Social Media and Twitter Marketing: A Complete Guide

Most things in marketing are about ‘being yourself’... after all, who likes a copycat? Just because another brand uses X Y Z platforms and has great results, doesn’t mean that by copying their social media strategy you’ll have the same success.

How is social media marketing done?

The social media strategy you implement will and should be completely unique to your business. 

For example, brands with highly visually appealing products like food, furniture, jewellery, or art, may choose to use Instagram as their primary social media marketing channel. This is because the primary purpose of Instagram is to share photos.

Brands that are more information-heavy like tech companies, service-based brands, and brands requiring high levels of customer support may look to Twitter as their primary social media marketing channel because Twitter is mostly text-based. Of course, you can share images here, but it’s not the primary purpose of this platform.  

While there are distinctive purposes for each of the various social platforms, brands can choose to utilise the same platforms differently and in unique ways that work for their purposes. The first step is to decide on the channels that work best for your team, before implementing a social media strategy and actioning it ASAP! 

Is social media marketing easy?

This question largely depends on what your definition of “easy” is. Some may find running a marathon easy, while some struggle to walk up the 1 flight of stairs at the office. If the latter one applies to you - same. But don’t worry, I promise social media marketing is a lot easier than walking up a flight of stairs. 

A bit like nailing the perfect recipe, a lot of social media marketing is about constantly tweaking the types of content you put out there - to get the perfect recipe! Just how Google’s algorithm constantly changes to keep you on your toes, you bet social media channels do the same.

Depending on which platform/s you decide are important for your business to use, the metrics in which you analyse its performance will also vary. For example, Instagram just announced a new algorithm update in February 2021, which prioritises the number of posts saved, as the most important content. 

Once you create and implement a strategy and begin tweaking it to see what works best for your company, social media marketing becomes as easy as riding a bike. I don’t know about you but I like to think I can do it in my sleep… Almost. But keep in mind that each social media platform is constantly changing, launching new features, and updating their algorithms, so it’s important to remain agile and adapt accordingly. 

How do beginners start social media marketing?

With 3.96 billion people already using social media, chances are that you are one of them. With half the world's population on social media, it means you're bound to also find your people out there. It also means, you already know how most social media platforms work. 

Now it’s time for a good ol strat chat, to define your goals for social media marketing. Do you want to create a community? Are you purely sales driven? Or perhaps you want to improve your brand reputation? 

Think about your goals for social media marketing. If they are purely sales-based, you might not need to worry as much about creating a community of users and can just create accounts to run ads for your products. If your goal is to improve your brand reputation and foster a community through social media (which will garner you more referrals and a strong sense of brand loyalty) then you should focus on creating content that resonates with your target audience and provides value to them. 

There are many free social media marketing courses for beginners available on platforms like Hubspot. 

What are social media marketing examples?

Again, social media marketing comes in many forms. It could be a Facebook or Instagram ad for a new product, an influencer campaign with someone who uses your company’s products or services, or a simple contest where users must follow your account in order to win a prize. 

Remember, depending on your end goal, social media marketing might look different for you than it does for other brands in your space. Directly copying a competitor doesn’t look good, because we live in a cancel culture, where other people will call you out on it. Once you run your first social media marketing campaign you’ll want to analyse the results to see if it accomplished your goal, and what the Return on Investment (ROI) was! Start with a small budget as you test the waters and increase it as you find out what works for you. 

What are the different social media platforms?

The major social media platforms (at the moment) are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Snapchat. 

All these platforms were designed for different purposes, and depending on your brand’s goals, some will be more preferred than others. You may choose not to use YouTube as it is expensive and time-consuming to create high-quality videos here. Instead, you could put out video content on TikTok which is less time-consuming and provides a host of in-app tools to edit and cut your content with. 

This is just one example as each social media marketing platform will serve a different purpose for your company (or not).

What is the best social media for marketing?

By now, you can probably guess that there is no “best” social media marketing app. What’s the best platform is what’s best for your brand and helps you accomplish your goals.

Some companies try using all the social media platforms at once and as a result, can’t create any high-quality content because they are stretched too thin.  Instead, focus on one or two main platforms, like Instagram and Twitter, and create great content for those platforms. 

Once you have mastered your social media marketing strategy for one platform, you can start applying it to others. 

What are the pros and cons of using social media for marketing?

Like any business strategy, there are always positives and negatives to each side. 

Using social media marketing can open many doors for your business and can connect you to a world of potential customers/clients you didn’t know were out there. It breaks down geographical barriers and provides a legitimate feeling to your brand… almost all consumers look up a brand before purchasing from them online. If you have absolutely no social media presence... it can look a little sketchy at best. 

So, social media marketing creates brand loyalty and legitimacy, it’s fairly quick to produce content (once you get used to it), and provides access to a large audience at a low cost (maybe even for free). 

On the flip side, social media marketing can be time-consuming. Once your brand’s platform begins to grow it can become impossible to respond to every comment or message on every single platform. Creating high-quality, shareable content is also very time-consuming. If you are not planning on running any ads, it can also be a long time before you receive any ROI on your social media marketing efforts. That’s because growing an audience takes time. 

