Worry about Twitter marketing no more. I will make you grow.

If I had a pound or dollar or euro for every time someone has said to me I don’t get Twitter, I’d be a millionaire or more realistically have £25.

Lots of shrewd social media savvy people just don’t get Twitter.

Neither did I when I started. But I’ve learnt.

I do know now how Twitter works and how I can make Twitter marketing work for you.

Here I’ll give some advice.

Though not in 140 characters.

Twitter is rumoured to be on its deathbed which like my millionaire statement is hyperbolics – a word I made up just – but you get my drift?

I won’t bore you with Twitter statistics.

Change of heart.

I will.

Twitter has 317 million active monthly users globally.

Multiply that for a year (not exact I know) and you, as a business, ignore these 317 million users at your peril.

So why is Twitter so good?

Why should you be using Twitter marketing as part of a ‘blended’ marketing strategy?

Here’s 10 reasons from me, as a social media marketer and Twitter power user:

It is the fastest moving newsfeed in the world. It’s faster than a hire car. Yes really. A celebrity death breaks, it is tweeted in seconds and the hashtags make it trend. The only way to find out quicker is you’re at the bedside or in a hire car. It’s seriously that quick a news platform. An 140 character limit means pithy tweets are the norm.
In Twitter marketing terms, this means your tweets have a shelf life, a short shelf life. No one, apart from your mum, or partner or closest friends will scrutinise your profile and go through your tweets. I’d say a tweet has a lifespan of one hour, then it’s ignored.
With a tweet being gone in 60 minutes, you need to feed your Twitter profile at least hourly. This may seem a burden if you’re time poor, so you can pay agencies and Twitter marketing companies to produce evergreen tweets and feed your account.
Twitter is customisable – you can go private or public. If you’re using Twitter for marketing, it has to be public. You can of course have multiple accounts and have a private one for your own use. Public though is vital for marketing.
Links. No not Links Africa. URLs. Twitter allows you to post links and scheduling tools like Hootsuite and Buffer can shorten them (those ow.ly and bit.ly things you see). Instagram only allows clickable links in the bio.
Spam. Word of caution. Don’t overdo those links – they can get your account perceived as Spam heavy. Get the balance right. I attach links roughly 20% of the time.
Followers. Twitter allows you to search those hashtags, those metatags. those little data snippets for like minded people. You can target people in other words who may want or need what you’re offering. Example: if I was promoting a book on Pink Floyd, I could search for #pinkfloyd #anotherbrickinthewall #sydbarrett #rogerwaters to find a target audience and I could hashtag my own tweets for my Pink Floyd tome with #davidgilmour to attract followers to me.
Ratios. Twitter (wisely in my view) limits the follower to follow ratio. This means that you can’t set up an account and follow 1000 accounts and not have any limits. A great Twitter account has roughly even numbers of Followers and Followed.
Engagement. Grow organically by following active accounts with similar interests or needs and engage. By engage, I mean liking, retweeting, replying to mentions and follows and retweets. It’s time consuming, yes, can distract if you’re doing other things in your business and that’s why many companies outsource it to agencies, marketing companies or Tom, near the office photocopier, who has a Twitter account and a reasonable understanding of it.
Public dialogues. Like most social media, if your Twitter account is public, what you post, how you react, how you interact, can be seen, theoretically, by those 317 million users. With that sort of audience or even a tiny fraction of that, your Tweets and behaviours on Twitter are a reflection of your brand. You must be able to trust the Twitter admin to interact on Twitter in the way you want your brand to be perceived. This doesn’t mean no personality, vanilla tweets, bland interactions so as not to create engagement – it does mean though that Twitter marketing carries with it a big element of responsibility in what is said, how it’s said and how your Twitter admin interacts.

The dangers of Twitter?

A dormant account. You can set up a Twitter account for business, send twenty tweets in two days and pour a glass of Prosecco and say job done. It is a daily, hourly activity. If your Twitter marketing strategy is non-existent, dormant or lazy, do something about it.
Twitter on your website. You have that Twitter icon on your website, in email signatures, or your shop signage, wrapped car, flyers, business cards and people click and see your Twitter account or maybe they don’t see anything. If you have Twitter on your website, make sure you are using Twitter marketing – or why bother?
Lewd followers and trolls – yes Twitter is awash with them – you can ignore, block and not follow back.
Messages when you connect. Yes they irritate me. They may irk you? Sometimes though private messages can be a benefit – this week I got a firm lead from a message on Twitter from an account I manage. Separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.
Wrong tweets. They say you shouldn’t have more than 25% tweets that are sell, sell, sell. If you have an active Twitter account look dispassionately at your tweets. Are they same old, same old? Are they appealing or simply a rolling stock list, as many estate agents have, that no one bats an eyelid at.

Please, please, please, a plea:

Make Twitter marketing fun.

I remember reading online recently a question someone had asked in earnest.

The question was:

Why does my dog’s Twitter account have more engagement than my business one?

The answer had to be pointed out – the dog’s tweets were fun and engaging, the business ones dull as ditchwater.

Same person doing the tweets – but different engagement.

With 80% of internet use in 2016 being mobile (smartphones and tablets outside the home), with people hooked on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter, your business cannot afford to ignore those 300 million users.

Can it?

Here’s where I can help you.

I can:

Build a Twitter profile for you with profile picture, cover photo and bio with a URL and User Name to reflect your company and brand.
Build up an organic following.
Tweet great content that is a mixture of sales, photos, GIFs, links and engaging breaking information, a bit like that dog did, albeit without the cuteness.
Respond to direct messages, retweets, likes and mentions almost instantly – I’m freelance and self-employed you see: I no longer have clocking in arrangements or workplace hierarchies and politics.
Grow your business with a bespoke Twitter marketing package for you, with a weekly report via phone, Skype, email, or FaceTime whichever you prefer.

My costs for this are market leading.

I have many happy clients who will vouch for my tweeting abilities. Ask me for testimonials or check them out online.

You pay me a set up, one month in advance and after a month, say “Thanks Stuart, please continue” or “Thanks Stuart, Tom near the photocopier now knows what he’s doing, having worked with you.”

Think of me as a social media marketing coach and not an agency.

By paying me, a sole trader, I’ll do a happy dance and you’ll dance in return as your business and brand grows.

Contact me today – or test me out by communicating via any of my five social media icons on this site.

Not in the middle of the night though – if you’ve seen my face, you’ll know I need beauty sleep and plenty of it!