In January, Twitter said its users launched more than 500 million Tweets daily. With so many Tweets flying around daily, is it still an effective tool for companies and brands to stay connected with their customers, employees, and business partners?

I think the answer is Yes – but only if you’re focusing on your goals and measuring outcomes.

Ultimately, we help our clients answer this question:

“How can we leverage Twitter to help you?”

Build a Community

Tweeting consistently about relevant topics allows you to get to know your customers and build a stronger relationship with them. Find a topic that connects with your followers.  Start answering these key questions based upon your audience interaction:

• How often should you Tweet?
• What kinds of content get the most engagement?
• Which hashtags increase your impressions?
• Who are the most influential people in your audience?

Answering these questions will bring recognition to you in your brand and will enhance your in-bound marketing strategy.

According to U.S News, 85 percent of followers feel more connected with businesses after following them. And 72 percent of followers are more likely to buy something from a business they follow.

 

Most people feel flattered when a brand acknowledges them and shares their content.

 

Keep Up on News and Trends

 

Twitter is a great way to keep up with the latest news and trends. You can also measure trending topics relevant to your audience. When you Tweet during an emerging trend that’s important to your audience, people who are interested in your content are on Twitter and ready to engage.

 

Examples of trends for business typically happen around news about brands, conferences and products. But you can get into the conversation about locations or your industry. Just make sure you stay true to your brand and that you’re providing engagement to deepen conversations and relationships.

Curate user-generated content

 

Twitter is ideal for content curation. Develop a goal for content creation and curation. Are you becoming a source of breaking news or do you want to be a resource for your customers and potential customers? Either way, you’ll need a strategy to find, create and publish the content.

 

We recommend using tools to schedule your publishing and an editorial calendar for planning your schedule.

 

Keeping your audience active and engaged means producing personal content on a daily basis (or curating content).

 

Use Hashtags

 

Hashtags give tweets context and longevity. Context is important because you put your message in front of the right audience at the right time.  

 

Using hashtags also puts your message in front of people who may not be following you. When they’re following a hashtag conversation, they’ll see your message. Hopefully, they engage and take a beneficial action for you, like retweeting or responding to you.  Testing hashtags is also the key to finding the right conversations for you on Twitter. Try using the same message  with a variety of hashtags which are related.

 

If you’re a digital marketing agency like us, you might try #marketing, #digitalmarketing or #emailmarketing.  Try using Twitter’s search to find hashtags that work for you.

 

Check Your Analytics

 

Twitter offers analytics for your account. Login and visit, https://analytics.twitter.com. Here you’ll find statistics for your top tweet, your top followers and your top mention. The statistics are organized for the current month and the previous month. So check regularly and compare months before Twitter archives the data.

 

Here’s what you’ll see:

 

• Your Top Tweet is your tweet that got the most impressions that month. Study what you posted and whose engagement helped spread your post.
• Your Top Mention is the tweet mentioning you that got the most views in the month.
• Your Top Follower is the new follower that month with the largest following. Tweeting to this person and building a relationship will help you.
• Your Top Media Tweet is  your tweet with the photo, video, or Vine that received the highest number of impressions.

 

These are the highlights, there’s more here https://analytics.twitter.com. If you have a strategy with the right tools to execute it, then you want to check your Twitter analytics to make sure your efforts are paying off.