Increase your campaign success with these six simple rules for your business’ Twitter presence!
Before you plunge right in start tweeting as part of your next marketing campaign, it is always best to look at a few successful brand accounts on Twitter in order to understand current best-practice! Two companies that are worth looking at are drinks manufacturer Innocent (@InnocentDrinks) and tour operator Thomas Cook (@ThomasCookCares) for slightly different reasons.
Innocent Drinks is an excellent example of how a brand can interact with customers on Twitter. As a company, it shows a great personality that is reflected in its posts. Innocent tweets about promotions, funny photos, videos and illustrations with an upbeat personality and is quick to engage with its customers.
Using a slightly different method, Thomas Cook UK has opened a Twitter account designed for allowing customer interaction, seeking to help those travelling on holiday for example by answering simple questions on airline baggage allowance. The @ThomasCookCares team handles an average of 10K social queries a week. Each Tweet has an SLA of being answered in 15 minutes. Thomas Cook keeps a positive tone of voice and helps customers from 7am to 10pm GMT – 7 days a week.
Step 1 – Keep it real
Just a few years ago, consumers idolised brands, but today they are more attune to your corporate speak and jargon, and have become ever more suspicious of the actions of marketing executives. Keep your tweets authentic and real. Be happy and interested in your customers’ needs. Don’t write with corporate jargon. Keep it conversational and fun.
Step 2 – Listen and engage
Don’t just push out Tweets 24/7 to an uninterested audience. Listen to your customers and follow influencers in your market. Thomas Cook’s accounts are a good example of this activity. Don’t just use Twitter as another broadcast medium. Unlike a PR newswire, it must be about listening and talking with customers!
Step 3 – Use and read your analytics
There are all sorts of analytic software out there including Twitter’s simple analytics provided for businesses at ads.twitter.com. Here this page will help you better understand what is successful among your existing followers! For corporate use we suggest using a software program called Engagor. Here at Chapel we give Engagor 5 out of 5 stars when it comes to useful and easy to understand analytics that will help move your company forward in the social space. In addition to Engagor, there are other providers that also produce good analytics including Radian6, Sysomos and Sprout Social.
Step 4 – It is not just a marketing channel
You are very much mistaken if you think your Twitter channel is just another marketing channel ready to be utilised! If your Twitter channel is just pushing out your marketing messages or campaigns, you will struggle to retain your followers. Use good humour, Tweets facts and tips, funny things, and even industry news. If your followers trust you to bring them well rounded information, they will stay and recommend your feed to their friends!
Step 5 – No one likes negativity!
If you get into a verbal disagreement at your favourite pub or restaurant, a limited number of people will hear about it. However, if you get into a disagreement with someone on Twitter, not only will all your followers and their followers quickly know about it, the story has potential to be shared and go viral causing your PR department to field press calls and causing potential significant brand damage! Avoid being pulled into negative conversations. Unlike the famous Samsung / HTC / LG disagreement on Twitter following an awards ceremony (see here), remember to take negative conversations off-line, through email or private chat.
Step 6 – Don’t overdo the praising
Everyone like to receive praise! But simply put, don’t retweet every good message you may receive. This will flood your followers’ feeds with a classic “humblebrag”, and although a few of these positive tweets are good to reinforce your brand, just remember no one likes the person in the office who says they are ‘so good’ all the time. The same goes for your Twitter feed!
These six simple steps will get you well underway for great positive engagement and praise from your customers and Social Media followers. Remember, keep conversations simple, fun, and making good use of old common sense! Over time you will see continued growth of your brand’s Twitter following.
All the best!
The Chapel Social Team!
