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How to Create an Effective Twitter Marketing Strategy

The largest share of Twitter users are aged between 25 and 49. This is also the age with the highest purchasing power. So what does this mean for brands?

Marvellous

Marvellous

How to Create an Effective Twitter Marketing Strategy
Summary

According to Twitter’s final earning release in 2022, the platform has 237.8 million monetizable users each day. This number amounts to 55% of all Twitter users. Not only that, the largest share of Twitter users are aged between 25 and 49. This is also the age with the highest purchasing power. (BI)

So what does this mean for brands? 

With more people joining the platform daily, your target audience is definitely using Twitter. Being active and building a solid presence on the platform will help create awareness for your brand amongst your target audience, promote your product or service, and drive sales. But to be successful on the platform, you need a solid strategy.

So in this article, we will look at how you can create an effective Twitter marketing strategy. 

Let’s get started. 

Run a comprehensive Twitter audit

Before you start creating your Twitter marketing strategy, it’s best practice to first run an audit. The main purpose of the audit is to help you assess what’s working, where you need to improve, and even discover potential issues that may crop up. 

When done right, a Twitter audit will help you identify if your content and promotions are effective and whether you are actually getting engagement from your target audience. 

It is possible to have lots of engagement on your content and still not get any conversions or reach your social media goals. And one of the main reasons for this is that the wrong audience is interacting with your content. An audit will help identify the types of content your audience enjoys and wants to see from you.

How to conduct a Twitter audit

Conducting a Twitter audit is not difficult. You can either use a social media management tool like Iconosquare that allows for deeper analysis or you can use Twitter’s inbuilt analytics feature. 

Here is the step-by-step process to access Twitter's analytics dashboard.

  • After logging into your account, click the “More” button on the left-hand panel of the Home screen.
  • Next, click on “Creator Studio” and select “Analytics”. This will take you to the analytics dashboard
  • In the analytics dashboard, you will see a 28-day summary of your entire account. For deeper insights, click on “View all Tweet activity” under “Tweet highlights”. You will be able to see the top tweets and all the impressions you have gotten over the selected period. 
  • If you run promotions, you can see the performance of your promoted tweets by clicking on the “Promoted” tab. 

While Twitter’s analytics feature allows you to do basic analytics, Iconosquare will allow you to do a lot more. Not only will you be able to analyze the performance of your tweets, but you will also be able to run extensive audience audits, hashtag performance audits, and even competitor analyses. 

💡 It’s also important that your Twitter bio is up to date. Your profile is the first place that a user visits when interacting with your brand. So your profile bio needs to:

#1. Effectively explain what you do (what industry are you in and what products or services do you offer).

#2. Showcase your brand’s mission and voice. Your brand’s voice can be professional, conversational, humorous, or a combination of one or two. For example, innocent drinks use humor in their Twitter bio. Their location is even set as “The Fridge”.

#3. Highlight why people should follow you (For example, quick customer support). 

Conducting a Twitter audit will help you ensure that you are sending the right messaging to your audience and prospects on Twitter. Optimizing your bio will also help encourage engagement when these prospects land on your profile. 

Use hashtags and follow Twitter trends

One of the most effective ways to promote your brand and increase engagement on Twitter is by using hashtags. Hashtags make your content easily discoverable by your audience which will lead to more impressions, likes, and shares. 

Note that hashtags will only be effective when used the right way. Here are some tips to help you get started:

  • Don’t go overboard with the hashtags on a tweet. One to three hashtags per tweet will suffice.
  • Hashtags should be short and memorable. A report from TrackMaven found that hashtags with 18 characters perform best on Twitter, followed by hashtags with three characters. For example,  #NFL
  • Don’t overthink what you will use as the tag. It’s best to use simple tags that are easy to remember and search for.  Also, use specific hashtags instead of general or broad ones. With general terms, it’s easy for your tweet to get lost in a sea of other tweets.
  • You don’t need to put a hashtag in every tweet. Use it only when it is relevant and will add value or additional meaning to the post.

