Twitter Marketing Done Right: 3 Tips to Maximize Your Twitter Marketing
Twitter marketing can be an excellent resource, but only if it is done properly.
Time and time again we stress the importance of a strategy when it comes to Twitter marketing and other forms of social media marketing. Where Twitter marketing differs, however, is in the approach you take to promoting your brand. As we never tire of pointing out, Twitter is not a realm apt for self-promotion. And if you approach the social network as a place to simply tout your brand and aggressively pursue conversions, you will be disappointed with the results. So how can you go about conducting your Twitter marketing in an efficient manner so that you get the most out of all the social network has to offer from a business perspective?
Below are three pointers that should help you get the most our of your Twitter marketing efforts. Twitter can be an exceptional tool for driving business, but your strategy must be in line with Twitter best practices in order to see the best results.
1. Establish Your Goals and Measurement Criteria
There is an entire world of untapped leads and potential clients on Twitter, and heading into the social network blind may leave you stumbling to get on track. Therefore, before embarking on your Twitter marketing campaign, you should first define both your goals and how you plan on measuring said goals. If you jump into Twitter expecting that your first tweet will garner dozens of retweets and loads of conversions and followers, you’re going to be disappointed. (Unless of course you’re a celebrity, in which case we appreciate you reading our blog!) Your strategy needs to include a few key criteria. Below is a list of things to consider when launching your Twitter marketing campaign.
- Who is your target audience?
- Are you looking for followers in a geo-targeted area or worldwide?
- Are you hoping for conversions on a website or at a location?
Once you’ve answered these questions, it is time to get a little more specific.
- Do you already have a set of followers? If so, how would you categorize them? If not, how do you plan on acquiring them?
- If you are looking for followers in a specific location, how do you plan on finding them?
- What do you consider a conversion from Twitter? Is it s click through? A download? A subscription? A purchase?
- Are you hoping to use Twitter to increase your current business or start something new?
The answers to these questions are essential before you begin marketing on Twitter. Once these goals are defined, you can establish your measurement criteria. This is a little trickier, because in order to measure the success of your Twitter marketing, you need to have answered the third question in the second set of bullet points above: What do you consider a conversion from Twitter? Once you have this answer, you can set up the appropriate criteria for monitoring the success of your campaigns.
2. Design Your Messages Around Your Niche
As you begin building your audience, you are going to want to keep them captivated. One devastating mistake many marketers often make is sending out nothing but self-promotion. While you might be the expert in a given field, constantly telling people about it and ignoring engaging content will get you nowhere. You will want to design your messages around the niche you wish to target in order to keep them engaged. Below are a few helpful tips to consider when drafting your messages and content.
- People love advice and garnering knowledge, so share what you know to showcase your expertise as opposed to simply stating that you are the expert.
- Quick, entertaining content is a great way to engage with your followers. Share fun facts and quirky anecdotes that people want to see.
- Focus on a designated subject or theme that stretches across all of your messages. Keep your content on track so that the niche audience you build stays engaged.
- Do not bombard you followers with links and promotional content. Once in a while a message like this is fine – but this should under no circumstances be your starting point.
Engaging content should be the focal point in drafting all of your Twitter messages. One goal that should always be present is to convert your audience members into brand advocates. We can’t all be Coca-Cola or Harley Davidson – we have to work to get our fans coming back. And, as with all social media, content is king when it comes to boosting your audience.
3. Narrow Your Audience with Twitter Lists
Twitter Lists are a fantastic way of segmenting your audience into appropriate categories. Say you have a thousand followers. Great! But not all of them will be following you for the same reasons. Some might follow you because they are in the same industry. Some might follow you because they are interested in your online product or service. Others might follow you because they live in your area, and are already physical customers. Each of these three categories will respond to your content differently. Lists will help you engage with all of them in the right way.
Once you have segmented your followers into lists, you will be able to design campaigns and messages to go out that are geared towards engaging with one of these groups specifically. The industry members might not be interested in your sales and promotions, but they might find some of your industry-relevant messages much more useful. Your physical customers may have no use for online promotions, but they might jump at the chance to collect in-store offers promoted via Twitter. Take this into account when setting up your campaigns, and use the Twitter Lists to your advantage.
These are just a few of the best practices when it comes to Twitter marketing. Over time, your Twitter strategy evolves and some of these points change and disappear while new ones are added. But to get the most out of your Twitter marketing when you are getting started, these pointers should certainly help.
Can you think of any other best practices when it comes to launching your Twitter marketing? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!