Using Twitter

If your business has a serious professional image and you are looking at new ways to get your messages out, you would be forgiven for initially dismissing Twitter as something that is just not right for you. However, it might be time to think again. Admittedly, this form of social media has a strong emphasis on ‘social’ and to the uninitiated it might appear to be simple a medium for fans to follow every move of their celebrity idols. But as with any form of communication, the key is in how you use it. The medium itself does not determine your message. Firstly, do your homework to decide if this route to market is right for you. Do some research on your customers by looking through Twitter to see who is talking about your company and its products and services or those of your competitors and decide if there is a community you can engage with. Don’t worry if there doesn’t appear to be one at first, as you can build it. It is important to remember that you will not get far just pushing out sales-focussed marketing messages. As with many social media tools, the key is to establish yourself as a trusted source of valuable information who is keen to share it. If you feel you can create a meaningful engagement with your customer community, then this is the tool for you. Twitter is a great way to keep contacts and clients abreast of developments, events or new products, but it is also a great tool for customer care and support. It is quick and easy to use. You don’t have to worry about how much of the content will be read, as you might do with emails, newsletters or direct mail. With only 140 characters at your disposal, it would be hard to miss any of it. The real art of maximising your use of Twitter lies in crafting meaningful and impactful communications in just 140 characters. If you have great copywriters in your marketing team, then this will be a challenge they will relish. When you have established your strategy for using Twitter, then you will find that resource is required on a constant basis to manage the outgoing and resulting content. If this isn’t resource that you have in-house, then speak to marketing recruitment agencies in Staffordshire to find out how to engage the right talent. If you aren’t sure which marketing recruitment agencies in Staffordshire to use, then why not take to Twitter to find out about the different agencies? Another part of your strategy will be to monitor and track the impact of your Twitter activity. While it is relatively simple to track re-tweets, you can use apps and software to help you. You will, of course, be able to gauge initial impact from the responses you get, depending on the nature of your post. Before engaging new resource to handle your Twitter-related work, investigate the software available that can automate some functions.