“Connect your business to what people are talking about right now”. (Biz.twitter.com, 2015)

So how does it all work?

With over 500 million users and 135,000 new users signing up every day, Twitter can be a great place to connect with your target audience. Twitter makes global communication cheap and measurable (Vryniotis, 2010). It can provide you with an insight to your consumers behaviour and offer a different strategy to reach potential markets (Twitter age, 2013).

Why should your business implement this?

Social networks such as; Twitter, provide advertisers with information about the consumers. This technique is crucial, as it provides the businesses with a “target audience” (Vryniotis, 2010). Using customer influencers from Twitter can be an efficient and cost-effective method to launch new products or services. This type of social media strategy allows a business to analyse the customers voice for marketing purposes (Tuten and Solomon, 2013). This is an inexpensive source of marketing intelligence used by many marketers to discover opportunities and Niches in the market (Ryan and Jones, 2009).

It’s not too late to create a Twitter Account

Already have Twitter and want to apply this to your business?

#1 Get involved in social conversations

There is a significant increase of social communication between brands and social media users, so according to Gladstone ( 2014) now is the best time to jump on this growing trend! Also by keeping up with the trends you will not miss out potential marketing opportunities.

 CASE: #TheDress

The issue of the coloured dress, where a photo of a dress appeared to be black and blue to some people, whereas to others it was white and gold, spread virally and those companies that were quick enough to join this trend resulted in positive brand awareness.

Example 1: Salvation Army Launches powerful campaign!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7oNfC9Xpiw

Example 2: X box using social conversations on Twitter

Another tip to make a customer feel valued is to simply ‘reply’. This is an easy way to improve a company’s reputation at the same time. This academic article shows how making these minor changes on your social media platforms can have an affect on brand loyalty.

 #2. Interact with Fans

Today, people are more likely to use their smartphones or computers to complain about a service or product. By directly interacting with fans, it can build loyal relationship with consumers, resulting in an emotional bond being created with a brand (Patel, 2015). Why is this necessary for a company?

Are you prepared for a quick response rate?

A study carried out revealed; 42% of customers reaching customer service online expect a response within 60 minutes (Baer, 2015).

Example: ‘ASOS’ Fashion Retailer

Asos have quick response rates on Twitter, this has led to customers returning to the website for more purchases, even if they had received a faulty product. ASOS were one of the first retail companies to use this response strategy and it created big discussions throughout social media, which led to an increase in brand loyalty. Customers stated they felt they were being listened to (Econsultancy, 2015).

Real life example: Response to  consumer.

Why not see for yourself? Asos are Brilliant at building relationships through personal responses!

#3  Effectively use Images and Videos

Using pictures and videos in tweets has the potential to boost the amount of retweets by a minimum of 28%. Therefore using imagery can be seen as a shortcut to your company’s success on twitter (Sendible Insights, 2015). This is a simple way to generate more attention for your brands image.

 Related article: The power of images

#4. ‘Favouriting’

To favourite someone’s tweet it can indicate a reaction. Thus, showing interest to a consumer can make the customer feel like their comments are valuable and therefore build brand loyalty. This can increase the chances of the user looking at the particular page and therefore directs traffic to a website (King, 2014). This can prompt a user to follow you and this can also be a polite way to end a conversation with  a customer. Look what else can ‘Favouriting can do for your company.

How can you do this?

This can be done by selecting key words such as, ‘football’ and favouriting related tweets. Although this can consume time, which the use of apps such as ‘Twitfox’ may be beneficial for.

Twitfox allows you to enter keywords that you’d like to monitor and automatically like tweets with such keywords. However this must be used carefully…

Example: Circuit nightclub received over 2000 followers from this method in a few days, these followers visited their websites, and gave them early criticism, this was shut down very soon after opening. Remember that apps can also go against you; there is no way to monitor ‘mass favouriting’.

#5 Support your tweets with blog posts

Twitter is an excellent place to discover articles and blog posts. Due to the restricted 140 characters on twitter, make sure your message is brief but attracts the user’s attention too. Find a short and attractive title and post it on Twitter along with the URL of your successful blog created. This will increase the number of your followers but also direct traffic to your website and alternative social media platforms.

