How to Develop a Successful Twitter Marketing Strategy

Twitter is a great social channel for most marketers with more than 328 million monthly active users. And creating a Twitter profile for your brand is pretty simple. You’ll only need to come up with a unique Twitter handle, upload a profile picture, fill out the bio and start tweeting. Surely no one would doubt the ease at which you can run your Twitter handle. But turning that into a lead generating machine or a tool to build your brand is an entirely different ball game. Gaining followers on Twitter isn’t just about sending a bunch of tweets every day. It is about striking a balance between the voice of your brand and the pulse of the target audience. And that’s when things begin to get tricky. However, if you can become a Twitter star, you will be on your way to tapping plenty of opportunities for yourself and your brand.

And how do you get there? That’s exactly what we are going to explore in this post.

Twitter is Different, So is the Marketing Strategy

Every social channel has a different purpose and style of networking. So you cannot apply the same marketing strategy of Facebook, Pinterest, or LinkedIn to it. You will first need to understand where Twitter fits in the social landscape. Based on that, you can work out a good marketing strategy.

Most businesses use Twitter to:

• Drive social engagement
• Promote events
• Provide customer support
• Share relevant content
• Create brand awareness
• Network with complementing brands and influencers

Unlike social channels such as Instagram or Pinterest, Twitter isn’t only about announcements and broadcasting. It is more about interactions.

Beyond Setting Up a Twitter Profile

Now that we have established the purpose of Twitter in the social arena, let’s get started with the nitty gritty of Twitter marketing.

Twitter Chitter Chatter

Whoever thought Twitter chats could be a good place to strategize? I say this because a healthy Twitter following is based on the number of ‘active’ followers and not the passive or inactive ones. You can achieve that to a great extent with the help of Twitter chats.

With Twitter chats you and your brand can get a lot of exposure, engage with your customers, and increase your follower count. Twitter chats are quite effective that way because people who participate in chats are the ones who are most active. This means there’s a lot of instant networking happening in there.

• First, look for Twitter chats related to your product, service, or brand.
• Participate in these chats and offer valuable information and opinions.
• Get a little creative by using images and GIFs in your interactions.
• If you are unable to find a chat relevant to your brand or industry, then get a little adventurous—start your own Twitter chat.
• Follow up with people you connected with in your Twitter chats. Make a list of people from each chat and start interacting with their tweets.

Pro tip: Refrain from being a mute spectator on Twitter chats. Period!

Converse; Don’t Broadcast

Most brands use Twitter to simply broadcast events. But like I mentioned earlier, Twitter is not about broadcasting. It’s all about conversations, interactions, engagement—name it what you will. You would be wrong in thinking that you can get away with tweeting headlines and links. Doing this will only shut you and your brand out of the target community. Let your tweets be conversational, inviting your customers and followers to tweet back to you.

JetBlue Airways and Charmin are two of the few handles that are killing it on Twitter. (See how they get their content mix right!)

Now, here are a few tips to help you get conversational on Twitter.

• Ensure that half of your tweets are replies to others.
• When you share a link, add your opinion on the topic.
• Shoot out some questions.

Have a Tweeting Schedule

Apart from replying to or retweeting other’s tweets, your Twitter marketing strategy should include a regular posting schedule. This will ensure that even if you do not have tweets pouring in from fans, there will be a set of tweets sent out everyday. Another added advantage is to save on hours of creating and tweeting broadcasting content. You can use that time to work on other marketing or sales activities on Twitter.

Your schedule should ideally outline the what and when of your tweeting. I would recommend that you add this as part of your content strategy. This way, you can ensure that you are not tweeting out only links and dry content. There is nothing wrong with sharing your blog links as tweets, but remember to space it out wisely. You can even use this as an opportunity to create a healthy balance of the different types of content you will be tweeting.

While I think that you should handle the what of tweeting, there are plenty of tools out there that will handle the when of tweeting. These tools allow you to automatically schedule your tweets for the most optimal times when there is maximum engagement. So now, all you will need to focus on is the awesome content you want to tweet out.

Set KPIs and Goals

Where there is marketing, there are goals. Most often marketers tend to ignore them or forget to track them unless there is money being shelled out. About 41 percent of the brands out there have no clue on the impact of social media investment. That’s a sad number, but that shouldn’t be the case even if you are running a marketing strategy without a budget. You need to have measurable goals that you cannot only track but also achieve. Goals keep your strategy in check and help you avoid the many mistakes that marketers tend to make.

When it comes to Twitter, marketers and brand have the tendency to simply publish content and expect that it will magically transform their marketing strategy. First, you need to set some goals. You can take a hint or two from the ones listed here.

• Boost brand awareness.
• Increase ROI (if you have a budget).
• Create a loyal fan following.
• Improve sales.

Now that you have a broad perspective of what your goals are, narrow them down to create clear objectives for each goal. Do not forget to include a deadline for each objective.

• Increase mentions by 10 percent.
• Ensure response time of less than 15 minutes.
• Create at least 10 sales leads every day.
• Increase response rate by 10 percent.

You get the drift of it, don’t you? Now, let’s take a quick look at how you can measure these goals. While there’s Google Analytics, you should consider reporting tools aimed specifically at social media. Geared with these, you are all set to take the Twitter channel by storm.

A Final Note

But before I let you go, here is something that you should know. No matter which social channel you market your brand on, always remember to plan ahead for holidays and special events. These are days that you can leverage when it comes to social media marketing. And the buzz around such events is quite high, especially on Twitter. These are days or dates you are aware of right at the start of the year. So start planning well in advance the kind of content and creatives that you will tweet out. Create a marketing plan around the holiday or special event. This will help you keep the momentum.

And now, it’s your turn to share your thoughts on the best marketing strategy for Twitter.

Monica Maria is the content and PR birdie at SMhack. She enjoys everything and anything social. When she isn’t discussing social, you can find her reading poetry or taking photographs.

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