The Ultimate Twitter Marketing Guide

You can find all the latest information you need about anything on Twitter. And this includes the latest updates from your favorite businesses and companies. 

Some businesses have managed to use Twitter to boost conversions, increase brand awareness, engage their customers and more. The platform attracts about 326 million monthly users from all over the world. You have an opportunity to share content with all of them. 

The idea of being able to reach all those people sounds interesting, doesn’t it? But you should first ask yourself how you can create content that they will want to engage with. 

That is the point of this post. It is a comprehensive guide to Twitter marketing. 

A Twitter Marketing Strategy: What Is It?

It is a plan for creating and sharing content with your followers, audience and buyer personas on Twitter. Its purpose is to put your brand out there, attract new leads and boost sales. 

Forming a Twitter marketing strategy is just like creating a typical social media marketing strategy. The steps are the same:

• Research your target audience and buyer personas.
• Create great, interesting content.
• Schedule your posts.
• Analyze your results.

What Is Unique About Twitter?

There are several things that make Twitter a fantastic marketing tool.

• It is free.
• You can easily share branded content.
• It will expand your reach.
• It allows businesses to offer quick customer support.
• You can search your competitors to see their content and how they are doing it.
• Prospects can search for your business and learn more about it.
• You can communicate with your followers and share new updates with them.

How Can You Use Twitter for Business?

As you use Twitter for marketing, it is important that you reach the people you are targeting. Here are some steps you can follow to help with that. You can tweak them to suit your business.

Customize Your Profile

You want people to know that it is your business when they take a glance at the profile. Let it include your colors, logos and any memorable details that are associated with your brand. 

• Handle: this is your Twitter username. Make sure it includes your business’s name to make it easy for people to find you. 
• Header: this is like the background image. You can use a branded image, your logo or just a unique image. 
• Profile picture: this the picture that represents your business with every interaction, tweet, post, etc. You can use the CEO’s photo, business initials, or your logo. 
• Bio: this lets people know what the Twitter account is all about. You can write a brief description of the company, the mission statement or just something funny and engaging. 
• Website URL: under the bio, there’s a place for your URL. It will help direct traffic to your site. 
• Birthday: input the date that the business was started to give your audience a little more information. 

Create Lists

Every Twitter user can create and view a list. It is a group of Twitter accounts that you have selected and organized in categories. Your lists could be for top marketing experts, leadership experts, etc. Opening a list displays the accounts’ tweets only. 

Twitter lists allow you to follow specific handles. Feel free to segment the lists into groups: target audience, competitors, business inspiration, etc. You will be able to conveniently review their content, interactions and posts. 

Host a Chat

A Twitter chat could be for discussing a specific topic, engaging followers, asking for opinions about something from your audience or fostering a community. 

To host a TweetChat, set a date and time for the chat, pick a topic and come up with a hashtag. Share the information on your bio, website or in a tweet. 

When someone wants to see the comments, questions and responses regarding the topic, they can search the hashtag. 

Twitter Chats boost engagement and create a conversation around your brand. 

Advertise

This is an amazing way to quickly reach your target audience. Your tweets will be discovered by thousands of Twitter users and increase your influence. This is done through Twitter ads or promoted tweets. 

• Promoted tweets: this feature displays your tweets in Twitter search results or Twitter streams to certain users. You will be charged a monthly fee. Twitter users can engage with these promoted tweets just as they would with organic content. 
• Twitter Ads: the feature allows you to choose from various objectives including website conversions, video views and app installs. Whatever you pick determines the price you will pay. 

Increase Traffic to Your Site

How can you increase your website traffic using Twitter?

• Include the business URL under your bio.
• Incorporate the URL in your tweets.
• Retweet other users’ content that has links to your site.
• Embed tweets on your site using a Twitter Timeline.
• Drive traffic to a specific page using Twitter Ads.

Twitter Moments

These are tweet collections about a certain event or topic. Create your own Moments so your followers can view them on your profile. Organize the Moments into categories so you can market events, industry news and campaigns related to your business. 

