many tools that make it easy to post to multiple social accounts at once, it’s worth considering keeping your Twitter posts unique. Followers won’t bother coming back very often if they see the identical post on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Make it worth their while to follow you on Twitter for unique, fresh content. Besides, each social network has its own characteristics and often a different user base. Build a strategy for each network, and you will be able to chart your success on each network. If writing regular blog posts is part of your overall online strategy, you will want to automate Tweets about blog posts, but that doesn’t mean other Tweets should be automated. Make it a point to post unique content at regular intervals. And don’t just focus on content – consider adding images to your Tweets as well, when applicable.

5. Tweet Regularly

Like anything else, an effective Twitter strategy takes time and effort. You should set a goal to Tweet at least once a day. But you also need to spend time monitoring Twitter, watching for industry trends, looking for brand mentions, checking what’s trending, and of course responding to followers and customers.

6. Don’t Use Twitter Just to Sell

When posting on Twitter, don’t make it about selling your products and services all the time. Twitter is about targeting new audiences, and engaging and connecting with them. In engaging with your audience, the end goal is about sales and revenue. But the sales and revenue will happen through engagement, not constant sales pitches. Use your Twitter presence to attract customers and not to force them to buy your product or service. Put effort into helping, engaging, and connecting with people. They will want to know more about your products and services if they feel connected through your Twitter profile, and not through a hard sell.

7. Use Twitter to Listen, Not Just Talk

While Twitter is a great tool to broadcast information to followers in an attempt to turn them into customers, it’s also great for listening and using the information learned to benefit your business.

For instance, you can use Twitter to listen and:

  • Learn about your competition
  • Gain feedback on how your brand is perceived
  • Learn what the Twitter community is saying about your specific industry
  • Track whether users are actually mentioning your brand
  • Track what topics those who engage with you are interested in
You can use Twitter to track mentions of your brand’s name and product names, CEO or other public representatives’ names, slogans and campaign mentions. Don’t forget to watch for misspellings of each of these as well. You can also find trending topics by content, hashtags, and search terms.

8. Be Engaging

Being successful on Twitter isn’t just about your number of followers. Engaging with your audience is one of the key ways to achieve your objectives. Twitter is all about connecting and engaging on a personal level. You can use that to your advantage by engaging with your followers and customers.

Here are some ways to be engaging:

  • Follow your network: Check out the tweets of your followers to learn about their interests and needs. You may learn something that will benefit your business.
  • Follow your industry: Connect with the top people in your industry by following them. They may just follow you back. By following as many people in your industry as you can, you can connect with relevant people and build a following. You can also keep on top of the latest happenings in your industry.
  • Respond to your followers: People expect a quick response time on social media. Handle Twitter the same as you would a customer service call line or someone coming in to see you personally – respond quickly if a follower contacts you or mentions you via Twitter.
  • Like, follow and re-tweet: People get a kick out of having their messages re-tweeted or liked, the same as people like to have an organization, celebrity or – in your case – a business follow them.
  • Use hashtags, tags and @username mentions: People also like when they receive a @(their username) mention. This can include influencers and other businesses, and not just your customers or potential customers.
  • Be interactive: You can do this with a user poll, or by tweeting a question and asking followers to respond. Ideas for this include a product opinion, advice on new products, or even customer service feedback. Be prepared for honesty!

9. Learn From Others

There’s nothing wrong with using successful strategies of other businesses and adapting them to suit your needs. At the very least, there’s always something to learn from those who are having success. Start by taking a look at established brands on Twitter – not just those in your industry – and analyze what they do well. For instance, what do big companies like Nike or Costco do to engage with customers? What are the tricks of the trade for smaller businesses that are successful on Twitter? As you learn, experiment with some of these tactics and analyze how they do for your business. As well, analyze your competition. You will be able to find a wealth of information through their Tweets, mentions, hashtags, followers, and more. You can even take inspiration from what your competitors are doing. If you see a great idea, you can always adapt it for your own purposes.

10. Continuously Evaluate and Adjust

Like any other strategy, your Twitter strategy needs to be constantly evaluated. Are you meeting your business objectives? Compared to the benchmarks you established, are you making improvements toward your goals, meeting your goals, or completely blowing away your goals? You should continuously fine-tune your strategy based on your performance metrics. Adjust and improve, or set new goals, or devise a new strategy if necessary.

Final Thoughts

Twitter is one social media platform that deserves the attention of business owners. It is renowned for its brevity, with a 280-character limit. But it’s also known for creating personal connections and for being a useful tool for finding and connecting with new audiences. With some proper attention and focus, it can help you meet your business goals.