Let’s start with the basics. Twitter has a growing audience of over 290 million active users, so as much as you may not wish to – it needs to be included in your business communications strategy, especially as Twitter now enters a new era with the acquisition of the platform by Elon Musk.
WHAT IS TWITTER?
One of the most recognisable social channels, there are some parameters to consider when using Twitter which includes their character limit of 280. Twitter is considered the most real time or instant conversational platform of them all and with that in mind, should be used by businesses to spark discussion or debate and build anticipation or excitement.
Twitter can be used as a two way communications tool, giving and receiving messages (Twitter is often seen as the ‘go to’ place to complain to a brand as the response tends to be speedier than email as eyes are on the brand armed and ready to row in with opinion) As a result, being responsive as a business is an important piece of your communications strategy focused on protecting your brand.
You can protect your profile by listing as private and this will limit interactions with followers. On the other hand, leaving yourself open with a public profile to all users means that anyone can engage with you.
For businesses, Twitter offers reach and direct communication with their customers , provide valuable customer service and awareness about their products or services.
The advantage of Twitter is the frequency that you can communicate as it is considered a conversational platform. However, as the newsfeed is rapidly moving for a user, consistency and frequency is important for keeping your brand front and centre of communications.
TWITTER ADS
To pay or not to pay for twitter will depend on your budget and your timeline in getting your message in front of your audience. In terms of an event or launch, which is time sensitive, considering a budget for your communications will allow you to have a more strategic and targeted approach to your content.
If you have allocated budget for Twitter ads, you can create ads depending on your objective.
Objectives can vary from awareness to views or gaining followers and increasing traffic to your website, Twitter ads allow you to set parameters when it comes to placing your tweets in front of your desired audience.
For the purpose of driving sales leads, traffic to your website enables you to bring the twitter audience into your domain and enter your sales funnel, which is more effective for measurement and creating the all-important path to purchase.
There are options to boost a post (quickly turn a post into an advert) through the ‘quick promote’ option or a create a more in depth targeting of your audience through their promoted only tweet. If you have a dedicated budget, we would recommend taking the time to target your audience appropriately to help get ‘bang for your buck’.
LIMITED BUDGETS
Your communications strategy may have a limited budget and therefore there are other methods of working with your tweets to reach your audience,
Hashtags are key for users to engage in conversations of interested on twitter and their trending option allows the user to join conversation as their first action when logging in.
In relation to trending, businesses tend to aspire to trend on twitter ( for positive reasons!) through the use of hashtags and mentions.
Increasing your following is the most successful way of using Twitter to promote your business and keep them up to speed with your latest activity. This means that the frequency of your tweets, hashtags used and imagery are all critical to your communications strategy.
The tweets that are most successful tend to not only communicate effectively within the character limit, but also include captivating imagery or video, appropriate hashtags and that all important call to action.
Imagery that is sized correctly for the platform makes it easy for the audience to consume in one glance while also appearing professional on the newsfeed.
Hashtags that are appropriate for the topic and those that are related will extend reach to the target audience and are also effective.
CONCLUSION
In closing, there is no doubt that Twitter is a beneficial platform for communicating directly with your audience. There are also. multiple ways to get your message seen by your target audience on Twitter. So, whether focusing on increasing your following, getting traffic to your website or aiming to get your content trending, Twitter is an important aspect of your communications strategy and should be in the mix, whether your budget is sizeable or non-existent!
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About the Author
Founded in 2022, Pennypop is an Irish Marketing agency specialising in Marketing and Communications. The business is based in Louth, Ireland and supports businesses across Ireland, UK and USA.
