Twitter Concepts

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a social network that enables its users to send and receive short posts called tweets on a public platform. What differentiates Twitter from other social platforms is its fast-paced, real-time nature, and it’s very conversational due to the real time dimension of user’s timelines. Twitter also introduced hashtags into the social sphere, which makes it very easy to discover new content.

With short messages as its primary communication format, Twitter is the ideal platform to create and be a part of a conversation. Tweets can be replied to and users can engage with each other around a topic of interest. Because so many people are on the platform and share content every day about their passions, what’s happening around them, and what’s happening in the world, it’s a vast source of information and entertainment.

The value of Twitter

While everyone experiences Twitter differently, here are a few key areas of interest that people look for on Twitter.

• News and politics: People want to find out the latest of local and global news, watch political events as they unfold, and take part in communities and social movements.
• Sports: With sports, from the Olympics to the NFL Draft, you can get real-time updates, see what the star players have to say, and connect with fans around the world.
• Pop culture: You can find out what your favorite celebrities are up to by following them on Twitter and joining in on the conversation.
• Influencers: You can see what thought leaders and experts in your industry are saying, and connect with creators, artists, and celebrities.
• Utility: Twitter provides a lot of utility. You can get commuter info and updates, receive disaster updates and support, and reach customer service agents without even having to call.

These are only a few categories of interest that make up the major conversations on Twitter, but you can actually find a conversation for anything that interests you. With so many people and interests, brands can leverage those instantaneous conversations to understand and share content to their target audience, even if their audience is niche.

Why do people use Twitter?

Twitter is born in the live dimension, which means people are on the go, sharing and reading things in real time, as they’re moving throughout their day. So, what that also means is that people are using Twitter primarily on their mobile device.

And it’s keeping up with the pulse of the world, evolving as time goes, with 280-character messages every second, telling us what’s going on around us. Twitter is the prime platform to stay up to date on news and current events, get news and deals from brands, discover new content, such as videos, articles, accounts, etc., engage in live commentary around events like the Super Bowl or the Oscars or the World Cup, and give consumer feedback.

A lot of people use Twitter for customer service, so it’s imperative that brands are paying attention in real time to service those customers.

The benefits of Twitter for digital marketers

Discover

You can first use the platform to discover what’s happening around you. Brands need to stay up to date with world news, trends, and customer interests. So, Twitter is the perfect place to see these things as they evolve and take note of how your brand fits within this evolving landscape. For example, if you are a retail brand and you’re looking for inspiration or insight on what your customers love, Twitter’s a great place to find out what colors, fabrics, and celebrities that people are interested in, so you can target your tweets accordingly.

Brand management

You can use Twitter to manage your brand’s reputation. Twitter is a place where people share all of their feelings. So, it’s a good place to keep track of what the sentiment is around your brand, and manage any negative commentary before it spirals out of control.

Increase awareness

Twitter is also a great place to increase your brand’s awareness.  As mentioned, it’s a great place for people to discover content. So, people there are active and curious and want to know new things. So, brands in this environment, as long as you’re providing great content, it should be a great place to engage people with your brand and to spike interest.

Customer service

Twitter is a great place to provide timely customer service. People are on the go, and experiencing your brand throughout their day to day, and will use Twitter as a way to get immediate customer service. So, it’s important to be checking these tweets and comments on a regular basis, so you can service them in real time, and prevent any negative backlash.

Research competition

Twitter is a great place to research your competition. You can easily find out what they’re doing, what they’re saying, how they’re engaging their customers, and therefore find out how you can differentiate yourself and level up over the competition.

Connect

Twitter’s also a great place to connect with customers, brand advocates, and influencers. These influencers tend to have really large audiences. So, if you win them over, you’ll win their audiences over and it’s a great way to humanize your brands and remain authentic.

Common misconceptions about Twitter

Even though Twitter’s one of the leading social media platforms, there are some common misconceptions that persist.

Misconception 1: Followers are the only success metrics

That’s definitely wrong. Brands can achieve much more than just getting their maximum follower count. It’s about community management, building relationships with your followers. Some brands might have a few followers, but if they’re very dedicated and engaged, that means way more than if you have millions of followers and they don’t care about what you’re doing or not engaging with your brand.

Misconception 2: Users only tweet

Actually, users are coming to the platform to discover content. It’s worth reiterating. People are coming there to find out new things, to engage with things that interest them, and then to tweet and share the content.

Misconception 3: Twitter is only for business and tech people

That couldn’t be more wrong. People there are interested in tons of different things, news and politics, pop culture, sports, live commentary on events. Anything under the sun, people can find on Twitter.

Misconception 4: Tweets are only text

That is not true. Actually, the best tweets that get the most engagement include photos, videos, gifs, you name it. So, if you really want to get people talking and engaging with your tweets, be sure to include images and video.

Setting marketing objectives with Twitter

With Twitter, you can achieve most of your marketing goals and objectives, including:

• Increasing video views and content engagement
• Driving traffic
• Sales
• App installs and app re-engagement
• Finding new customers
• Getting customer feedback
• Finding brand advocates
• Developing customer service
• Increasing brand recognition, brand sympathy, and brand awareness
• Growing your CRM data

So, before starting on Twitter, it’s important to set your goal so each action, whether it be a tweet, following someone, or running an ad, has a very clear direction.