Alex McCann, a social media and online marketing expert and founder of the social media marketing firm Altrincham HQ, shares his top tips on using Twitter for business.

 

Why Twitter?

When you think of Twitter, what do you think? Trump, trolling and the media? It might be enough to put you off for life when you hear those three things, but it’s worth bearing in mind that if the President of the United States uses Twitter to communicate with the world, then maybe it’s worth looking at.

Compared to Facebook or Instagram, Twitter is a smaller platform with around 330 million monthly active users. However, what you get with Twitter is the ability to reach outside of your audience and access people who aren’t aware of your company.

As you’ll read later, Twitter’s search functionality also surpasses every single social media platform out there and presents opportunities to grow your business.

What can you do to make the most of Twitter for your business?

Due to its fast-paced nature, Twitter is not like other platforms. The prime lifespan of a tweet – when people are going to interact with a post – is just 18 minutes.

For this reason, don’t approach Twitter like Facebook or Instagram, where once you post you get a steady stream of likes and comments. If you expect Twitter to be exactly like other platforms, you’ll leave disappointed. Here’s how to make the most of Twitter.

Scheduling

You just heard how Twitter is ‘noisier’ than other social media platforms. It’s therefore acceptable to post more often, as a tweet only last 18 minutes. Whereas on Facebook and Instagram I might post once or twice a day, on Twitter I post eight to 10 times a day.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not eight to 10 adverts or hard sales posts a day. It’s usually a maximum of one sales post a day and then thoughts, ideas, blog links, comments on breaking news and so on.

The key, however, is to educate or entertain. Just because you can post more often doesn’t mean you should not think about the quality of what you’re posting about. Tweets only get noticed if they’re interesting enough to break through the noise.

Whilst I work in social media and post often, you could half the amount you post and still be successful on Twitter. To enable you to post frequently, it’s advisable you use a social media scheduling tool like Hootsuite, Buffer or Social Sprout.

Conversation

Imagine that Twitter is a worldwide networking group. You’ve just learned that broadcasting is part of Twitter – that’s like the introduction round at a face-to-face networking event. But, as you know from networking, where it really works is the one-to-one conversations and getting to know people.

The secret sauce of Twitter is conversations with other Twitter users; be that customers, potential customers, referrers, people in your industry and so on. So, whereas yes, you can schedule a number of updates a day, what you really need to be doing on Twitter is talking to people.

For every broadcast Tweet you put out there, aim to reply to around four times that amount. Also, be consistent, talk to the right people every single day and you will get results from Twitter.

Trendjacking

Twitter’s own tagline is “It’s what’s happening – see what’s happening in the world right now”. Trendjacking is the method of jumping on something that people are talking about to raise awareness of your business.

There are several questions to ask with trendjacking:

• Does it fit with your business?
• Does your audience relate to it?
• How do you stand out amongst the huge volume of Tweets on the subject?

If you can tick all these boxes, talking about and producing content around things that are popular are good ways to gain attention. Do note that trending subjects can come and go within hours, so the immediacy of content is very important on this. It’s not something that you can use as inspiration for a post five days later.

Rich Media

When Twitter first started over a decade ago it was text-only and for many, it’s not shaken off that perception. Businesses don’t often think of Twitter as a visual platform and yet Tweets with images generate twice the level of engagement as tweets without an image.

With photos and videos, Twitter is a rich media platform and you need to take the same care and attention for Twitter visuals as you do for any other platform.

Twitter Search

Imagine for a second that you search for every mention of school, education or school uniform within a 20km radius of your nearest city. Imagine then that you responded to each and every Tweet about that every single day. Then imagine because of that, every time people thought of schoolwear, they thought of your business.

Well, with advanced Twitter search or setting op location/keyword searches on TweetDeck, you can do exactly that. We use these tools every single day and it brings us new followers and new business every day as a result. Be known for being an expert in your field.

About Altrincham HQ

Alex McCann is owner of social media marketing company Altrincham HQ. With over 14 years’ experience of social media and 20 years’ experience of online marketing in other companies, clients come to McCann when they want a veteran rather than a rookie.

At Altrincham HQ, McCann works with businesses to make more of their social media marketing, delivering results via social media training or management packages.

Voted the Best Social Media Company in Manchester at the Talk Of Manchester Awards, Altrincham HQ has helped thousands of businesses and individuals across the North West including BBC, Manchester City, Manchester Arndale, Selfridges, NHS, University Of Manchester and many more.

For further information on Altrincham HQ’s services and training click here. Alternatively, call Alex on 07806 774279. Follow Altrincham HQ on Twitter at @altrinchamhq.