The Complete Guide To Building Your Twitter Audience

Introduction

WHY DID WE WRITE THIS GUIDE?

We wanted to share our insights on using Twitter for Social Marketing. With so many individuals and business leveraging social networks it’s become absolutely necessary to make your presence known in areas such as Twitter.

Twitter in particular serves many purposes. You may be looking to spread the word about your brand or product, establishing yourself as a real entity, or keeping tabs on your customer service, many of you are looking for all of the above.

This guide is designed to help you get up to speed with actionable steps that will help you become a true Twitter Rock Star!

WHO IS THIS GUIDE FOR?

If you have been struggling to figure out just how Twitter can fit into your marketing arsenal or just want to increase your brand awareness, this guide is for you.

There are numerous articles and blogs dedicated to the topic of Social Media, if you are looking for an answer on how to use Twitter as a tool to improve your business, this guide is for you.

Do you want to discover how 140 character messages can actually help your business grow, this guide is for you.

As you establish your Twitter base with followers it is now time to actually engage with your fellow social friends. Understanding their preferences will help you craft the right messages that will add value to the relationship and increase engagement over time.

Engagement is an important consideration as it is a measure of how many times user click on links you post as well as share your tweets. Remember the goal here is to get your follower to do something specific that you ask them to do. Having a very heavy influencer retweet your best blog post can result in a very nice lift in your traffic.

Put your best foot forward so to speak. This is your only chance to make a first impression so make it count! When creating a Twitter profile for business it is a great opportunity to show your potential audience exactly what you’re all about.

Think about your curb side appeal. If you are selling your house you want the first image to be inviting. You want that prospect to be interested in finding out more. Give them a clear picture of who you are, what you are interested in and what you have to offer, whether that’s a business or a personal profile.

Your Twitter profile should keep in theme with your brand colors and style. This should be an extension of your website and not a stand alone entity.

The first step in leveraging Twitter is to find the right followers. Not all followers are equal in terms of being a potential client, influencer, or friend. Let’s face it, you are establishing a Twitter Audience specifically for your business which means you should treat it as a business endeavor.

In order to have a clear understanding of who the perfect follower is, you must first identify your perfect customer. You must know your audience in order to have a successful relationship with them. This will be the foundation for everything you do.

As you establish your Twitter base with followers it is now time to actually engage with your fellow social friends. Understanding their preferences will help you craft the right messages that will add value to the relationship and increase engagement over time.

Engagement is an important consideration as it is a measure of how many times user click on links you post as well as share your tweets. Remember the goal here is to get your follower to do something specific that you ask them to do. Having a very heavy influencer retweet your best blog post can result in a very nice lift in your traffic.

There is a certain expectation of what people expect to receive in tweets. The trick to keeping your engagement up is to Tweet in a way that your audience will be receptive to. That includes the format of your tweets as well as your actual content.

You must establish a brand theme, don’t be afraid to have a little swagger as long as it truly relates to your character as a brand.

How many hashtag jokes can you think of in 30 seconds? I’m sure it’s a lot… Let us not forget what they are actually used for here. First, hashtags are a quick way for your audience to identify with a topic. With only 140 characters you must convey your message as quickly and efficiently as possible. The number one mistake is overusing the number of hashtags per tweet.

Another very important aspect of the hashtag is its effect on searches. Not everyone will automatically read every single tweet you post in their feed. It is far more likely that they will run across your post while searching for something specific.

Those are just a few reasons to master the use of hashtags.

Your first thoughts on Twitter in general probably run to engaging with fellow followers but let us not forget how important Twitter is to customer service. People love to complain – when something is wrong they will shout it from the roof top or go on a Twitter rant about you at 2 AM.

The majority of complaints will not be well formed in a way that you are expecting. On average 80% of complaints do not include @twittername, which will show up as a mention. These are folks that don’t look up your Twitter handle and send you the courtesy DM.

Monitoring the Twitter universe for comments of your brand is essential to your success.

Yes, we really live in a world where Twitter can actually drive sales. Perhaps we should clarify this really depends upon what you are selling, but in general yes you can use it as a lead generation tool. In fact it is a great way to communicate with potential customers if they are already participating in the community.

We are going to assume here that you have already identified your target audience and established that Twitter is a good social network for your business. Go where your audience is already, don’t try to get your audience to use Twitter just because you do.

At the end of the day you are running a business and in any business the numbers must add up or it doesn’t make sense to put in the effort. If you are not measuring your return on investment you will have no way of knowing if it is worth your effort.

You should be looking at such factors as social referrers, growth of your audience, interaction with your audience and sentiment of what people are saying about your brand.