Get Verified

Apply for Twitter verification. You will get a blue checkmark badge once your application is accepted. It shows that your account is authentic. Your followers will not be confused or duped by accounts that try to impersonate your business. 

Increase Your Followers

With more Twitter followers you will have more people interacting with what you post. You will get more website traffic and increase your brand awareness. 

How can you get more followers?

• Create shareable content.
• Use uncommon hashtags.
• Come up with engaging content: surveys, questions, contests, giveaways, etc.
• Work with Twitter influencers.
• Link to your Twitter account on your website. 
• Engage your current followers. They will return the favor.

13 Twitter Marketing Tips for Twitter

Keyword Targeting in Twitter Ads

You can use Search and Timeline keyword targeting to reach the relevant audience. 

• Search keyword targeting: your tweets will be shown when users search for topics related to your brand.
• Timeline keyword targeting: you can act on Twitter users’ feelings based on what they tweet. 

Use Hashtags

People on Twitter are two times more likely to engage with tweets that have hashtags.

Hashtags will expand your influence. But there are some rules that you should stick to. 

• Create unique hashtags for your business.
• Let the hashtags be memorable and relevant.
• See which of your hashtags are successful (use Twitter Analytics).
• Avoid overusing hashtags. You don’t want your tweets to look spammy.

Schedule Your Tweets

You need to tweet regularly to show consistency and give your followers content to engage with. And also know the right time to post. 

According to research, these are the best times to tweet for businesses:

• 8 to 10 AM and 6 to 9 PM when users are commuting on weekdays.
• Noon and 5 to 6 PM all week. 
• Weekends are the best days for B2Cs.
• Weekdays are the best days for B2Bs.

After determining the best times to post, use a social media management tool to schedule the tweets. Some of the popular ones include:

• HubSpot
• Twitter Analytics
• Sprout Social

Create a Campaign

Social media marketing campaigns help you increase traffic, drive sales and reach your target audience. These are the steps to follow:

• Research the competition.
• Know how to capture the attention of your target audience.
• Decide what content to create.
• Share the content and promote it.
• Monitor the results.

Write a Strong Bio

This is the first thing any visitor to your profile will read. Let it show them what they should expect. You only get 160 characters so make every word count. 

Use Videos and Images

Your tweets shouldn’t just be all text. Include quality photos and videos. Visual content is eye-catching and prompts users to engage with your content. 

Engage Your Followers

If you want followers to keep coming back, engage with them. It feels personal and fosters a sense of loyalty. “Like” interactions or tweet back.

Share Media Mentions

Share images, URLs, videos or articles anytime the media mentions your business. People will find it easier to trust your business.

Monitor Competitors’ Accounts

Follow the accounts or search their handles and see what they tweet. Check their response, comment and retweet count. It is a great way to know whether their strategies are working or not. 

Focus on the Needs and Interests of Your Followers

When you fulfill their needs, they will find it easier to interact with your content. Study them to see what content they like. Create surveys or just ask them in your tweets.

Promote Events

If you have a contest, giveaway or launch party coming up, schedule tweets or use a unique hashtag to promote it. This gives people an opportunity to know how they can participate. 

Check Direct Messages

Users on Twitter can message you privately with concerns or questions. Let your business be known for prompt and efficient customer support by checking the inbox regularly.

Monitor Your Analytics

It is important to check whether your efforts are bearing any fruit. 

Which metrics should you track?

Engagement: analyze your tweets’ click-throughs, favorites, replies, follows and retweets.

Impressions: this shows how many times your posts were shown on audience timelines. 

Hashtags: it shows your most used hashtags by followers and your audience.

Top tweets: see which of your tweets have the most engagement.

Contributors: analyze how your contributors’ tweets are doing.

Twitter Analytics is the best tool for checking your analytics. It is free and created specifically for Twitter. Anyone on the platform can use it. If you like, you can also incorporate Twitter Ads data.