Twitter is a great platform to help promote, connect and brand any business. Every day, more and more companies are signing up for Twitter to help engage with the millions of people who use it every day to connect, share, and explore.
There are many advantages when it comes to having a Twitter for your business. Below are more reasons why your business should be using Twitter in 2013.
1. Twitter for Business
Twitters not just a place for swapping craft ideas. Ecommerce and social media are coming together here and we get to watch it unfold.
Anytime you can get people to become more involved with what you’re doing, the better. The new functionality gives businesses a way to sign-up as a company or as an individual, whichever is most appropriate.
Another significant change is the addition of a business focused help section, with business cases and related tools. The content allows Twitter to directly communicate with business managers, rather than having them hunt for tips and tools on third-party sites.
2. Third-party Tools
In terms of third-party tools, the major use of third party tools is in tracking visits, retweets, and referral traffic. All sorts of tools exist for making interesting pins, but for the most part the most successful people want to know their Twitter and other social media stats.
The leading tool is curalate.com, which allows you to manage your social engagement effectively. Most larger brands do need to use a tool like this if they’re going to try to actively engage with their most influential followers.
Marketers managing smaller operations are probably well served just using the primary functions of the site. A top priority for any Webmaster these days is to ensure that tweeting content is quick and easy.
3. Mobile Apps
Twitter was always reasonably good for mobile, but as with most sites gone app, the app takes the experience up a notch, and that tends to keep users coming back.
These apps are hugely popular and will be more so with the updates being made. They extend the user engagement options available, which of course, translates into more people on the site for longer, and more potential exposure to a brand’s content.
Obviously, the user experience for Twitter is different on a mobile device versus a desktop. Screen size matters and while the App versions work, it may not be a primary method of engagement for most hard-core users.
Of course, for a marketer wanting to drive referral traffic to your main website, to transact a sale, it’s probably not the ideal user engagement method, unless you’ve got your site designed to support mobile commerce.
4. Drive traffic
The number one advantage to Twitter is the quantity of referral traffic it creates. Driving this traffic is a matter of tweeting content from your website or blog and then having these tweets retweeted. When the content is linked back to your website, the referral traffic begins to flow in.
In a nutshell, the content needs to be not only interesting, but also offer the viewer something of value. How-to advice and tips, DIY, and recipes work well, as do calls to action. Just remember to leave the viewer better off than he or she was before they saw your content.
Integrate the Twitter ‘follow’ button on your main website, as well as on your profile link in other social media sites. The best way to build your followership fast is to invite your existing customers, fans, and followers to find you first.
Then, clarify ideal customer’s list of interests and begin tweeting things that resonate. The more in sync you are with your core audience, the better you’re gong to do at finding success.
Twitter is a great way for businesses to reach customers on a daily basis. It is cost-effective and efficient when used properly. Even with these great benefits, many companies remain hesitant to sign up for the social networking service. Rest assured, as social media becomes a part of consumers’ everyday lives, your brand will soon be forgotten if you’re not using Twitter.
About the Guest Author: Yo Noguchi is an experienced freelancer, guest blogger, and frequent contributor to a blog hosted by Benchmark Email, one of the world’s global provider of event marketing services.You can also contribute to OSH by “Write for US”.
