Consumers turn to social media channels to look for advice, suggestions, and reviews of products and providers. In particular, Twitter’s open-forum platform is a great way to solicit input outside of a normal circle of friends and followers. This gives businesses a prime opportunity to turn tweets into customers.
People who tweet about something they want or need are looking for businesses to provide information, options, and discounts. In fact, businesses that actively search for and directly reply to those consumers have a higher probability of ringing up a sale.
TWITTER OR FACEBOOK?
Many business owners use Facebook to engage with their customers socially—about 94% of marketers, according to a recent report at SocialMediaExaminer. Contrast that with the 83% on Twitter. Why the difference? One reason is that Facebook has an intuitive ad platform that makes it easy for marketers to push information out to their target customers’ news feeds. But Twitter has several advantages to consider.
TWITTER’S COMMUNITY IS MORE ACTIVE. More than 100 million daily active Twitter users post 500 million tweets a day, according to a sec.gov filing.
That means the average Twitter user posts five times a day, compared to Facebook users who post less than once a day (kissmetrics.com).
TWITTER REACHES A DIFFERENT DEMOGRAPHIC. While the over-25 crowd is growing on Facebook (according to Time), teens are abandoning the channel for platforms like Twitter, where their parents and their parents’ friends aren’t watching every move.
TWITTER GIVES YOU MORE FOR YOUR MONEY. Twitter drives more clicks than Facebook (according to MarketingProfs) and routinely outperforms Facebook ads (Wall Street Journal).
Advanced Laser Center of Oklahoma City, OK, recently noted that on Twitter, using the right app to listen to who is talking and to find out what they need gave the business an ability to reach outside its inner circle. Initially, Advanced Laser Center used four separate offers that it combined into a $500 discount off a procedure of the customer’s choice.
Tapping into the strong purchase intent of conversations on Twitter with a broad-based offer that’s also geographically targeted is making a sale that much easier.
Bernard Perrine is the CEO of Twitter marketing company SocialCentiv. He can be reached at bernie@socialcentiv.com.
KEYWORDS ARE KEY
Choosing the right combination of keywords is critical for Twitter marketing campaigns to succeed on the social platform. Keywords are words or phrases that a business specifies in its Twitter marketing application—such as “better eyesight,” “progressive lenses,” or “glasses”—to find relevant tweets. If a consumer tweets that she wishes she could see better or update her glasses, for instance, the business can follow up with a coupon for a discounted new frame or eye exam.
THE GOOD NEWS
Twitter has millions of users, who send millions of tweets every day. The marketing opportunities that Twitter presents are unlimited. Keywords are the way businesses can take advantage of them.
A recent Twitter blog post noted that when people were debating online whether horses in the 2014 Belmont Stakes should be able to use nasal strips, the Breathe Right company took action by tweeting relevant responses to posts it found via keywords such as “Belmont” and “#HorseRace.” Breathe Right used keywords to its advantage. That is why Twitter is such a powerful marketing tool.
THE TRICK
Remember that consumers use Twitter differently than, say, Google or YouTube. Twitter is a conversational platform. People tweet as if they are talking to other people, which they are. This means marketers must choose keywords that reflect real conversations, rather than what people type in to search.
Engage in “social listening”—monitoring the network for what people are talking about. By regularly searching key terms and phrases, a company can gain valuable insights into what is happening with its customers in real time. The goal, of course, is to take action when opportunities arise.
TECH TOOLBOX
Choosing the right keywords is a combination of art and science. WordStream, a developer of search marketing software, notes that Google is integrating tweets into search results in real time. The following online tools can help your research efforts.
TweetVolume shows how often a given keyword appears, such as for health care-related tweets.
TweetBeep sends email alerts for tweets containing keywords. Once the business owner has chosen the keywords he or she wants to use, it’s important to monitor them weekly to see how they’re performing.
Another technique that Twitter recommends is using keywords to circle back with consumers who have previously responded to tweets that businesses have promoted to them. Targeting keywords on their timeline makes that easy.
If you know from experience that a given consumer is interested in your product, why not rekindle the discussion when the time is right?
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