Twitter: Powerful Tool to Reach out to Your Marketplace
Twitter users who haven’t yet mastered getting their point across in 140 characters, have no fear, you will soon have the ability to say twice as much in one tweet.
Twittersphere has been abuzz with news that Twitter is experimenting with expanding its character limit for each tweet.
The social media venue announced last month that the test would start with small groups of users in various languages including English. In a blog post, Twitter product manager Aliza Rosen and senior software engineer Ikuhiro Ihara said the test would not be available in languages like Japanese, in which expressing longer sentiments in fewer characters is easier.
Twitter users have frequently complained about the limited amount of space available for each tweet, and have begged for an expansion for years. It takes time and effort to become proficient in the art of saying something pithy or salient in 140 characters. Last year, Twitter reportedly considered expanding to a 10,000-character limit, which could have dramatically changed the way people use the service, but that idea was ultimately abandoned. Then, in the meantime, Twitter unveiled a new handy feature that makes it easier to avoid exceeding the 140-character limit by no longer counting additional media against that total, such as photos, videos and GIFs.
Indeed, now you can use all 140 characters and add an image without being forced to reduce your word count.
While Twitter’s efficacy and charm as users compose quaint abbreviations has been in its brevity, its other feature has also contributed to its virtually universal usage in all languages – swiftness. You can quickly tell the whole world about something good or bad, beneficial or detrimental. You can launch a new project or offer a new product or service by merely pressing “send.” You can monitor what is being said about you as well.
Given its universality, Twitter has surpassed other media as the source of information or news about any topic.
Markandey Katju, former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, opined in his blog that historically media arose in Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries as an organ of the people against feudal oppression. Then, all the organs of power were in the hands of the feudal authorities, and so the people had to create new organs to represent their interests. The media, which was at the time only the print media, became a powerful organ in the hands of the people to fight against feudalism. The media represented the voice of the future, as contrasted to the feudal organs which wanted to preserve the status quo.
Today, Twitter represents the voice of the people and many powerful and average people tweet to get their thoughts out before the media spin it in another direction. Just read President Trump’s voluminous daily tweets.
As I have noted in the past, Twitter is a powerful tool for reaching out across the street, marketplace or ocean. It is too powerful to be left to the whims of teenagers.
Twitter has become a valuable platform for online communication and, yes, conversation. TechCrunch reported that Twitter is receiving 8 million unique visitors per month and about 500 million messages are posted daily. So your potential audience is incredibly vast.
Twitter is a fantastic tool to provide your brand and your small business with a voice and personality. Twitter can also work to turn you, the small businessperson – the owner, into a thought leader about what is happening in your industry. The benefit of such a distinction is that you will become the go-to-person for answers and advice on what’s happening. Consequently, the small business’ sales team will then be in a better position to sell.
Being successful in tweeting, you will have to develop your personality and a unique style. That’s what makes the difference and can increase your Twitter following and turn it into a successful marketing tool for you and your company.
Social media platforms have emerged as popular marketing channels for small businesses, according to G2 Crowd’s poll. It revealed that 80% of respondents used Facebook for marketing purposes, while 51% turned to Twitter. While both are good while serving distinct purposes, I tend to favor Twitter because with Facebook you deal with an audience that you’ve allowed to enter your space. With Twitter, you have access to far more people and they have access to you. Your messages have the potential to reach a greater audience.
To succeed in social media or Twitter marketing, you must create a topic, build an audience and invite the world to join your conversation. It’s about talking to your prospects and consumers, interacting with them. If you are not going to do this, don’t use Twitter as a marketing tool, it simply won’t work. Make friends, be a friend and reply. Show your followers that you want to engage and be involved with them – this provides ideal customer service and states that you are, in fact, personable.
For every business, the usage is different. In general, you want to find the optimum spot between what your target audience wants to hear and things that promote your business. For many businesses, the answer is to focus on how your products and services benefit your customers.
Give people useful information and answer their questions, and they will consider you a valuable member of their community – a thought leader. That’s an important first step to winning a new customer.
As a small business owner, engage the world in the conversation, but don’t sell. Let your sales team sell.
Successful tweets should include a link to your website and other websites, blog posts, PDF document, photograph or video for greater impact. By doing so, you direct the readers’ attention to more information about the topic of your expertise. If a picture is worth a thousand words, adding an image to a tweet greatly expands what you can share to beyond the 140-characters.
However, you can’t wake up one morning telling yourself “I’ll start tweeting today.” You have to develop a plan and strategy about what you want to accomplish. Becoming a thought leader is a legitimate marketing goal for you as the proprietor. Making your company well known for its product or service is an equally legitimate marketing goal for your business. But as the business owner, you must remember not to overlook your daily chores as you tweet.
You can’t build your business by keeping to yourself and you surely cannot have success on social media without virtually shaking hands. You have to get out of your bubble and interact. You should tweet the same information several times with slight differences. You have to invite readers to join your conversation and you have to participate in conversations. You should also follow likeminded people, similar businesses and vendors, and common industries, like their tweets and retweet their tweets. Their followers and readers may become your followers and readers. This builds your recognition in Twittersphere. If you don’t interact with the world, the world will leave you by the side of the road.
Twitter suggests that businesses follow what it calls the 80/20 principle. That means that 80% of your tweets should focus on driving interactions with your followers, using retweets, replies, and favorites. Once you’ve built a rapport with your network, you can start to mix in direct offers or promotions that get followers to take actions, such as clicking on a link or making a purchase from your website. If you push too much, too soon, your followers will abandon you.
Use hashtags “#” that focus on keywords or buzzwords that are used in your industry and also Twitter handles “@” that direct your thoughts to specific people, companies, vendors and industries. This requires that you spend time researching both tools.
Don’t underestimate the benefits of hashtags and handles. I have solicited responses from corporate giants like Kelly Services, Burger King and United Airlines with my tweets targeted at them. I have also solicited likes and retweets from strangers with my thoughts that aroused their favor – or ire. With the open, wild-west nature of twittersphere, where trolls can hide behind every hashtag, you should be prepared to encounter proponents as well as opponents.
Tweeting is serious business that must be treated seriously. Your usage will signal your seriousness as a businessperson. If you have time, learn it and do it yourself. If not, learn it and assign it to a staff member but monitor it the activity.
How will you tweet?
Join the conversation in cyberspace about boosting your business and outreach by using Twitter and social media and let me know your thoughts. If you have examples of how you tweeted to boost outreach, let me know about it and I’ll help you spread the word about your success.
I’d also like to invite you to visit my Thought Leadership website:
If you’re looking for advice on recruiting, company handbooks and other human resources topics, I’d like to suggest to you this interesting website:
Scroll down on the Boosting Your Outreach blogsite to read or reread older posts.
