As of this year, Twitter boasts more than 328 million active users per month. No doubt, this is a platform you should be using to market your business. But can you sign up, tweet carelessly, and expect your Twitter marketing campaigns to be a success? Absolutely not! A thoughtful strategy is essential to effective marketing on Twitter (and any social media platform). One of the best ways to develop your winning strategy is to learn from the successes of others. Consider below some excellent examples of Twitter marketing, along with key takeaways that you can use.
1. ASPCA – Leverage Images
It’s safe to say that most of us have a soft spot for animals. The ASPCA could’ve chosen to count on that probability and simply talk about animal cruelty—and many people would have taken action based on that alone—but the power of this tweet lies in the image, in showing the reality of animal cruelty.
Takeaway: Images create emotional responses, whether positive or negative, and emotional responses serve as motivators. Ask yourself, “ What do I want followers to do after they read this tweet?” Then find a fitting image that encourages your audience to act.
2. DuckDuckGo – Promote Tweets
The innovative search engine company DuckDuckGo has had much success with promoted tweets. Instead of only marketing to current followers, they’ve reached an untouched but interested audience. The same could be true for you and your business.
Surely you believe that your product or service is of value to your customers. So should you sit back and hope that people will stumble upon your business by chance? Of course not! You want to place yourself in front as many potential customers as possible.
Takeaway: Promote your tweets to reach a wider audience in search results, home timelines, user profiles and more. Doing so can increase engagement and sales.
3. Converse – Secure Influencer Endorsements
Converse made wise use of the popularity of Chinese entertainer Zhang Yi Xing recently. Just by mentioning his name and showing him in a pair of Converse shoes, this tweet quickly garnered an impressive amount of engagement. The comments leave no doubt that the enthusiastic response was largely due to fan’s love of Xing. Influencers relevant to specific subsets of an audience can be a powerful tool.
Takeaway: Identify and connect with influencers—individuals that have the power and the audience to influence your target audience. Their support of your business can move others to support you as well.
4. Amazon – Use Testimonials
Amazon took this tweet to the next level with a testimonial. Sure, the tweet could’ve just included a picture of the product, a link to the website and a simple caption like, “Check this out.” Granted, some people may have been curious enough to follow the link and take a look.
Instead, Amazon maximized the power of this tweet by including a real and glowing review of the product. The review is slightly humorous but still convinces others that this is a product they should check out, a product they need.
Takeaway: To spark interest in your offerings, drive traffic to your website and increase sales, use testimonials.
5. NFL – Don’t Forget CTA’s
Calls to action can help you to effectively generate more leads, get more shares, make more sales and so on. That’s why the NFL chose to use a CTA in this tweet. In this case, the purpose was to boost engagement by asking followers to retweet.
Did it work? Absolutely! Hundreds of people chose to retweet. The lower numbers on NFL tweets without CTA’s make clear that the ask was the key.
Takeaway: When used according to best practices, CTA’s can be useful in all aspects of marketing including social media. Don’t underestimate their power. Often, the best way to get people to take action is to ask them to do so.
How Will You Improve Your Twitter Marketing?
With these examples in mind, do you see room for improvement in your strategy? If so, don’t hesitate to begin making gradual adjustments. Going forward, it would also be wise to find your own examples and role models. Modeling your strategy (or parts of it) after others who’ve been successful will help you to achieve your SMM goals.
