We spoke a few weeks ago about how using Facebook for your business could be of use to you. Today I want to talk about Twitter. Now my overall experience with Twitter is not as extensive as Facebook because it has taken me a long time to 'get into' using Twitter.
For a long time what I didn't like about Twitter is it's main selling point, that you can see what other people are doing around the world at the exact same time as you and can talk to lots of different people from lots of different backgrounds and places in real time, including celebrities and influencers. This, I thought, meant that to get a positive Twitter experience I had to be on Twitter all the time.
I have since realised that you don't need to be constantly tweeting to be able to reach an audience - there are several ways to keep an online Twitter presence without needing to be constantly attached to it. That being said if you can manage to have a full time person managing your social media and spending some of that time looking at Twitter it can be beneficial to you.
Just to clarify, this blog isn't asking you to choose between Facebook and Twitter - ideally you would have both for your business. What I want to do is show you how Twitter could work for you. If you want to know if Facebook specifically could work for you, read my blog about Facebook for Business here.
Okay, so let me try to explain why Twitter could work for you . . .
Almost everyone uses it - Statista.com claims that at the end of 2016 the number of MAU's (monthly active users) on Twitter worldwide was 319 million. This isn't as big as Facebook which Zephoria.com claims has 1.86 billion MAU's worldwide. However . . .
You can reach important people. Unlike Facebook which is usually moderated by PR firms for celebrities, Twitter is more 'personal' meaning the celebrities tend to 'tweet' themselves. This gives people a direct communication line to their favourite celebrity or influencer.
More people communicate with companies on Twitter. A blog by Sprout Social claimed in 2015 that 49% of monthly Twitter users follow brands or companies, compared to the average of 16% for other networks. This means that if you want your customers to be able to see what you're doing, it's just as important for you to be on Twitter as it is to be on Facebook.
You can still show all the information about your business and you can have a link to your website, but rather than having a lot of information on the page, Twitter is more likely to drive people to your website to find out more about your business, which is better in some ways because you're more likely to get them interested in your product and more likely to purchase if you're on the website of a company.
So how could you work it into your business? . . .
1) Get someone who can manage your social media on a regular basis. This might be a full time member of staff if you can manage that, it might be a part time staff member or it may be that an existing staff member has time and the inclination to get involved.
2) Alternatively you can hire a company such as us, Leviart Marketing, to manage your social media accounts on your behalf - setting up a strategy, posting, and managing comments and messages from your audience. See our Social Media page for more information on how we can help.
3) Either way, this person needs to be tweeting regularly. One app which can help with this is Hootsuite which is a website which allows you to schedule posts for Twitter in advance. That way if you only have a part time social media manager they can ensure that by scheduling tweets there is still a constant 'voice' on the account even when they're not at work.
4) It's free, if you want it to be. Like with Facebook, Twitter will only cost you if you decide you want to spend money on advertising. So in terms of finances opening a Twitter account will not cost any money. Of course there are monetary implications when it comes to managing the account but at least there are no up front costs!
5) There can be many people associated with a Twitter account so that you can share the tweeting responsibility. That being said it is important that you only allow access to people who you trust will tweet positively about the company and will respond well to customers.
I am going to leave it there for the time being and not go into how to set up a Twitter page because this post is long enough already, although I am going to be doing a '5 ways to make your Twitter page successful' like I did for Facebook in the next week or two so if you are interested in finding out more about Twitter then be sure to look out for that! I will announce it on Linked in and on Twitter.
Thanks for reading!
Charlotte
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