Twitter provides you with a platform to share your company brand with the world. You just have to complete the task in 140 characters or less. It’s a microblogging system, which forces you to keep marketing messages short and sweet. There are small business marketing tips: Twitter marketing ideas that let you make the most of your social media promotional experience. You can insert links into your tweets promoting a recent blog article, website update or article you wrote for an industry publication. You can upload a video from YouTube that gives you and your follows a much-needed break in the middle of a busy day. These options provide an opportunity for you to squeeze past that pesky 140 character restriction. Here are a few other ideas that you can put into place today.
Business Presence
You should maintain the same look and identity as your other social media channels. It keeps a consistent appearance across the board. Consistency equals dependability. Potential customers are more likely to make purchases from companies that they deem dependable.
Profile Name
When you are setting up your Twitter account, try to select a profile name that is identical to the one on your other social media channels. If your exact name is not available, create the closest option and change your other social media accounts to reflect the new name. It allows for your target market audience to locate your company regardless of what social media channel they happen to be on at the time.
Images
Twitter provides you with the opportunity to showcase two different pictures. One serves as your profile image and can be a personal picture or company logo. The other is your cover photo. It is a larger canvas that is ideal for presenting your brand image or company tagline. You can also use the cover photo feature to showcase a new product coming out or new service you will be offering soon.
Company Facts
As you are creating a Twitter business presence, make sure your target market audience knows three vital facts about your company. You should provide the city and state where your business works. Plus, you should include a link to your company website or blog page. Tell your business story in 160 characters or less. Insert a little personality in order to give your business a personal feel that is easy to relate to.
Be Social
The key to social media activity is to be social. Interact with people that you decide to follow and respond to your followers who ask questions or share how they use your product or service. Set up your account by selecting individuals and businesses that you want to follow. It will build the foundation for your social network community on Twitter.
Categories to Follow
At a bare minimum, you should be following people who are customers, as well as business partners, suppliers, contractors, and vendors. You can also follow competitors, industry trade shows and professional organizations, and local businesses. Now that your list of who to follow is complete, it is time to start being social. Keep your topic of conversation on the products and services your company offers while also discussing how these items benefit your target audience. Offer advice and send your congratulations when someone you are following celebrates a milestone of some sort. Your social interaction up to this point will create a solid following by other Twitter users.
Make the Connection
With your conversation now flowing smoothly, it is time to create a relationship between this social media channel and the rest of your marketing elements. Begin writing tweets that center on a topic or theme present in your latest blog post. Add this link, along with some words that capture the attention of your target market audience, and you have a substantial marketing piece sailing through the Twitter stratosphere.
Share Blog Posts
Sharing blog posts within your tweet messages establishes a connection to your website. As a result, current customers stay up-to-date with your company and potential customers get a fresh look at what you have to offer. By linking to your website, you have now given website visitors an opportunity to find your Twitter account. Your company marketing exposure is now double what is was before you opened a Twitter account.
Tell a Story
One of the greatest Twitter features is the ability it provides you to tell a story. You can use video clips or images to add a personal touch to the company name that goes in front of a potential customer for the first time. It is your best chance of making a positive first impression that will stick in the mind of your target audience, prompting them to take further action.
Add Images and Video
Give insight to the activity of your company through images that you upload from your desktop computer or smartphone picture gallery. Add a short video that you upload from YouTube or Vine. It can relate to your business or be something comical that brings a little laughter to you and your client base.
Channel the Power of Hashtags
A hashtag is that familiar number sign (#) symbol. There are hashtags for everything. You see them in commercials. Read about them in the newspaper or hear about them on the evening news. Some hashtags are short and to the point. Other ones manage to take on a life of their own.
A Marketing Tool
While they appear to be all in fun and games, the Twitter hashtag serves as a viable marketing tool for your business. It works to bring tweets about hot topics or common themes into one place. The top twenty most popular hashtags at any given time on Twitter earn the recognition of trending for the time being until a more popular hashtag comes along and bumps one off the list. A trending hashtag means the topic or theme it centers on is one of the most popular discussion taking place on Twitter at that particular moment.
Search for Popular Hashtags
You can take part in trending conversation by taking a look at the search page. Here you will see the most popular hashtags in order of their popularity. It’s like the high school cafeteria cool table for social media. Browse the hashtags and see if one jumps out at you. If it does, create a tweet using that hashtag and add yourself to the trending conversation.
Hashtags to Relate To
Another way to utilize hashtags is to create ones that relate to your latest blog post, product release or additional service that you share with your followers. Each tweet you create using a particular hashtag goes before a wider audience. Anyone looking at that hashtag will see your tweet, giving them an opportunity to reach out and make a connection with your company. Hashtags are a great way to gain additional exposure for your company while increasing your Twitter socialization engagement at the same time.
Stay Local
Twitter provides you with the opportunity to reach out to your local community area by conducting an advanced search. Look for the ‘places’ entry section of the search page and enter in your city name or zip code information. Twitter processes this information and presents you with a list of local customers with information matching your search requirements.
Twitter Users Who Do Business with Your Company
Review this list and see which Twitter users are currently doing business with your company. Look at the remaining users on the list and make plans to introduce yourself and your organization. Consider extending an introductory offer of a discount on your product or service or another incentive for this new customer base to give your business a try.
Expand Your Market Audience
Consider following individuals or businesses on that list that are not yet part of the people and companies that you follow. It is a quick and easy way to expand your market audience as they are likely to return the favor and begin following you as well.
Get To Know Your Local Market Audience
Twitter provides a platform for old school word-of-mouth advertising to meet modern day technology. It happens as you and your local market audience get to know one another through your Twitter activity. Local customers will show support for your company by retweeting your posts or mentioning you in a post of their own. In turn, their Twitter audience sees the message and shares it with their followers.
Observe the Snowball Effect
The snowball effect begins to take place as your tweets make their way through the Twitter social circuit. It puts your business in front of an entirely new audience. In the blink of an eye, you will start to see your followers list grow almost overnight. There will be new visitors to your website which turns into new blog subscribers and mailing list members.
It is the power of social media in action! The key point you need to remember is always to be social on Twitter and any other social media channel you elect to use for your business marketing campaign. Being social allows you to gain the trust of potential customers. It turns prospects into paying clients. It makes Twitter an essential component of your small business marketing plan.
