In January 2022, Twitter recorded a whopping 217 million active users worldwide. Amidst the latest takeover by Elon Musk, it has spiked by about 12 million users more. And as he is getting ready to take control, there is a steady growth of users as more people are joining hoping for a makeover and also to be in the middle of any drama that may ensue. 

In his latest tweet, Elon Musk tweeted this:

Twitter will always be free for casual users but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users
While this may put a spoke in some wheels, let’s come to that when everything is finalised. Meanwhile, it is agreed that in today’s world, each and every business needs digital marketing which is inclusive of all the social media portals.

Is Twitter a beneficial portal too?

Absolutely yes. Twitter has to be a part of every brand’s marketing strategy. Being the fifth most popular platform, it is the cash cow that will get you sales because of the user insights and the overwhelming opportunities it brings. 

Twitter is also appealing because of its aesthetic sense and decluttered feel; but how does that help your brand? It does, as the dashboards across the internet have proven that the clarity of content has more user engagement. Twitter already has an edge over other social media networks owing to its format.

The many reasons why Twitter should be your best marketing buddy

Contradictory to the other platforms, Twitter doesn’t care about your feed or the description you have of yourself. Just a sudden thought or an epiphany or your plain, old opinion is enough. Just tweet it and watch the magic of social media unfold. Use hashtags as the cherry on top and you will soon have more user engagement than you can imagine.

Using Twitter for marketing specifically

To be able to use Twitter to leverage your brand, one needs to have some strategies in place. Let’s get started:

• Optimise your Twitter account and profile – First and foremost, this step is crucial and many businesses tend to neglect it and leave some blank fields, which makes it important for branding. It can never be repeated enough, “first impression is a lasting impression”. A fantastic banner image, a fresh bio makes for an eye-catching profile, links to the websites of your business and blogs/articles and you are good to go. This increases new website traffic, as well as helps customers, understand your brand persona.
• Building communities on Twitter – Every social media networking site yields maximum results only after a substantial amount of work has been put in and Twitter is no different. The only difference is that to gain a mass following, one has to be very active in creating engagement and building connections with followers. That doesn’t mean connections with all and sundry, just follow the accounts that are vital to your brand’s niche. Moreover, you can start by building your connections generically at first. For example, existing customers, colleagues, friends, influencers that are relevant to your brand and competitors. Begin a worthwhile relationship with people by retweeting and making a mention of them. Keep commenting on the relevant people’s tweets as well for engagement and keep tweeting about your brand from time to time.
• Share compelling experiences and content – Twitter is the platform that is far-reaching and has the most extensive information. And the beauty of tweeting is that you can add images, videos, creatives, blog links, GIFs and quotes for better engagement. There is a drawback though, compared to other platforms, Twitter needs bagfuls of content on a daily basis. How does one get so much content day on day? Here is where the potential of content curation can be inspected and time can be saved. Content curation helps you stay consistent with tweeting in the best possible way. Visual content in tweets is a great way of attracting attention too. 
• Proactive engagement and conversations galore – While using Twitter to boost engagement and subsequent marketing, remember these two words that define the strategy: Accuracy and mindfulness. Since Twitter is like having a conversation with someone literally, conscientiousness has to be in play, to be able to leverage the platform in the right sense. Having said that, go ahead and experiment with your Twitter marketing strategy while keeping a track of what the world is talking about. This knowledge can add an insightful twist to your focus on building trust and value for your business. Interact, respond, retweet, mention and use the favourite icon to follow up and keep being noticed. Also, this will build a good image for your brand and you will get the eyeballs you deserve. 
• Relevant hashtags in tweets for profile optimisation – Hashtags are a Twitter creation although they gained more popularity on Instagram. Have you heard that a certain tweet has gone viral? More often than not, it is the amalgamation of not only the content but the hashtag that creates the buzz or the trend. While some hashtags need no introduction at all, remember #MeToo? But for a brand, brand guidelines should be established that are relevant to your business. Another edge that Twitter has provided is that if you use the trending hashtags, everyone who is interested in or is in the same arena of business like yours can see it. The algorithm will try its best to come up in all the searches; and start a whole new following. The only thing is that you can’t use hashtags randomly, some amount of refined research goes into it to understand what sets of hashtags and how many should be used at what point. Also, the search volume is a great tool to help you maximise your reach.

Tweet, tweet, tweet and repeat.

If you want to leverage this platform to achieve your business goals, it is impossible to escape the one proven way that works generically, tweet and retweet. While you can tweet as many times as you like, tweeting thrice a day is imperative to achieve your set targets. It is best to tweet morning, noon and night. 

Did you know that there are statistics that show you what’s the best time to tweet? There is guidance available everywhere on the internet as to when to tweet or retweet. Let’s look at some stats right here:

• Retweets – Want your tweets to go viral? What happens when many people retweet your tweet. It is a fact that if you tweet at 5 pm, you will have more engagement in terms of retweets.
• CTR (Click through rate) – On working days, tweeting anywhere between 12 pm and 6 pm works in getting the highest click through rate. 
• Scheduling – The easiest way to ensure multiple tweets a day is to use the many tools available on the internet making life easier with the post-scheduling option.

Some Twitter Marketing tips and tricks to keep in mind.

• Put your company logo as your profile picture.
• Always have a short company brief in Twitter bio.
• Add links to your blogs and website. 
• Must-have brand related keywords.
• Use the brand’s colour palette and clear visuals. 
• Tweets should ideally begin with a new product/ feature/ service.
• Tweet about customer feedback and building business strategies.
• Follow relevant people, keeping brand value in mind.
• Networking is important, reply, like, mention, and retweet.
• Share creative tweets keeping your audience in mind.
• Have variations by sharing quotes, videos and product videos.
• To gain more shares, views and clicks, it is advisable to make all the images and videos into creatives by adding text.
• Tweet multiple times a day and keep them all different and interesting.
• To keep your audience engaged, keep the tweets short and crisp.
• Have chats and conversations on Twitter chat and get people to respond.
• Use specific keywords and topics in your hashtags to organise your tweets.
• Don’t go beyond two or three hashtags per tweet.
• Research and use popular hashtags that are also relevant to your niche.
• Observe what the target audience follows and pick up points from there.
• Increase your followers by using trending hashtags.
• Keeping your target audience’s demographics in mind, tweet according to the best times that the stats show.
• For more engagement, we can’t emphasise enough that you should tweet at least three times a day, if not more.
• Use the plethora of scheduling tools available online especially for Twitter, to improve your presence.

Finally……

Hopefully, this exhaustive list shows you how Twitter can be used for marketing. Yes, like everything else, Twitter also has its downside. The multiple tweeting process is cumbersome and overwhelming. But this platform is extremely important for a good business strategy. Marketers have to leverage Twitter for opportunities that are aplenty for brands. The astronomical speed that Twitter has to make a tweet go viral and trend, is the platform to win accolades. Although, consistency is key. Months of hard work will yield unbelievable results. Get yourself a marketer with a stellar business strategy and a good scheduling tool and watch your brand spike to new levels.

 “Twitter is a great place to tell the world what you’re thinking before you’ve had a chance to think about it.” – Chris Pirillo