How to use Twitter as a small business

The real question before we begin is to ask yourselves if you need any social media, let alone Twitter. Twitter, like every other social networking application, is full of opportunities depending on the industry, product, and service you render.

Twitter has positive indices for tech, health, education, style, travel fashion, and games. If your business does fall into any of the categories, Twitter will help you reach your audience. It is cost-effective and allows you to interact with your customers aside from promoting your services or product. This means you have a chance to be personal.

Activating Twitter for your business

Hashtags

Hashtags are one of the best visibility tools for any Twitter user. Some of the most popular hashtags include #followbackthursday, #wenesdaycrush, which brands can jump on when creating content.

Businesses such as yourself have to ensure that hashtag content aligns with your brand. You don’t want to end up in a PR issue when you tweet about sensitive topics like religion and politics. 

Hear what your competitors are saying:

Twitter is a listening tool in itself. Brands can use this to listen in on what other competitor brands are saying and use that to create healthy banters that drive user engagement. 

Twitter gives you a picture of what your competitors are saying or doing

Some years ago, we had the bank wars among banking brands which saw other banking organisations jump on it. We seen Mouka foam and Vitafoam – do the same. These Nigerian brands have found a way to listen to their competitors and exploit gaps.

Twitter boosts brand awareness: 

The brand or business has to decide how the message should sound like or feel on Twitter. Is your business open to be fun or light-head? The style or combinations of tweet messages on your feed is crucial to how people perceive your business brand. 

Customer service handling:

Twitter has become one of the hubs to share poor services and complaints by customers. The direct message service on Twitter is for handling challenging situations.

Polls, Gif, Videos, Photos can be used:

Twitter allows you have the option of setting up polls or surveys that your customers can respond to. It is not limited to only text. Your business can explore many media content creations for followers. 

Memes is another popular content that drives Twitter engagement that you can study and add to your tweet strategies.

Twitter Spaces:

Twitter spaces are a fantastic way to build community with your followers. It currently allows you to have 50 space members. Spaces function like the new kid on the block called Clubhouse.

Contributors on spaces can have a conversation with each other and several moderators of up to ten. If you are in the fashion industry – topics can be discussed, and the public can be invited to share their opinions. 

Live tweets:

Live tweets allow people who are following an event or program to tweet as it happens live. For instance, eviction shows like Big Brother Africa would have thousands tweeting BBA at the same time.

As a business, this would be perfect for a product launch or campaign launch. People who are at the event can be encouraged to tweet about the event with a dedicated hashtag.

Create Tweet chats:

Another great way of building your followership in a community is to have tweet chats with guests. People involved in the tweet chat will have their talks or opinions written out for followers to answer and contribute to. It keeps your followers engaged.

Go live on Twitter:

Twitter has a live feature as well. This live feature allows you to broadcast events or even show followers how you work in your organisation every day. It is one feature that allows you to create a community with your followers.

Promotion of tweets:

Tweets can be promoted to reach a wider audience. Promoted tweets can be used for discount promotions, Easter give-way and, other campaigns. 

Besides tweets – you can promote your page as well as videos.

Engage with industry leaders like Influencers:

Take it or leave it, influencers have come to stay, and many follow them because of the opinions. 

One of your basic strategies is to ensure you follow conversations around influencers related to your service or product.

A make-up business owner should be following influencers like Tara Durotoye on Twitter because it aligns with you’re their brand.

Things not to do with Twitter

Resist the temptation to buy followers.

If you buy followers who are only interested in fashion whereas you are a business into educational training service, how will this audience benefit your business?

We have listed all these wonderful features of the app. 

Yet, it won’t work without a strategy in place. As a business, how do you want to leverage live tweets, twitter spaces, or gifs? 

The truth is that many people are growing their businesses on this platform and thriving from salon owners to training providers. 

Develop a strategy and select the features that are easy to implement with your business, and see exponential Tweeter growth.

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