According to Pew Research, 72 percent of U.S. adults use at least one type of social media, and 23 percent of these use Twitter, making Twitter the 7th most used social media platform in the United States in 2021.
Twitter is a free social networking site that houses over 300 million active users, allowing people to post ‘tweets’ to engage, socialize and connect with users on the same platform.
While the purpose of Twitter for each person or organization remains the same, the ‘hows’ of using the platform vary for regular Twitter individuals or organizations using Twitter as a marketing platform.
Why Twitter Marketing—and How?
Digital marketing has a long history, and one can’t deny how it has transformed the way marketers and audiences consume content, especially on social media platforms like Twitter.
Twitter might seem like a daunting platform to venture into for marketing, mainly because, unlike Tiktok, YouTube, or Facebook, Twitter’s main algorithm focuses more on conversations rather than visuals.
We’ll look at this tweet from the Climbing House as an example:
Alejandra Leyva, a Content Manager working with Climbing House emphasizes, “Different social media platforms require different techniques for marketing. In this case, we tried to spark a lighthearted conversation around climbing as a go-to activity for a first date. This makes it easier for us to converse on Twitter and grab the attention of young or old people looking for exciting date alternatives while leading them to our website.”
This is what the magic of Twitter marketing is—conversations. As a social media platform, Twitter is well-known for its ‘trending’ lists, be it words or hashtags. This trending list shows Twitter users the most talked about topic at a given moment for a specific location or worldwide. This is one of the best ways to clue into what’s happening in the zeitgeist quickly and understand what topical conversations your team should pay attention to in relation to your industry.
Benefits of Twitter Marketing
Because the charm of Twitter is centered around conversations, the benefits of using this platform as a marketing tool are centered around this as well.
The benefit of Twitter marketing is that because people are used to conversations, tweeting multiple times a day is normal and is not annoying for most users. However, Twitter is heavily chronological in the sense that it could take a nanosecond for one tweet to be buried among the tweets of the other people your followers follow, so making the best out of your content that would make people stop scrolling should be one of your top priorities.
There are endless benefits to Twitter than you might think, and these benefits have become successful strategies that marketers have utilized over the years.
Strategies for Twitter Marketing
Establish a Brand Voice
Twitter is one of the most excellent platforms for establishing a company’s brand voice. While selecting a brand voice and reputation takes time and effort, Twitter as a platform makes this easy.
A company’s brand voice can either come off as lighthearted and casual or serious and professional, and you can establish this through your tweets and interaction on Twitter.
Take, for example, this tweet from Felix:
Kyle Zien, Director of Growth Marketing at Felix, says, “We aim to reimagine the Canadian healthcare experience, and we believe it starts with how we interact with our audiences. We try to build our brand voice in a casual, friendly way where people feel like they’re taking advice from a friend rather than an organization.”
Make a Content Calendar
Social media marketers often have a lot on their hands, juggling three to four social platforms simultaneously. Using a social media content calendar allows you to plan and organize content ahead of time, making strategic content posts rather than just winging whatever content at any moment.
What’s more, most social media content calendars let you schedule posts even without logging in to the platform, so you don’t have to fear forgetting to post your marketing content.
Create and Join Trends and Conversations Through Hashtags
If you ask any person who uses Twitter what’s the most significant feature of Twitter that’s most attractive to them, at least three out of five will have one thing in common—hashtags.
While other social media platforms also use hashtags, Twitter makes the most use of this feature through its trending tags list immediately visible when you log in to the website.
An important aspect of Twitter's marketing campaign is that it utilizes hashtags to join conversations or create and invite discussions surrounding its product and services.
An example is this tweet from Prize Rebel:
A person who does not necessarily follow Prize Rebel will discover this tweet because it has joined in on the conversation about making money online or earning extra cash.
According to Jerry Han, CMO of PrizeRebel, “Ever since we established our Twitter account, the use of hashtags has proven how easily people can see us when they search for the same tag on Twitter. We sometimes supplement this with a “retweet to win” CTA as a condition for the prize, which also gives us more visibility to our audience.”
This tweet from PluginHive about their FedEx WooCommerce plugin also uses several hashtags to help increase the tweet’s visibility among those looking for information on shipping through FedEx.
Get Verified and Increase Your Follower Count
Before the great Twitter overhaul by Elon Musk, getting the tiny blue checkmark beside your profile name meant that your profile was your ‘proof of authenticity. Today, two forms of verification badges exist on Twitter—the old blue checkmark (which can now be bought on Twitter Blue by any user) and the ‘Official’ badge found at the bottom of your profile name.
Technicalities of these verification badges aside, there is a sense of authority emitted by accounts with blue or official verified badges, making them more reliable to Twitter users. Working to increase your follower count also helps in marketing and spreading your content throughout the platform and also helps establish you as a reliable content creator and organization.
Sponsored and promoted ads
On Twitter, you can do both paid and organic social media ads. The question is how can you harness the power of both.
This is an example of a paid ad:
You should be able to see a “promoted” tag at the bottommost part of the post for a paid advertisement. Having a promoted tweet increases the visibility of a tweet and is just basically paid advertising, taking your tweet to users who might be interested in your products and services.
In the case above, BPI utilizes Twitter advertising to encourage more people to apply for a credit card with the bank. Not only are they getting more credit card applications, but they are also generating more leads using the information users input through the application.
Stay Human and Interactive
The best way to ‘attack’ Twitter as a marketing platform is to stay human. You may be thinking, “But wait…what does that even mean?”
To put it frankly, in many cases marketing posts sound like they were extracted from an AI machine and then copy-pasted to the platform. This is the last thing you want to do if you wish to engage and convert your Twitter campaigns.
Twitterverse loves conversations. So go ahead, converse! Just like this tweet from Fig Loans:
Jeff Zhou, CEO of Fig Loans, says, “Our Twitter marketing campaigns don’t only rely on regularly creating or posting content for our follower’s timelines. We interact and reply to our customers or anyone interested in our products and services. That way, they know they will get top-notch customer service with us.”
Take another look at this Snickers-UNO interraction:
There is a more lighthearted approach present here for both organizations. Engaging in conversation for your followers to see an unusual interaction between two verified accounts is a fun way to tickle and grab the attention of Twitter users. Not only is Snickers bringing fun to their initial post, but they’re also subtly implying how your next pre-football tailgate isn’t complete without Snickers. UNO calling them out on the typo was really the cherry on top to reaffirming that both companies are made up of real people behind the brands, having real conversations.
Why and How Twitter Marketing Matters
It should be no surprise that digital and social media marketing has been all the rave in the last few years. As humankind fixates on digital technology, marketers must adapt to these changes and be interacting where their target audience likes to hang out virtually.
These social media platforms are different in their ways and should be dealt with differently. Twitter, as a marketing platform, should center around conversations and engagement. This allows marketers to establish a brand voice and take valuable information and data about consumer behavior in return.
For help on strategically approaching any social media platform, meet with one of Marin’s marketing experts today. We will ensure your paid social advertising performs at it’s best.
Rachel Melegrito is a guest contributor to Marin Software.
