What to Tweet about

Simply tweeting without direction won’t endear you to followers and engage with them effectively enough to build brand loyalty.

Social Media is a bit like the England left wing a few years ago, you can’t just play anyone there!  For example Barmby, Heskey, Wise, Ince, Sherwood, Downing …..

Companies often get anyone to update the Facebook/ Twitter because they think it’s easy.

What you need to consider:

• The platforms which hold your key demographics
• Timing of tweets/updates
• Types of content
• Tone of content
• Protocol for engaging
• How to build following
• How to build relationships in your niche
• SEO considerations
• Being part of trending related topics
• Testing
• Understanding the results

Go into your analytics you can analyse the amount of traffic you get from social media and how you convert from it.  From this data you can focus and prioritize if resources are scarce.

This article focuses on the types of tweets and as I work in Ecommerce the focus is on retail.

Sales tweets

Deals and promotions

Twitter is a good way to communicate your current deals. Order tweet by price, product then link.  Try mixing it up to see how it changes the CTR – experiment between formal and informal

Product announcements and promos

Launching a new product? Twitter’s a great way to spread the word. Implement some kind of countdown and incentives, hook to be part of the process.  Promoted trends works well but is expensive, can get you loads of buzz e.g. #Fifa12 but for retail other retailers can jump on it for free so a promoted tweet limit this.

If this new product is a flagship product then create a separate twitter account for a specific fan base so they can be closer to the launch.  Once launch keep the account and I’ve advice on how to use the product, tricks, upgrades, answer questions etc.

Regular product updates

Don’t spam but go for a direct sell a few tweets a day, be emotive and personal.  With new twitter rich content can customers explore.  Using Google Analytics you can see the immediate effects.  The merchandising team should feed into the social team which products to promote.

Customer Service

Reputation management

When things go wrong, customers want fast answers, and many have been turning to Twitter to work it out.

Product usage tips

Helping customers get more mileage out of your products by offering 140-character-or-less tips provides value, and a reason to become and stay a follower.

Reaching out

Pay attention to conversations and try and speak to people who could become potential customers.
PR

Business info

People follow brands because they’re interested in them, so share interesting stories about your company.  People are interested in big brand company culture, incentives and events.

Philanthropy

When it comes to charity invite followers to join your efforts and always mention the charity so you could get a retweet.  Even you don’t have a relationship with a charity why not point your followers to their incentives, costs ya nothing.

Your followers

Talk to your followers if they tweet something interesting, retweet something interesting from them.

Follow Friday

Use Follow Friday at partners, celeb fans and people/brands you want to follow you.

Name dropping

Celebrity endorsement is a form of social proof, so if you get some, use it. Using “Thanks @celebrity” is a humble way to boast about it.

Events

Spread the word about events such as sales, tours, interviews etc.

Staff

Tweet at staff and talk about their activities so you can humanize your brand.  If you’re small enough you could have pics of staff on the Twitter background.

Engaging tweets

Entertainment

Link to content in line with your audiences interests.  For example link out to music/fashion resources.   Measure engagement by retweets.

Engaging questions

Bait your customers with a question that screams to be answered. E.g. best gift/ fashion tips etc.   Offer incentives such as best answer gets DM’d a voucher or retweet best answer.

Contests

Announcing contests may not get @replies, but they are a way to get followers to engage with your company, even if they’re directed to your website.  If contents require groups then you may et retweets.  Maybe ask for retweets for you and your friends to get free stuff etc.

Promote other content

Twitter’s a great place to point followers to content they may have missed on your other social networks like Tumblr, Youtube or your blog.

Measurement

Key metrics to report:

• Follower count
• Number of lists you are added on
• Klout score
• Tweet Grader score
• Rank of Twitter profile for brand terms
• Traffic from Twitter to your site
• Traffic from t.co to site and landing page promoting
• Percentage of overall traffic from Twitter
•  Transactions and conversion rate form Twitter
• External links to the Twitter profile
• Social mentions of brand and products
• Number of replies
• Number of retweets