From Apple to Toyota and all types of brands in between, the Twitter-verse is a center of business activity. In real time, companies broadcast short messages with links, pictures and special offers across this public social network. If your company has yet to hashtag, the time is right to learn the power of Twitter for business.
7 Reasons Why You Need Twitter for Business
As our society becomes more plugged-in, it’s difficult for businesses to neglect the opportunity Twitter presents. Even if social media is outside your comfort zone, your business can benefit from interacting with the more than a 100 million daily users on Twitter.
1. Raises Brand Awareness
With its large community, Twitter provides businesses with a free and easy way to gain attention for their brand. With every tweet, businesses work towards building an audience of followers. Each time your business communicates on Twitter is an opportunity to build brand awareness, an early step on the buyer’s journey.
2. Gains Credibility
To a certain age group, businesses that aren’t on social media might as well not exist. Today, businesses benefit not only from being Google-able, but also findable on social media platforms. A business that interacts regularly on Twitter can be perceived as being more credible than a social media-phobic brand.
3. Delivers a Content Strategy
After taking a minute to look and listen on Twitter, content strategy is the next natural step in the process. Since everyone has busy schedules, it helps to create a content calendar. Once you have planned everything out, schedule business tweets in advance to avoid missing a day.
To drive engagement and direct response, Twitter suggests the following strategy:
- Monday: promotions
- Tuesday: behind the scenes
- Wednesday: helpful hints
- Thursday: customer spotlight
- Friday: feature industry experts or news for #FollowFriday
- Saturday: community or industry spotlights
- Sunday: focus on people
4. Establishes Relationships
Everybody likes an accessible brand, especially online. Since Twitter allows open public communication, it’s easier for businesses to build relationships. You can get the most out of Twitter for business by following customers, other brands and influencers. Advanced users often build lists to segment and target leads on Twitter.
5. Provides Quick Customer Service
Twitter’s real-time format enables businesses to reply quickly to customer concerns posted on the social media site. Businesses can gain goodwill and credibility from responding to customer service issues on their public Twitter page.
6. Boosts Website Traffic
On their Twitter profile, businesses typically include a link to their website. Each time your business tweets, new audiences can be exposed to your business’ website. Another strategy is to include links back to your website in your business’ tweets. But a good rule of thumb is to limit business promotion to about 20 percent of tweets.
7. Drives Sales
Businesses today also use Twitter as a forum to drive sales. Twitter offers businesses the option to promote tweets to reach larger audiences. These can be targeted to reach certain demographics, like location or interests. With calls-to-action for time-sensitive special offers, Twitter ads can provide a good return on investment.
If your company is thinking about expanding its social media marketing, Twitter for business is a can’t-miss, cost-effective opportunity.