How to find relevant hashtags for your brand? 

The main point of using hashtags is to make your tweet more discoverable by your target audience. This means that you have to use hashtags your audience will be searching for. A good way to find these relevant hashtags is to look at what hashtags the influencers in your industry or niche are using. This will give you a good idea of the hashtags that are relevant to your business. 

Another way you can use hashtags is by creating branded hashtags for specific campaigns and using them in tweets promoting the campaign. Using branded hashtags can encourage your audience to engage and share the tweet.

An example of a popular branded hashtag campaign on Twitter is the #WantAnR8 campaign by Audi. 

Twitter user (Joanne McCoy) first used the #WantAnR8 hashtag to let Audi know she wanted to ride the vehicle. The brand surprised her by letting her drive the R8 for a day and then used the hashtag in their tweet promoting the launch of the car. The hashtag took off and was tweeted more than 75 thousand times. 

Along with hashtags, you should also follow what topics are trending on Twitter. Understanding the trending topics will help you decipher what your audience is paying attention to so you can join the conversation. 

We’ve discussed Twitter hashtags. Also, learn how to find Instagram hashtags.

Research your target audience

Before you start creating content for Twitter, research your target audience to understand their behavior and the kind of content that will resonate with them. When you understand your audience, you will be able to create a content marketing strategy that works. 

An easy way to do this is to look at the followers of your competitors and similar brands in your industry. What kind of content are their followers interacting with the most? Do they retweet funny tweets more or do they prefer serious thought-leadership tweets? 

The types of tweets that get the most traction will vary depending on the industry.

Another way you can find out the kind of content your audience interacts with is by monitoring the followers of relevant influencers in your niche. Looking at the content from relevant accounts that your audience already follows will help you understand their preferences. 

Find out the best time to tweet 

Twitter has approximately 450 million monthly active users and at least 50% of these users log into the platform daily. Most of these users are tweeting and on average 500 million tweets are posted on the platform daily. So if you want to increase the organic reach of your content, it’s important to tweet when your target audience is most active on the platform.

Finding out the best time to tweet for your audience is relatively easy. You can either look at Twitter’s analytics dashboard or use a dedicated Twitter analytics tool.

On the Twitter analytics dashboard, click “view all Tweet activity”. Here you can easily see which days of the week you had the highest number of impressions and engagement. Although, you won’t be able to identify the specific time of the day you posted the tweet. Iconosquare on the other hand has a “best time to post” feature that advises on the most optimal time to tweet depending on when your audience is most active on Twitter.

Schedule tweets for maximum engagement 

After finding out the right time to tweet, the next step is to schedule the tweets to go live automatically. This will save you time and ensure that you post consistently. 

And sometimes, you might even live in a different time zone from your target audience. It wouldn’t make sense to wake up in the middle of the night just to share a tweet. Also, you may have to tweet multiple times during the day depending on your industry or if you are running a promotional campaign like a new product launch. Scheduling makes this very easy to do. You just need to set it up and go about other tasks. 

Use Iconosquare’s publishing tool to schedule your Tweets for an entire week or month.

Use Twitter ads

Using paid Twitter advertising  is an effective way to quickly reach your target audience. Unlike organic tweets, promoted tweets are guaranteed to reach a large audience quickly. 

The biggest advantage of ads is that even people who don’t follow you can discover your tweets and profile. Promoted tweets show up on the timelines of users with similar interests to your target audience. Users also interact with promoted tweets the same way they will interact with an organic tweet. The only difference is that there is a label to show that a tweet is promoted for the sake of transparency.

