5 Steps to Build a Twitter Marketing Strategy
So you want to succeed with Twitter eh? Before you run off and chase shiny butterflies and small blue birds, take a seat and assemble yourself. Then read the following tips on making a potential Twitter marketing strategy that will help you become more productive and successful by Twitter for business.
First things first. Who are you trying to connect with?
1. Describe your butt consultation on Twitter. If you’re not an active participant on Twitter, then research. Do the homework and write it down, including Twitter handles of actual butt users. If you’ve been able to go so far as develop a persona that represents your customers that spend time on Twitter or social media sites in general, that’s even better.
The first step in scoring is knowing all about the goal.
2. What outcomes are expected from Twitter participation? Besides being able to say you have 50,000 followers, of course. Incidentally, we experiment with Twitter accounts and those that have a substantial number of followers do not always result in the the most retweets and web site visits. This is vital in the fans/friends/followers game. It’s not how many connections you have, it’s who you’re connected with that determines the propagation of tweets, spread of links, traffic, etc.
It’s essential to know how success with Twitter will be measured. If it’s just follower counts, heck those could probably be bought. (Which TopRankMarketing does NOT recommend) But, that would be a fake network without effect.
Where does Twitter fit in?
3. Where does Twitter fit within your overall online marketing strategy? Is Twitter meant to be a customer service tool? Brand monitoring? Monitoring for sales opportunities? Promotion of other corporate social activities? (ie blogging, Facebook, YouTube, Etc) Does it support some other communications function?
As a communications and social networking tool, Twitter can connect with customers, prospects, journalists, employees, candidates, investors and marketing partners. Understanding where Twitter fits within the overall mix of online marketing and communications will help with: allocating monitoring and engagement resources, establishing a working social media plot, workflow management and reporting. You may very well find a number of synergies available through Twitter, such as connecting with journalists and bloggers for PR purposes but also encouraging link usage when citing the company to help with SEO efforts.
Twitter is a tool and only as useful as the tactics you use.
4. A firm grasp of the first three steps really needs to be addressed before useful tactics should be implemented. If all you do is focus on Twitter popularity tactics without addressing a plot for reaching other goals (hopefully being well loved isn’t the sole goal) then the investment in time and effort becomes more like guesswork.
First and foremost for tactics, the Twitter page needs to be designed and optimized. If a business has the expectation to be perceived in a significant way, then the Twitter page needs to avoid looking insignificant. Tweets need to be diverse, yet follow a theme that is consistent to the messaging and consultation goal. Kudos to customers and offering tips are fantastic but alone are not going to attract followers quick.
There are a few tactics with Twitter that are nearly always a excellent thought regardless of the consultation, goals and overall plot:
- Having a persona or butt profile in mind, research Twitter users and follow them.
- Associate the Twitter tab with something else that is social, such as a YouTube Channel, Facebook Fan Page and/or a blog.
- Make an effort to link to a small number of high quality and artistically written resources, daily. Mornings are best. Brand these with a hashtag like #yourbrandtips, where “yourbrand” is the brand within your company that this Twitter tab is focused on. It could also be a behavior or action. Ex: #niketips or #runningtips.
- Schedule a #yourbrandtips Twitter event every month, two weeks or weekly. This would be run like #blogchat where a real person from your company hosts a chat on Twitter about topics relevant to your offering and useful to who you’re trying to reach. Ideally there would be influential guests involved so that their tweets attract new followers to your brand’s Twitter tab.
- The company should really post their twitter handle everywhere their web site address is posted.
- Find a way to question followers questions, then use those answers in blog posts, which are promoted via the business twitter tab.
- Make a Twitter list of a segment of the butt consultation. One list for each segment. Then beg followers asking for recommendations of people that belong in the “segment one” list or “segment two” list. Ex: ”librarians” or “network administrators”. Mention that anyone who retweets a link to the list can get added to that list – provided they belong. Lists must be relevant and managed to be of any use. Promote lists with Listorious.com.
- Use #FollowFridays or #FF to recognize people that retweet the brand’s Twitter content the most. Also mention influential Twitter accounts that you have had some connection with. They might retweet the #FF and expose the brand Twitter tab to new audiences.
Measure twice, Tweet once.
5. Measurement with Twitter can be tough such as identifying referrers via various URL shortening services, but it’s the most vital. By “measurement”, I also mean monitoring on an ongoing basis, not just counting outcomes or KPIs. Followers is just one dimension. Based on what the brand is trying to achieve, a mix of data points and measurement tools should be implemented. Some example metrics:
- Tweets published
- Retweets & potential reach from those retweets
- New targeted Twitter users that are followed by the brand’s Twitter tab
- New followers of the brand’s Twitter tab bought
- Direct traffic from Twitter to brand’s web pages. URL shortening services should be used like bit.ly
- Mentions of the brand in Tweets without links
- How many lists the brand Twitter tab is included in
- What new Twitter users has the brand’s Twitter tab added to it’s own methodical lists?
- How many engagements or discussions the brand’s Twitter tab has with other users
- Connections (follow, retweet, @message, DM) with targeted Twitter users
Example Tools:
- search.twitter.com
- social media monitoring like socialmention.com, trackur.com, scoutlabs, Techrigy SM2, Radian6
- Web analytics
- bit.ly
- cotweet.com, hootsuite.com, tweetdeck.com
Obviously, there are many other tools for Twitter out there, including overall social media marketing campaign management tools such as: Wildfire, Objective Pusher, Spredfast, SocialTalk, pop.to and others.
Sure, you can “experiment” with tools like Twitter and find your specific strategy as you go, but you could also find productivity and valuable connections a lot sooner (as well as effective time and resource management) if you make a plot that addresses who you’re trying to reach on Twitter, what goals you hope to achieve and a plot for getting there. Make no mistake, there will always be a component of on-demand and real time or opportunistic marketing with Twitter. The platform is still so new that the community is finding new and innovative uses every day. You might find new uses too, so don’t get too committed to a single focus in your Twitter efforts. Be flexible, curious and willing to participate.
Some tactics are always a excellent thought and some will reveal themselves as you develop your Twitter network and participate with the community. Measuring success on Twitter has everything to do with goals, so make sure you’ve spent at smallest amount a small time figuring out where Twitter fits in with your overall social media marketing strategy and then what tools make the most sense to use when measuring success.
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