It’s clear that brands find success on some social media platforms easier than others. Twitter can be a challenging site to crack, and there are a variety of reasons behind that. Here are some practical tips and advice on how your company can master Twitter.
1. Don’t be afraid to follow to grow your account.
For the most part, brand accounts often think differently to how they approach Twitter for the business instead of using it for a personal account. Obviously, part of that is necessary, but brands that are obsessed with sales or promotions are making a mistake. The reality here is that social media is about connections, communications and interactions at its core.
Traditional marketing techniques would suggest that to be successful, customers need to know about you. The first stage to that process on social media is to grow your account. One of the ways you can do that is through a process known as targeted following. In simple terms, this involves targeting the right users that are most relevant to you to grow your account and connect with them. Unfortunately, most brands don’t follow a lot of users, and this can be one reason they struggle to grow.
2. Successful Twitter accounts are visual.
Certain social media sites are visual platforms; examples would be Pinterest and Instagram. It’s certainly true to say that it’s not a requirement for every Twitter update to be visual. In fact, the site has its origins as a micro-blogging site where users would share their thoughts and ideas.
In some ways, it’s still true to those values because providing tips and communication is vital to find success on Twitter. However, visual content is the most engaging and will make your profile look attractive and varied. To be successful, you will need to focus on visual content. Brands that don’t do this are unlikely to grow a following or see much engagement.
3. Scheduling and planning is critical.
Another one of the reasons that brands struggle with social media is because they don’t have a clear plan. This means they are struggling to come up with ideas for content. The companies that do achieve success will have a general plan for the type of content they want to share as well as a range of templates to make that process easier.
Scheduling is another essential part of the process; when you have a lot of different social media platforms, it’s hard to manage that in real time. The other important consideration here is posting your updates at the right times for your audience. Of course, this will depend on the size and scope of your brand. For some though, it will involve posting content outside of regular working hours, making scheduling of tweets crucial.
4. Remember to listen to your customers.
You only have to spend a few minutes on Twitter to realize that it’s one of the core social media platforms that users love to use to communicate with brands. Of course, that communication can be both positive and negative, but either way your brand needs to be aware of it. It’s clear to see how a lot of brands fall down here by not having an active Twitter account.
This means that managing a successful Twitter brand account has various stages to it. The first thing is to ensure you are producing high-quality, engaging content, but then be ready to respond to fans as they engage with it. Also, users will assume all brands are on Twitter so that means an inactive brand account can be a significant problem. You should ensure you are monitoring what people are saying about you on Twitter.
There are indeed a lot of different social media sites to manage as a brand. Twitter is an important platform but not one that many brands can master. Keep the faith though because it can be done if you have a solid strategy. The crucial things to remember are to be prepared to follow to grow your account; successful Twitter accounts have visual content, scheduling and planning is critical and be ready to listen and respond to your customers.