Here are some best practices to help you run effective Twitter ads:

  • Keep it short and simple: There is a 280-character limit for the copy of the promoted post. So go straight to the point and deliver your message in as few words as possible. 
  • Use eye-catching visuals:  Similar to other social media platforms, Twitter is also a visual platform. Do not rely on stock images, instead take the time to create visuals that capture the attention of your audience. A good rule of thumb is that the image you use in the ad should be able to pass a message that the audience can decipher even without the ad copy.
  • Get the CTA right: Your copy and visuals are what will get the user to look at the ad. Your CTA will direct them to take action. Use the exact language that will explain what you want them to do after viewing the ad. For example, ‘follow us’ or ‘subscribe now’.
  • Run A/B tests: Use your organic posts to A/B test your promotional messaging, specific ad copy, visuals, and special offers. If your followers react well and engage with a Tweet, the audience you are trying to target with the ads will most likely do too.

Run polls and host Twitter chats 

Twitter polls and chats are effective ways to engage with your audience. 

With Twitter polls, you can ask questions with up to four answers that your audience can choose from. Your audience will get to communicate directly with you and you can also gather their opinions and feedback. 

There are also many ways you can creatively incorporate polls into your Twitter marketing strategy. For example, Dennys Diner uses polls to promote their meals with a touch of humor. 

Karla Cosmetics uses polls to get feedback from its audience on the product they would love to see next.

Android uses polls to create anticipation for their next operating system update.

💡 To increase the discoverability and reach of your poll, you can include relevant trending or branded hashtags. Look at this example from Evernote.

Now, let’s look at Twitter Chats. 

Twitter chats allow you to engage your audience in conversations. Your audience can ask you questions and you can also ask their opinions about your brand, product, or service.

To host a Twitter Chat, choose a topic, set a time and date, and promote it to your audience. Creating a hashtag for the chat will also increase its reach. And if a lot of people participate in the chat, it may even trend on the Explore page. 

Chats with your audience should be a part of your Twitter marketing strategy because it gets people to talk about your brand and increase the impressions and engagement on your profile.

Target KPIs and regularly measure them

If you don’t keep track of certain key performance indicators (KPIs), you won't be able to track the success of your marketing strategy. Analyzing these KPIs will help you determine if your tweets reach the right audience, engage the users, and drive conversions. 

You don’t need to track all the KPIs. Just focus on the ones that are important to your social media goals. For example, your main goal might be to convert traffic from Twitter into sales. Here are some of the KPIs you should keep track of 

  • Number of followers: The more followers you have, the more reach your tweets have on the platform. Tracking follower growth is important as it helps you gauge the impact of your content. If you are gaining followers, it means your strategy is working. 
  • Twitter engagement rate: This metric measures the number of interactions (likes, shares, retweets, and comments) your tweets get divided by the total number of followers you have. 
  • Twitter reach:  This is the average number of people that see your tweet. The higher your reach, the more impressions that your post gets. An effective way to increase your Twitter reach is by using hashtags in your tweets.
  • Link clicks: This allows you to track the performance of your organic and promoted tweets that have URL links embedded in them. If your clicks are minimal, it could be because the tweet copy or the visuals used isn’t captivating enough. Additionally, you can measure the click-through rate (CTR). This metric calculates the link clicks divided by impressions. A high CTR indicates that your audience resonates with your messaging and is interested in the product or service you are promoting. 

Read more: See 24 other social media KPIs you can track in 2023

Once you’ve determined all the Twitter metrics you want to track depending on your social media goal, use a social media management platform like Iconosquare to easily track your progress. Not only do you get reports on over 100+ metrics for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok, you can rapidly export the data in a single click. Try Iconosquare for free.

Conclusion

Twitter is a powerful platform that when used efficiently,  it can help businesses reach their target audience with ease. The main thing to remember is that content is king on Twitter. So it’s important you research your audience properly so you can understand the kind of content they resonate with. So whether you decide to use organic or promoted posts, your tweets will consistently hit the mark. The more your audience engages with your tweet, the more conversions and sales you are likely to get.

So, consider the tips in this article so you can create an effective Twitter marketing strategy that offers a positive return on investment.

About
the writer
Marvellous

Marvellous

Copywriter @Iconosquare

Hi! I'm Marvellous, huge fan of Iconosquare as a product, and determined to help experienced social media marketers thrive in the various aspects of their career.

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