With the widespread use of the Internet and almost everyone owning a smartphone or a tablet, being online is almost necessary. Getting the latest news, being able to talk to another person that is located far away and being able to share things like pictures is easily done online. Social media networks are used to take advantage of this kind of interaction with other people, especially those that are located far away. Twitter is one of those popular social networks and one of the easiest to use.
Twitter was created back in March of 2006, but it was launched finally on July 15, 2006 with its completed version ready. It was created by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, and Noah Glass. In 2007, during the South by Southwest Interactive conference, the popularity of Twitter started to spread. 500 million registered users were counted back in 2012 and in 2013 it was recognized as one of the Ten Most-Visited Websites.
Using Twitter can sometimes be called “microblogging,” and some would even consider it as the “SMS of the Internet.” Once you have an account, you can share website links, pictures, videos or even just your own opinion, but you will only be limited to up to 140 characters per post. Posting on Twitter is almost instant and can be done with almost any device that can connect to the Internet. Smartphones and tablets may also have special apps that can be installed in them so that they can have a dedicated app just for Twitter. Before smartphones had the ability to connect to a high-speed Internet connection, you can also send an SMS to Twitter which will then post it to your account within a few seconds.
Twitter is very popular. Celebrities usually have a Twitter account that they personally manage and they send updates, or “Tweets,” to give any personal opinion or if they have something else to share. Some known companies also have their own official Twitter accounts and some may also use it to send out news about their own current events.
Some companies have taken advantage of Twitter and are using it for their own way of marketing their products and services. There are a number of ways to be able to improve your social media marketing campaigns with the use of Twitter:
1. Create a Twitter List and Let People Know that You Have Added Them to a List
Twitter lists are controlled groups of Twitter users and you can use this to easily view the timeline of those that are included in the list. These lists are only used for viewing Tweets; you cannot send a Tweet for the group only to see.
There are a few easy steps in creating a list:
- Go to the Lists page by clicking the gear icon near the top-right corner of the Twitter page and then click Lists.
- You will then see the Create New List option on the right side.
- Type in the name of your list and set it to either Private or Public. If it is set to Private, only you will have access to the list. If it is at Public, anyone can subscribe to your list. Please note that the character count for the name of the list can only go up to 25.
- Hit Save List.
You can then add more people in the lists so that you can easily follow what they may be tweeting about, especially if they are talking about your own products. You must remember to inform the people that you are adding them to your Twitter list through either a re-tweet or through a direct message.
2. Add Images or Videos to Your Tweets
For social media marketing, being able to talk about your product is one thing and then showing off a picture or a video about your product tells a different story. Consider the following tweet, how compelled to click it would you have been if it were only text compared with how the tweet looks like with the added image!
It is seen that a Tweet which features a picture or a video has a 35% higher chance of being retweeted compared to an ordinary tweet. This is now most useful with Twitter’s new features regarding uploading images: Image Expand and the ability to upload animated GIFs.
Image expand allows you to be able to upload a picture in full to Twitter without affecting its quality and size. Twitter allows a file size of up to 5MB for images and will allow JPEG and PNG files to be uploaded.
Animated GIFs are short clips of pictures that play in a loop. It can be roughly compared to a short video. Being that it is an image file, to prevent it from being too big, the colours that are available for a GIF image are limited, resulting in a less than normal quality. Animated GIFs can easily catch the attention of anyone that will see it immediately and depending on how entertaining it is, it will most likely get retweeted.
Sharing a video is also easy with Twitter. If you have a video through either Vine or YouTube and you want to quickly promote it, both websites are now integrated with Twitter, and sharing a video is as easy as clicking a button.
Consider the above tweet. We share a video in in, how much more than the 140 characters you are allowed to share in a tweet is that? A lot more, people will be a lot more enticed to click and see a video and it can get viral extremely quick. Apart from that check the added text below the video, it’s the description of the video taken from youtube and it’s way over the 140 limit of a tweet.
Use videos as often as you can, if you post a lot of tweets each day make sure 1-2 of them are video tweets, you will see the difference in engagement.
