The Beginner’s Guide to Marketing with Twitter

Oct 24, 2014

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Twitter is great for sharing announcements, events and promotions. With 271 million+ monthly active users and 500 million+ tweets sent per day, Twitter is a perfect platform for generating brand awareness.

Back in the year 2006, Twitter made its debut as a service that let users send short (up to 140 characters long) messages to a group of people. Its intended use was to keep friends and colleagues informed about their daily activities.

Little did everyone know that Twitter would transform into a powerful tool for online marketing one day.

Today, it is used by small and large businesses to tell customers and prospects what’s new. And, it’s your turn now.

Why Twitter

Twitter is great for sharing announcements, events and promotions. The following stats and demographics (as of October, 2014) prove the point.

1 billion+ total users of which 271 million are monthly active users
There are more than 500 million tweets sent per day
53% of people on Twitter recommend products in their tweets
78% of Twitter users access it on mobile
Almost 75% of Twitter users are between 18 and 49 years old
About 70% of Twitter users have some college education

Twitter Best Practices

Twitter can take your business to the next level. If you begin with the right bent of mind, success will come your way.

Setup your profile appropriately. People refer to you on Twitter with your username which appears as @username. It is advised that you use your real name for personal profile and actual business name for business profile on Twitter.
Rich visual content makes your profile attractive. Add a beautiful profile picture and header image that adds to your profile’s charm.
Keep your tweets short. Although Twitters allows you to use up to 140 characters per tweet, it is best to create shorter tweets (up to 120 characters) because they are punchy and can be easily consumed anywhere, even on mobile phones.
Develop a tone that perfectly complements your brand.
Make appropriate use of links, pictures and videos as they increase the level of engagement.
Tweets with pictures receive 18% more links than those without.
Ask questions as it is a great way of keeping your community engaged.
If your audience is transcontinental, pay attention to your tweet timings. Test and learn is the best practice here.
Do not bombard your followers with tweets unless you are reporting a live event.
Tweet often as it lets you keep your audience engaged. Twitter suggests between three to five tweets per day. However, if your audience feels peckish soon, you may increase the number of tweets a day. Test it by tweeting something and observing the response of your audience.
Follow your interests as well as your competitors. Doing so enhances your knowledge, provides content ideas and lets you observe how your competitors are doing something. Learn from their successes or failures.
Do not be boring. Boring is pathetic. People hate boring more than anything in this world. Stay trendy. Stay energetic. Amuse people.
Do not forget to add buttons to your website to let people share content and connect on Twitter.
If you have the budget, try Promoted tweets, accounts and trends for some instant results.