Are you new to Twitter? The microblogging social media platform might seem daunting at first but has time and again proven to be useful in connecting brands with their customers. In today’s world, Twitter has become an invaluable social media platform for brands. It has significant power in influencing trends and generating engagement. To get the best use out of any social media platform every marketer must be aware of the best practices and site-specific etiquette. Twitter is often used by individuals to share breaking news publicly.
If you’re just starting on Twitter, this post will give tips and tricks on how to use Twitter to grow your business. From avoiding embarrassing Twitter mishaps to posting content that attracts customer engagement, we have got you covered.
Here are 25 ways to use Twitter for beginners and set yourself up for social media success:
1. Tweet Early and Often
This tip is particularly important for beginners as in the early days you will have to experiment a lot with timings and frequency to check what works for you and your brand. Tweeting throughout the day helps you reach more followers as some of them might use Twitter during the day and others are more likely to use it at night.
2. Avoid Going Overboard
While you are experimenting with the time, try not to get overboard with the Tweets. Notice when you are over saturating your visitors. Too many tweets might annoy the followers and lead them to unfollow you. The best way to do this is by keeping a track of your engagement, in case the engagement rate goes down while you have increased your tweet frequency, there is a possibility that your followers are annoyed.
3. Engagement Over Broadcasting
Another essential tip while learning how to use Twitter to grow your business is to keep engaging with your audience. In the race of getting more Tweets out, some brands forget to understand the importance of engagement. Put engaging content to help build more audience and to use Twitter beyond just spreading brand messaging.
4. Keep up With the Trend
The best way to keep your audience engaged is to join in on trending topics and conversations. Keep an eye out for trending topics on Twitter along with accompanying hashtags and jump in when the conversation is relevant. Don’t be scared to think out of the box while participating in trending conversations. This is one of the most important ways if you are thinking about how to use Twitter to grow your business.
5. Take Advantage of 280 Characters
Another great idea about how to use Twitter to grow your business is to take advantage of the increased word limit. The 280 character limit allows you to fit more characters in a single tweet. Don’t take this for granted, instead use your creativity to post funny and quirky content that the audience can relate to.
6. Use Data to Make Decisions
Take some time out to look at your Twitter analytics and analyze what kind of content is working for you and what is not. Based on the data analysis, create a plan and understand how to use Twitter to grow your business further. Going with your gut instincts while implementing new Twitter strategies can affect your business negatively in the long run.
7. Be an Active Part of the Twitter Community
Instead of looking at Twitter as a content distribution tool, brands should look at it as a platform to connect with their audience. Brands should take some time out to understand the Twitter ecosystem. Become an active part of the Twitter community by joining relevant and trending Twitter chats.
8. Create Graphic Templates and Reuse them
Create a uniform look for your brand by designing graphic templates and reusing them for different content. It not only helps brands save time but also gives a consistent look and feel. As you use consistent graphics, your audience will begin to recognize the content coming from your brand.
You can use Canva for creating graphics
9. Use Social Media Automation when necessary
There are both advantages and disadvantages of using social media automation. The best way to use it judiciously is by deciding what and how you want to automate. Few good automation examples include scheduling tweets in advance, using Twitter chatbots to streamline your customer service workflow, automatic tagging of social media posts that contain a certain hashtag, etc.
10. Don’t Copy What Other Brands are Doing
In the initial period, it is natural to do some competitive analysis to figure out how to use Twitter to grow your business. There is a very fine line between getting inspired and copying, make sure that you do not cross that line. Keep your brand personality in mind while creating content.
11. Use Retweet with Comment
Retweeting is a pretty common practice when brands want to share something interesting that others have tweeted. But instead of simply retweeting, use retweet with the comment option. It allows you to add your own commentary onto the retweet instead of just re-sharing which makes it more personalized and adds additional value for the audience.
12. Optimize Blog Post Titles While Tweeting
Similarly, when you are sharing a blog post article via tweet, try to personalize the title instead of using the same blog post title. Craft your tweets in order to appeal to your audiences and think of what they are more likely to respond to. Keeping your audience in mind while curating content is one of the ways on how to use Twitter to grow your business.
