What’s the Importance of Social Media?
Social media is incredibly beneficial to businesses and individuals alike. Social media marketing can:
- Create genuine engagement.
- Increase reach.
- Offer 24/7 promotion.
- Improve customer service.
Social media means you can engage directly with your followers, share their content, their stories, and it allows you to create a more personal relationship with each and every one. Once you have this trust, selling your product or service becomes easier, as do your chances of your customers recommending you to their friends.You cannot, however, treat each social media platform the same. Cross-posting is lazy and it can severely hurt your brand, as not every post will look good on different platforms, nor are users active at the same time.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing (SMM)Social media marketing (SMM) is an internet marketing strategy that involves using social media networks. is the marketing strategy you use to gain a large following and, more importantly, a high engagement on social media accounts. The specific goals you have will depend massively on your company and on your values. If you are an influencer, then having a high engagement and large following will be enough for you. If you are a brand who sells products, however, you will want to use the business tools and encourage followers to visit your site and buy your products. How you do this will depend on which platform you use.
You will not use the top platforms of Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or Twitter the same way. Cross-posting will only result in poor posts that don’t look good on different platforms. You need to know how to create unique posts per platform, particularly if you are using Twitter, which has a 280-character limit on each post.
Twitter: Its Pros and Cons
Twitter is not as popular as platforms like Instagram, but it has unique uses that make it invaluable:
- It is the go-to place for ongoing news. If an event or catastrophe were to happen, users can find out via accounts on Twitter before even news agencies get a hold of what is happening.
- It places communication first, meaning brands and users communicate with each other as the primary focus, rather than place comments on content. You could ask questions, hold polls, make jokes, and generally start a conversation.
- You can manage customer service queries directly and almost instantly. What’s more, you’re able to put out any fires before they run ablaze your brand’s reputation.
How to Start Your Own Twitter Account
Brands can do a lot with Twitter, particular in the relationship-building and customer service departments, but first you need to be online. Thankfully, setting up your Twitter account is easy, and can be done in 6 steps:
- Create a new account on Twitter. This means filling in your personal information.
- Verify your account through the email you have provided.
- Create Your Twitter Handle (either your brand name or a shortened version if it is too long).
- Write your biography. Keep it short, to the point, and even funny.
- Add your profile photo and cover photo. Make sure you have the proper dimensions, so that your cover photo doesn’t become distorted.
- Write your first tweet! Be engaging, and put in a lot of effort. For businesses, you may want to start off with a bang and offer a discount.
Just like with Instagram, you cannot start a verified celebrity account yourself. You can try to contact Twitter yourself, however, if you are already an established brand that users would want to follow. Having the verified account icon next to your name is a great way to help your existing fans find you, and start engaging with your account.
How to Succeed on Twitter
Twitter has a unique feed that is different from other platforms:
- Ranked Posts or Popular Posts.
- “In Case You Missed It.”
- All other tweets in reverse-chronological order.
This feed means that while having more engagement will help you reach the top of a users’ feed, you can still rely on the chronological feed. Therefore, this means that when you post is as important as what you post.
For the best chances of engagement, you should tweet in the morning, during commuting times, when people usually take their lunch, and in the evening when people are resting at home. You should also know not to spam people’s feeds.
How to Schedule Tweets
If you don’t know how to schedule tweets, don’t worry. You don’t even need to know when the best times to post are, as Twitter management apps like Buffer do all the hard work for you. Simply draft your tweet on their platform, and choose one of three options:
- Publish Now.
- Schedule a Specific Time.
- Automatically Schedule.
Choosing a date and time a tweet should be posted is useful for tweets pertaining to a specific date or event, while more general tweets should be scheduled using the automatic feature. Just make sure that your tweets are varied and are crafted expertly, so that they look good and natural when posted.
Twitter can help you engage directly with your followers in ways you simply cannot on other platforms. The beauty of Twitter is that it’s an instant way to speak to your customers. Facebook and Instagram are used not to get an instant response from customers, while Twitter is more fast-paced.
Get online now and start to build up your following and your engagement, and you’ll start the process of building more genuine relationships with your customers.