You must also consider the negatives…

• Firstly the wrong online brand strategy can easily set a company up for instant failure and therefore put you at a huge viral social disadvantage because of the Negative buzz created.
• Although mentioned in my other blogs, it really can’t be over stated. There must be commitment placed on keeping social media marketing relevant. Therefore it would be beneficial to have a designated person that consistently maintains the Twitter account to keep a good reputation for the brand.
• Similar to other Social Media Marketing, there is no short term fixing strategy. It could a long period for a company to see the benefits (nibusinessinfo.co.uk, 2015).

Learn from other company’s mistakes

• Chrysler drops the F-bomb

A few years ago Chrysler dropped the ‘F-bomb’ in their official Twitter account taking everyone by surprise. The tweet came from an employee of the agency that was handling the account. This shows how important security should be on all social media platforms; reputations can instantly be destroyed!

Remember apologies are necessary when things go wrong, as they can turn viewers perceptions quickly as Chrysler have shown…

• Tesco’s inappropriate joke

Remember people can get offended if they have built a relationship with a brand. Soon after Tesco had been caught out on selling burgers containing horse meat, the company’s social media team tweeted this… 

This received a lot of negative publicity so keep in mind that everyone has different humour!!!

 

To conclude this topic…

Many marketers underestimate the power of Twitter as a successful marketing tool. Although this alone should not be the main focus of any brands campaign, especially as mentioned before a reputation can easily be destroyed when social media marketing plays a role.

Few extra tips:

• Use lists to organise large amounts of followers
• Images are important
• Be careful with humour
• Assure security regulations are enforced!

 

Are you interested in similar blogs? Then search for #bbsdigmarket for more enjoyable reads!

Want to TWEET about this subject

TWEET: 42% of online consumer expect a response through social media within 60 minutes

TWEET: There are over 500 million Twitter users!

 

References

Baer, J. (2015). 42 Percent of Consumers Complaining in Social Media Expect 60 Minute Response Time | Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy. [online] Convinceandconvert.com. Available at: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-research/42-percent-of-consumers-complaining-in-social-media-expect-60-minute-response-time/ [Accessed 2 Apr. 2015].

Biz.twitter.com, (2015). How Twitter can help your business | Twitter for Business. [online] Available at: https://biz.twitter.com/en-gb/how-twitter-can-help-your-business [Accessed 5 Apr. 2015].

Econsultancy, (2015). How ASOS uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. [online] Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/62038-how-asos-uses-facebook-twitter-pinterest-and-google/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2015].

Gladstone, B. (2014). 7 Simple Twitter Marketing Tips to Improve Your Results |. [online] Social Media Examiner. Available at: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/7-twitter-marketing-tips/. [Accessed 2 Apr. 2015].

King, C. (2014). 12 Twitter Marketing Tips From the Pros |. [online] Social Media Examiner. Available at: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/12-twitter-marketing-tips[Accessed 3 Apr. 2015].

nibusinessinfo.co.uk, (2015). Advantages and disadvantages of using social media. [online] Available at: https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/advantages-and-disadvantages-using-social-media [Accessed 5 Apr. 2015].

Patel, N. (2015). 10 Digital Marketing Trends In 2015 That Will Boost Your Strategy. [online] Forbes. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2015/03/09/10-digital-marketing-trends-in-2015-that-will-boost-your-strategy/ [Accessed 3 Apr. 2015].

Ryan, D. and Jones, C. (2009). Understanding digital marketing. London: Kogan Page.

Sendible Insights, (2015). The Power of Images in Social Media Marketing – Sendible Insights. [online] Available at: http://sendible.com/insights/the-power-of-images-in-social-media-marketing/ [Accessed 4 Apr. 2015].

Tuten, T. and Solomon, M. (2013). Social media marketing. Boston: Pearson.

Twitter: social communication in the Twitter age. (2013). Choice Reviews Online, 50(10), pp.50-5424-50-5424.

Vryniotis, V. (2010). 12 Tips for developing a Successful Twitter Campaign | Web SEO Analytics. [online] Webseoanalytics.com. Available at: http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/12-tips-for-developing-a-successful-twitter-campaign/ [Accessed 2 Apr. 2015].