Ten Smart Effective Uses for Twitter

Twitter is one of the biggest and most popular social media platforms in this generation. People usually use it to post their thoughts and photos, share links of other websites, and to participate in certain discussions as well. We are certainly aware of news being made on Twitter with the like of Donald Trump, the Kardashian’s and more.  Aside from that, as a business, you can use Twitter in other smart and effective ways as well.  Finding the right angle and communication path can lead to positive exposure for your business, leads and tighter communication with existing customers.

To Create a Cause

If your business has a worthy cause, non-profit support or other efforts you want to promote Twitter can be fertile ground.  I can be affected for advocacy or promoting a campaign, and more.  You can reach out directly and retweet and connect with similar accounts which can then help to bring exposure to a wider group of followers.  The Twitter platform tends to have a lot of passionate advocates for various causes that you can tap into for exposure.

To Be in the Know

You can certainly find out what’s happening in your industry via news, trade magazines, and targeted blogs.  But you can also get a more raw unfiltered view of what people are talking about by searching on twitter. This is especially true because of the hashtag. Hashtags, as we all know, is used to identify messages on a specific topic. When a user adds a hashtag to their tweets is because that is important to them, they are emphasizing that topic.  You can search and look at what is being said about specific topics to find a valuable market and audience information.         

To Provide Assistance

            As a business, you have many ways to engage with and address your customer’s concerns.  Twitter can definitely be a tool for making this happen.  One of the simplest ways is to use your Twitter feed a way to provide status updates, useful news and other information that is a time that your customers will find valuable.  Customers can also use replies, direct messages, and the overall platform to engage with your customer service team.  In addition, you can prospect for new customers by searching for potential clients that your services can be useful and help to solve their problems.

To Advertise

            Social media is also being heavily utilized as a medium for advertising. Many of the major brands use Twitter to build campaigns to target potential audiences. The right kind of advertising can go viral and trend.  Even if you’re not a major brand by building well-targeted advertising tweets and using Twitter’s targeting tools you can reach your business audience.  Twitter makes it easy to buy and create ads on its platform.

To Sell

There is nothing wrong with basic direct product marketing and sales.  Your twitter feed can certainly advertise products.  The medium is great for posting photos, videos and engaging content about the product.  The goal will be to link them to your site for ordering.

Clients and Build RelationshipsTo Gain Clients and Build Relationships

For your business or campaign to be effective, you need to gain followers. This one is the most important tasks if you want to be successful in social media. One way of gaining clients and building relationships with them on Twitter is by following Twitter influencers. An influencer is someone who has already established a strong network of targeted followers. You can also participate in the discussions they post and provided added value to the conversation. This will help your target audience notice you and build connections with other followers having an interest in your products and services.

To Market Your Business

If you have a product or service that can benefit from a broad marketing approach Twitter is an excellent platform to build brand awareness through smart marketing. Just like in paid advertising, content is the key to marketing using Twitter. Visual content has a great impact and is a must to get noticed in all the tweet noise. You can try to piggyback on trending topics, controversy and other approaches to reach a broad base of Twitter users.  Through this approach, you will want to convert them into followers of your twitter account and ideally have them sign up for a newsletter or other method of permission-based marketing.

To Create Traffic

Once you have been able to start building a following and have an engagement strategy for Twitter now its time to convert that to traffic for your web site.  A strong call to actions in your visuals, your hashtags, videos, etc. will help to entice the Twitter user to take the next step and engage directly.  Twitter analytics can help you see how your followers engage with your tweets and can help you to determine what’s working and what’s not working.

To Be Engaged with the Public

            Aside from posting and replying to people’s Tweets, there are other ways to engage your audience.  One option is to organize a where users meet-up in the person of Twitter users. This is effective when you want to work in person with your followers more because, let’s admit it, it’s also challenging to post and discuss using 140 characters only. Another great thing about this is that the people who will attend the meetup are all interested in the topic or business you have.  This works especially well for local businesses that have a targeted audience.

To Get Feedback

            And lastly, Twitter is not just for sharing your thoughts and advertising your business. It is also a platform that can be used to listen to and understand other users. Just like any other conversation, Twitter is a two-way channel. You share what you have in mind, then you accept and understand the feedback of other people. This can help in many ways including getting new product and service ideas, getting feedback on what you’re doing currently and generating new ideas.

At times Twitter can seem like a bit of a chaotic mess of communication.  But with a well-defined plan and some focused effort, you can reach a targeted audience for your products and services.