Twitter is a great way to drum up potential business for your company. However, so many businesses seem to think it’s ok just to type any old thing in to their tweets and expect it to have positive results.
In this post, I’ll explain some do’s and don’ts for you to consider whilst trying to drive more traffic to your site via Twitter.
Twitter Do’s
When to Tweet: Exactly the best time to Tweet will vary depending on your target audience, but studies show that click through rates are highest as the week draws to a close and over the weekend. If you think about this logically, the majority people are either off work on the weekend or winding down as the end of the work approaches. This increases a chance of a response from your audience and in turn gives you more chance of recieving a click through or other form of interaction from a follower.
Images: Using images is a simple but useful tactic for attracting your followers attention. Social media is a visual based platform, so the odd quirkily or relevant picture will entice a potential visitor to have a look at what your company has to say.
Get to the point: As marketing experts, we would usually encourage you to catch your audiences attention with a few creative captions and headlines but when it comes to Social Media, there is plenty of competition and followers attention spans are short. Be direct and get to the point. Using direct words will let your followers know exactly what they are likely to see when clicking through.
Hashtags: You may think it but hashtags aren’t just a fad that the youngsters are using. They are an great way to get your Tweets found. Twitter uses hashtags as keywords and your tweets are more likely to be returned as results when somebody inputs a search. However, I suggest that you don’t pack each Tweet with lots of hashtags, one or two should be enough for positive results – too many hashtags can have an negative effect.
Call to Actions: Don’t just waffle on for the sake of it. All effective marketing has to have a call 2 action – so make sure your tweets have a point. Whether it’s a free download or some interesting information, ensure that your Tweet is informative.
Twitter Don’ts
Don’t just pitch: So many companies simply use their Twitter account to try and blatantly push products and services. Of course, you want to promote what you have to offer but if every tweet becomes a pitch, followers will soon get bored and unfollow you – you need to be engaging too!
Too many retweets: Don’t just share everybody else’s opinions. For people to want to follow you rather than the Twitter account that you keep retweeting, you need to have your own thoughts! Otherwise your followers will eventually cut out the middle man and go directly to the source of the information.
Don’t be ignorant: People use social media to engage with you. Where possible interact with your followers, if they begin to feel you are constantly trying to sell them your service or just want a large amount of follows to look a bigger company, they are like to unfollow you.
Be real to your business: I know Social Media is a modern form of marketing and is popular with the younger generation, but that does’t mean you should change the image of your business too much. If you are a corporate business such as a Solicitor, suddenly dropping in abbreviations like TMB or FOMO will just seem forced and strange (if you don’t know what TMB or FOMO mean, it’ll probably mean your business shouldn’t be using internet acronyms).
Spam: Retweeting constantly and copying links to every article you come across can clog up your followers feeds. They may have followed you because your company is of interest to them but this doesn’t mean they want to read every article or blog post you have ever seen – But selective in what you share with your followers, nobody likes to feel like they are being spammed!
Remember, people don’t join social media platforms to be hounded and sold to. The goal is to be social and interact with new and interesting people. I’m not saying never promote your service but try and make it a little discreet – a few product promotions amongst topical tweets is acceptable, but don’t constantly try to go for the hard sell.