13. Don’t Measure Success by Follower Count
Gone are the times when the follower count of a business was indicative of their success. In modern times, while researching how to use Twitter to grow your business, there are several other metrics that should be tracked to measure progress. This includes engagement growth, brand sentiment on Twitter, customer response time, lead generation, etc.
14. Utilize Twitter Video Feature
Brands are constantly looking at how to use Twitter to grow their business without using paid promotions or ads. One of the best and proven strategies to achieve this is by using Twitter videos. 82% of Twitter users watch video content on the platform. Twitter video is a fail-proof of generating organic engagement.
15. Know When to Take Conversations from Public to Private
Twitter has become a widely used platform for customer care. While it is a great place to get initial contact, brands must know when to take the conversations private. It not only helps protect sensitive customer information but also helps brands dive deeper into the situation.
16. Use Twitter Lists to Stay Organized
One of the biggest challenges of Twitter is the vast amount of data that is thrown at you every single time you log in to the app. The best way to keep things organized is by putting everyone on Twitter lists and creating a workflow. For instance, there can be a customer list and an influencer list. You can check the tweets from the customer list and then move on to the influencer list. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the deluge of data, you can prioritize mini-streams of data.
Bluenod allows you to target topic-related communities and manage your Twitter lists directly.
17. Find Your Target Customer With Twitter Search
Twitter is a gold mine for generating leads. With a couple of quick searches, you can find people talking about problems and issues that your product can resolve. This simple and actionable tip is the answer for those who are trying to understand how to use Twitter to grow your business.
18. Respond When People Tag You
In recent times, customers prefer to stick with brands that have a responsive customer care service. In fact, a lot of people unfollow brands and businesses if they don’t get a response from them. If customers are tagging you somewhere, be quick to reply and engage with your customers. If you are a big brand you won’t be able to answer all the tweets, in such cases try prioritizing tweets that are of high value.
Twilert will send you an e-mail every time your brand name, selected hashtags, or keywords are mentioned on Twitter.
19. Assume Everything You Tweet is Permanent
Before you tweet anything, imagine that whatever you post on Twitter will be seen by everyone. Avoid posting anything that doesn’t go along with your brand values. Tweet responsible to avoid PR nightmares. One rude comment or inappropriate content can cost you heavily.
20. Sneak a Second Link in Your Bio
This is another helpful tip on how to use Twitter to grow your business. In addition to the main website link, you can also add a second link in your bio section to get more traffic or leads. If you have multiple Twitter handles, adding the link in the bio will help people quickly navigate between them.
21. Don’t Engage With Trolls
Twitter trolls or accounts are constantly trying to attach brands for no other reason than wanting attention. Do not indulge with such accounts. If you are unable to differentiate between genuine and troll accounts, always reply professionally and wait for their response.
22. Don’t Spam People
Do not become a brand that goes around spamming people as much as humanly possible. Pushing your products and services to unwilling customers is the worst possible way of brand marketing. Go through Twitter’s guidelines to understand what is considered as spamming and what is acceptable.
23. Create a Branded Hashtag
Get some user-generated content on Twitter by creating your own branded hashtag. Branded hashtags are a great way for you and your audience to see content related to your brand even if your Twitter handle is not included. They are also helpful in tracking tweets around specific brand campaigns.
24. Spend Time on Your Copy
Your tweet is short and easy to write but as it is permanent consider spending some time on your copy before posting it for the world to see. Double your spellings and grammatical errors to avoid embarrassing mishaps. You don’t want to get misinterpreted on social media due to a seemingly innocent typo.
25. Be an Industry Resource
This is our last and most important tip on how to use Twitter to grow your business.
Post content that your audience would be thankful for and be more strategic about what content you choose to curate. The right kind of content must add value to your audience and provide knowledge.
[…] Also, see 25 Ways to Use Twitter For Beginners […]