Leveraging the Potential of Twitter for Business in 2023
Twitter’s global monthly users are predicted to fall by 5% in 2024. Does this mean Twitter for Business is no longer worth the effort? Read on to find out.
If you are an avid social media user, you must’ve realized how Twitter has undergone several changes since Elon Musk took over in October 2022. These changes are an attempt to mimic WeChat, a popular Chinese app, according to the NYTimes. WeChat is an all-around app with social media, mobile payment, and instant messaging in just one app.
However, Twitter users are not amused by the tweaks Musk made to the platform, including the clunky algorithm. For a casual user, it’s one thing to dislike how Twitter sends random tweets from people you don’t follow. Yet, does this feature benefit digital marketers?
Twitter for Business
The Guardian expects more than 30 million Twitter users to quit following Musk’s acquisition. The article continued that advertisers are likely to pull back, pause, or stop advertising on the app.
Following that prediction, Hubspot surveyed over 100 marketing professionals to determine Twitter’s value as a marketing tool. The result is that many users moved to other similar platforms, like Mastodon, in response to Twitter’s decline. Yet, 67% of marketers didn’t plan on using other platforms.
Furthermore, when asked about their Twitter experience after the latest update, 29% of respondents had a neutral response while 34% said they had problematic experiences. In spite of this, Twitter remains one of the most effective social media platforms for brands. 36% of consumers search for brands on social media more often than through search engines. They look for information they can trust before buying products. Thus, with a methodical approach, Twitter is still essential to your digital marketing strategy.
Build Strategy for Your Business
As a microblogging platform, Twitter is ideally suited to building your brand’s community and offering excellent customer service at the same time. Yet, even if Twitter crumbles, make sure your customer care is formidable. Here are several steps to utilize Twitter for your business.
Set Goals
When starting your Twitter business account, you should have a clear goal. Hootsuite suggests creating SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. It’s also essential for adjusting the budget and structuring the workflow. With a focused goal, your energy won’t be wasted.
Different goals need different approaches. For example, if you want to manage your brand reputation, you will monitor brand mentions, relevant hashtags, and even tweets that don’t tag your account. You can also track how your competitors talk about your brand.
Create Style Guidelines
Your brand is probably only a small dot among other brands running Twitter campaigns. For this, you need a social media style guideline. Having a consistent style across your social media accounts will familiarize your audience with your brand.
A guideline is needed so you or your team can always refer back to it whenever drafting content. This includes the brand’s visuals, tone, and personality. It can also be as small as how you use emojis or a specific hashtag for an event.
Create Content Calendar
Consistent posting is necessary. Making a yearly and monthly content calendar is necessary for better brand exposure. Aside from maintaining a consistent posting schedule, scheduling content also acts as a quality check. You can prevent a potentially offensive post, as well as things like typos.
Before planning your Twitter content calendar, you should conduct a social media audit, or in this case, a Twitter audit. The goal is to evaluate your Twitter account’s performance. From there, you can identify what post is favored by your audience and what is not.
Utilize Twitter’s Features
Twitter has several features to leverage in your marketing campaign. Mastering these features is a must to stay on top of your game. For example, under ‘Trends’ you’ll find various topics, words, or hashtags that have become popular. With ‘Spaces’ you can host voice-only live streams for your audience.
Additionally, although Twitter allows Twitter Blue subscribers to tweet up to 10,000 characters, a Twitter thread is still worth creating. A thread is a series of connected tweets. Instead of a long, single tweet, a thread is better at connecting your brand with your audience on a deeper level.
It is now possible for businesses of all types to apply for a gold checkmark on Twitter to ‘verify’ their brand. The difference between Twitter Verified Organization and the regular Blue subscription is that you can add your employee’s personal account as an affiliate. By subscribing, Twitter stated in their post, you can control your organization’s presence on Twitter.
Aside from Verified Organization benefits, its subscribers also get Twitter Blue premium features. It includes prioritized ranking in conversations and searches, longer and better quality video uploads, and promoted tweets. If it’s within your budget, it might be worth it to subscribe for two months or five and measure your progress.
Final Thoughts
Inherently, as a social media app Twitter is best at building brand reputation and customer service. To maximize Twitter campaigns’ reach, you must plan your posts carefully and engage with your followers in meaningful conversations. With the right strategy, Twitter can be a powerful tool for building brand awareness and customer loyalty.
Next read: Paid Social Media Ads: Is It Worth It?