3. Take Advantage of the “Favorite” Feature
Each Tweet that is made will almost always have two options: the “Retweet” and “Favorite” options. Retweet is a button that you can click to easily share what a person has tweeted just now. This can be anything that has taken your fancy, like a person’s opinion, a picture or even something used with a promotion.
“Favorite” is used to let the person who wrote the Tweet know that you like what he posted. This will also help in gaining popularity within Twitter.
Check out the above tweet, it’s a re-tweet for one of our tweets, as you see I have re-tweeted it and Favorited it. Do that often, it costs you nothing and it creates connections with a lot of people. The example is a re-tweet of one of our own tweets but you don’t need to stop there. If you like it, or if you just like to create a relation with some people re-tweet their tweets, they will surely like it and remember it, you will get more re-tweets for your own tweets in return and you’ll see your account explode with activity soon.
In some cases, a mention of a product or if a “hashtag” is used with a post, the company that made the product may then “Favorite” the Tweet, but there are cases when a “bot,” or an automated program, automatically searches Twitter for any tweet that contains the name of the company or product and it hits the “Favorite” button automatically. Twitter has created a policy against such an act, but it is still highly encouraged to hit “Favorite” for posts that give a good review or mention of the product or company name. Social media marketing can go a long way with this method.
4. Take advantage of Twitter Analytics.
It’s fun to see that your product is being tweeted all over and you can get to “Favorite” the tweets that mention your company’s name, but how popular are you in Twitter? If you use Twitter Analytics, you can easily find the answers to these and you won’t have to go too far; this is a built-in service with Twitter. You can then easily have access to your social media marketing returns.
A few requirements are needed before you can have access to Twitter Analytics. The first is that your account has to have an “advertiser status.” This can be requested by going to https://analytics.twitter.com and submitting your company information. You also have to have a Promoted Tweet campaign, where your Tweet must be retweeted and mentioned through most of Twitter.
Check out the above print screen of just a section of Twitter analytics, you can easily see the drop in impression. From it you can quickly check what happened and do something to reverse the change. You need to always be up to date with your account analytics so you can intervene fast when there’s need for it.
Once you have access to Twitter Analytics, you will have three major sections that you can check out every day: Tweets, Followers and Twitter Cards.
The Tweets dashboard will show each Tweet that you have made and it will also show its progress. It can immediately show your information for one month and it can also tell you the status of the best Tweet that you have sent this month.
The Followers dashboard can show you how many followers you have started to get and at the same time, it can also feature the topics that your followers are most interested with. It can also show other accounts that your followers are all commonly following.
Twitter cards can enhance each of your tweets with pictures, videos or links pertaining to your company. Twitter Analytics will also have a Twitter Card Dashboard that will monitor the progress that any of your Twitter cards may have after it was published.
5. The Use of the “Search” Option
Sometimes, going back to the simple methods is still best. Twitter features a Search option on top of its website and is also embedded in its mobile app version. You can simply type in the name of a product or company and it will give you results whether it be the official accounts for the company or something that is related to them.
Sometimes, using the Search option may be a bit complicated to use. You may put in something that you want to find but instead, you get a different result. There are a few tricks to get around and use the Search bar properly:
- If you want to search for a phrase or a keyword, it is best to place these words within quotation marks so that the Search result will know that they should be grouped together. Searches using only one word will not need the quotation marks.
- If you want to search for something but you have multiple keywords, use the quotation marks and then use the word “or” in between each keyword. Twitter will then look for anything related to each keyword, rather than look for something that will show all keywords.
Using the Search option will allow you to be able to find anything that a person has tweeted about your product and you can then see if any of these are good or bad for you. You may then try to either reply to them by tweeting them or send them a direct message to have their concern addressed.
With all of these tips, you may well be on your way to promote your company through Twitter and almost instantly get feedback from your own marketing strategy. Start implementing now! I know many say wow, I didn’t know that, I must remember it and use it next time, guess what, you’ll forget about it by next time and never use it. Implement everything now, start doing it every day and you will see how powerful this all is. Want an active twitter account with a lot of retweets and activity? It’s all in your hands, you can do it if you keep at it.