There’s also a risk of negative publicity, but this risk is present even if you don’t have social media. If someone has a bad experience at your company, they can still post about their experience online… you just won’t know about it. Wouldn’t it be better to know and to publicly address their concerns? 

Twitter Marketing 

How is Twitter used for marketing?

As we mentioned previously, Twitter is a great place to promote text-based assets including your blog posts, product or company updates, press releases, and other content your audience may be interested in. 

It’s a great platform for marketing because it facilitates conversations amongst users of your product or brand. You can include links to your landing pages or website in your Tweets, which will help drive traffic to your website and can even increase sales. 

Larger brands use other platforms like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to monitor and respond to their Twitter feeds because they have such a high volume of requests or inquiries. 

You can search for tweets that include your company name, product names, or services. And you can even follow competitors to see what they are tweeting and engaging with on Twitter.

Finally, you can include sponsored posts (like ads) in your Twitter marketing strategy, but this platform is mostly based on engaging with other users.  

How do I create a Twitter marketing strategy?

Creating a Twitter marketing strategy is just like creating a social media marketing strategy… only on Twitter! 

You’ll want to complete a few steps:

• Researching your audience
• Creating unique/engaging/shareable content
• Organising a schedule of posts 
• Analysing your impact/results 

Your end goals will be similar including attracting new leads, driving traffic to your website, or increasing sales. 

How can I use Twitter to promote my business for free?

Just like anyone can create a social media profile for themselves, anyone can also create a profile for their brand or business for free. 

But using Twitter to promote your business also assumes you have some sort of existing audience on the platform. Don’t worry though, even small audiences are extremely powerful and can help drive sales to your website. 

As long as you are engaging with your audience and putting out content regularly, your platform will continue to grow. 

Can I sell things on Twitter?

Twitter is not a platform where sales are conducted HOWEVER you can absolutely link to your products, services, or website by sharing tweets about these products or tweets about blog posts that link to your products. 

This is contributing to your sales indirectly because you are providing a valuable piece of content to your followers while also subtly reminding them that you have products available for sale. 

Using Twitter’s hashtags and trends can help boost your engagement and reach new audiences, as well. 

Who uses Twitter?

There are some interesting statistics available on who uses Twitter, from Omnicore. About 38% of Twitter users are between 18-29, and 26% are between 30-49. And a staggering 80% of Twitter users are affluent millennials. 

This community is open to brands getting involved with the Twitter community if done in the right way (93%). The “right” way assumes that this is not done in a salesy or pushy way but rather a more organic approach to sales. 

Twitter Engagement 

What is a Twitter impression and engagement and what’s the difference between the two?

It’s important to monitor both impressions and engagements when completing a twitter digital marketing strategy. Impressions are the number of times a tweet appears to users. This can be in their timeline or in search results. Engagements, on the other hand, are the number of times a user interacted with tweets you sent. 

Both of these metrics are important because as impressions increase, hopefully more users begin engaging with your tweets and your brand. If not, you should reevaluate your strategy. 

Engagements are what drive sales but impressions are what drive engagements, so be sure to include both in your Twitter social media marketing strategy. 

Both impressions and engagement rates will vary depending on how many followers your account has and how active it is. You want to keep the content flowing but not become “spammy” or annoying to your users… it’s a fine line and it honestly depends on each user and their audience. Monitor this closely to determine if you’re sharing too much or too little!

How do you drive engagements on Twitter?

Engagements on Twitter are measured in a few ways… these include favoriting a tweet, retweeting, responding, mentioning, and clicking links or images. 

According to Wiselytics, the half-life of your tweet is only about 24 minutes. This means most of the engagement you receive will come almost immediately after posting. Ensuring you post at the right times for your Twitter digital marketing strategy is a key factor in success. 

You can drive these engagements a number of ways but primarily, it’s about been seen and providing value. Being active on Twitter means nothing if you are not engaging with other users and no one is sharing your content.  

What is a good engagement rate on Twitter in 2021?

If your engagement rate seems low, don’t worry. Because the platform is SO content and text-heavy, the average high engagement on Twitter is only between 0.5-0.99, with over 1% engagement being something to celebrate!

Improve your engagement rate by sharing links, gifs, keeping tweets short and sweet, and providing value/engaging with other users’ content. 

Who can see my tweets if I have no followers?

There are options for both private and public accounts on Twitter. Even if you have no followers, if your account is public, anyone who searches for you can see your content. 

Most brands want to keep public profiles so they can share updates with anyone and reach a wider audience. If your account is private, only those who you approve to follow you can see your posts… even if you reply to a public thread. 

Can you tell if someone looks at your Twitter profile? 

Nope! Unlike LinkedIn, Twitter users have no way of knowing whether a specific user or brand has seen their content unless they engage with it through a favourite, retweet, reply etc.  

So there you have it! Figuring out what social media platform is right for you can be hard, and basically, it is a matter of trial and error. Alternatively, if you have the budget, hiring a social media partner to help you develop a social media strategy, can save you a tonne of time and get you to where you want to be a whole lot quicker.