Planning a Twitter Marketing Campaign
Written By: Shane Clark on February 26, 2020
According to Oberlo, “Twitter boasts 330 million monthly active users (as of 2019 Q1). Of these, more than 40 percent, or more specifically, 145 million, use the service on a daily basis (Twitter, 2019)”. Therefore, a presence on Twitter has a chance of increasing your audience visibility. The approach to a Twitter marketing strategy will depend on your business and audience type. The most appropriate plan for one business type might not be the same for another.
Understanding Your Ideal Audience Base
To determine if Twitter is even a viable marketing option, you will need to examine your ideal audience or customer base carefully. I find that Twitter lends itself more for increased brand awareness as opposed to direct sales. The audience of a “local plumber” would probably not benefit from a Twitter marketing campaign. A technology company, on the other hand, would be able to increase brand awareness.
Followers to Following Ratio
I find that Twitter profiles that have fewer followers than accounts they are following less credible. Following Twitter accounts to obtain a more extensive base of followers demonstrates a lack of exciting and viable content being posted. In my personal opinion, the ideal ratio should be no more than 5% – 10%. If you have 4000 followers, you should be following no more than 400. An account with too few being followed might not attract as many followers. In many cases, a user/organization will follow a Twitter account with the idea that they will receive a “return follow.”
Tweeting Relevant / Interesting Topics
An excellent way to gain impressions and followers is to tweet on exciting and relevant topics. Even if you are adding some pertinent information to a re-tweet, that can be enough to gain traction. A great way is to post questions that will provoke responses. As users interact with your tweet, their user base will as well. The better the knowledge you have on the subject, the higher the chance your tweet will be liked and re-tweeted by others.
Avoiding Controversial Topics
If the purpose of your Twitter account is political, you can ignore this section. Controversial topics can lead to alienated users. Even if you think your opinion is in the majority, you still run the risk of alienating your followers. These types of topics are more suited for a personal account vs. a business account. In any case, the added user base from any controversial issue tweets should be measured against any potential losses.
Using Hashtags
An excellent way to get your content discovered is with “Hashtags.” Hashtag keywords can be single or multiple, depending on the subject of the tweet. As a “web developer,” my most common hashtags are: #WordPress #webdesign #webdeveloper #DigitalMarketing #SEO #ADA. These will vary depending on the topic. If I were posting on the topic of shopping carts or e-commerce, I would add a hashtag related to that specific subject. The correct use of hashtags can get other Twitter users to “re-tweet” your initial post.
Event-Based Tweeting
A good way to gain greater visibility is to tweet around holidays, events, and trends. An obscure example of this was #LoveYourPetDay. I noticed one of the other accounts I followed had tweeted on this “holiday.” I found a free stock image on Pixelbay, opened up Photoshop, and added my logo and some text. I have a collection of the significant holiday graphics ready in Dropbox. A calendar reminder is an excellent way to remember the events/holidays that you will most likely forget.
Timing is Key
It is vital to understand what time your audience will be most likely to interact with your tweet. Here is an excellent article by Buffer.com that breaks down some of the time-based metrics. The best time can vary depending on your business and audience type. The best ways to monitor your CTR (click-through rate) and impressions are opening up Twitter Analytics covered in the next section. I find Twitter Analytics is a bit more limited than Google Analytics. But it is enough to be able to recognize time-based traffic patterns.
Utilizing Twitter Analytics
Twitter Analytics can assist in providing the “bigger picture” metrics for your account. By understanding your number of tweets, tweet impressions, profile visits, mentions, and new followers, you should be able to determine what activity is producing the best results. Once you understand this, and as you tweet more often, you should be able to predict how well your tweets will be received. I have included screenshots from my own Twitter Analytics account to illustrate its value.
Paying for Twitter Followers
In some cases, you may want to pay to increase your number of followers. The three paid ways to increase followers are using Twitter Ads 3rd party platforms and outside vendors. I recommend using Twitter Ads to gain more legitimate followers. These types of followers will be more likely to build your overall fan base. Here is an excellent article from Moz.com explaining some tricks to reduce the amount that you’re spending per follower.
Another paid method to gain users is one of the many available 3rd party platforms. The problem with using these to gain followers is the legitimacy of the followers and risking a violation of the terms of use for Twitter. The only 3rd party platform I have used with proven results is Twiends. Twiends charges by the “number of displays.” The account I worked on was set up on the lowest cost plan for 1,000 featured displays weekly for $9.95 per week.
I strongly discourage using an “outside vendor” to increase your number of followers. The vendor may / may not produce the number of followers, but in any case, these will not be followers that will bring value to your account. In most cases, the acquired followers will “unfollow” after they realize they are not being followed back. It used to be Fiverr would promise a certain number of followers for $5 – $20. I noticed most of this type of verbiage has changed on the Fiverr website.
Summary
Twitter can be a great platform to increase your brand recognition and audience. An organized campaign can be effective with just a few hours a month of effort. It is essential to understand your audience to be able to adjust your posted content continually. Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.
