“What Can Twitter Do For My Business?”: Social Media Brand Management

Chelsea Oliver

Posted on: August 15, 2013

Posted by: Chelsea Oliver

Categories: Branding, Social Management

At Yabsta Digital, “what can Twitter do for my business?” is a question we field quite often. If you own a small company, you are no doubt aware that millions of people engage in social media every day, with many relying on mobile devices to stay up to date around the clock. If you’re not convinced, check this out: according to Media Bistro, 70% of small businesses are on Twitter. Websites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn are absolutely key for promoting content, establishing your brand and connecting with users in today’s digital age. In short, Twitter can do plenty for your small business.

Making Connections

Twitter for Small Business Infographic Twitter allows you to connect with people and companies all over the world. You can reach out to potential leads and current customers easily and directly, and communicate on a personal level. Social networking is about inspiring and engaging in conversation; it provides an ideal venue for discussion on topics such as your brand new service or a recent customer experience. Twitter makes it a breeze to engage your audience, promote your products and spread the word easily and quickly about special deals, promotions and sales – everyone loves a good sale!

Monitoring Customers

Twitter helps small businesses make new connections and maintain existing ones. Many customers tweet about their experiences with companies, products and services and this feedback is invaluable for evaluating and, if necessary, redirecting your marketing efforts. You can respond to unhappy customers quickly and appropriately, in real time, and retweet feedback from happy customers to your followers.

Exposure

Using Twitter for your small business leads to much greater exposure than simply using Facebook alone, or being in the minority of marketers not using social media at all. With millions of users active on Twitter every day, building and engaging a set of followers, and following many relevant individuals and companies yourself, gives you exposure to a market that’s too good to miss. Twitter allows you to broadcast messages to both targeted and diverse communities of individuals, which leads to increased lead and customer generation.

Analyzing the Competition

Many small businesses simply don’t have the budget to monitor what their competition is up to, and this is another benefit that Twitter users enjoy. Browse your competition’s pages to get a sense of what they’re posting and the types of content, services, sales and specials they’re offering. Have they built a large following? Are their customers tweeting about and to them? What are they doing that you aren’t? Knowing how your competition manages their Twitter presence can give you helpful insight into your own social media strategy. If you’re looking for examples of inspired Twitter marketing, popular companies Domino’s and Radioshack both ran very successful campaigns.

Promoting Content

Content marketing is essential to successful inbound marketing and a crucial part of a well-developed social media strategy. For example, business blogs are all the rage right now, and for good reason: they boost SEO, online visibility, traffic and lead generation. There’s no easier way to promote your meticulously-crafted blog posts than Twitter – a snappy description and a link can be sent out to your entire community of followers who then, if you’re lucky, share it with their followers. Posting links to your content on Twitter encourages users to visit your website, generating much-needed traffic. Sharing useful, engaging content from other sources within your industry is also a great way to appeal to your audience and generate followers and retweets.

Branding

Establishing your small business’s brand identity is key to successful online customer interaction. Using Twitter gives you the opportunity to be yourself, and convey your company’s true personality. People prefer the authenticity that goes along with genuine conversation – there’s no need to be overly formal. Make your brand stand out by sharing a variety of exciting details, reviews and photos. Twitter also allows you to establish and maintain the voice of your small business, whether it’s trendy or traditional.

Maintaining an active, engaged Twitter presence for your small business provides great online exposure and helps you to establish your brand identity, make genuine connections, monitor your customers and competitors and promote your content, which boosts traffic. All in all, it’s more a question of what can’t Twitter do for your small business than what it can.

Image Credit: Media Bistro











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