5 Powerful Reasons Why You Need to Blog Consistently
In a recent blog post, How to Use Social Media to Promote your Content Effectively, we discussed 9 ways to use social media to promote your content effectively and take it to the next level! This week, I want to focus your attention on how you can utilize Twitter to drive more traffic to your website.
Twitter experts, marketing pros and business leaders know how to turn 140 characters into online marketing gold. You could do a lot in a Tweet, but now you are able to do even more to drive more traffic to your website. On September 19, 2016, changes were made to simplify Tweets including what counts toward the allowed 140 characters. For example, @names in replies and media attachments (like photos, GIFs, videos, and polls) no longer “use up” valuable characters. Here’s what has changed:
- Replies: When replying to a Tweet, @names no longer count toward the 140-character count. Conversations on Twitter are easier and more straightforward. You no longer need to penny-pinch your words to utilize all 140 characters to reach a larger audience.
- Media attachments: Photos, GIFs, videos, polls and Quote Tweets, no longer count as characters within your Tweet, so there is more room for words!
- Retweet and Quote Tweet yourself: The Retweet button on your own Tweets has been enabled, so you can easily Retweet or Quote Tweet yourself. Use it to share a new reflection or a really good tweet that you feel may have gone unnoticed.
- Goodbye, .@: The rules around Tweets that start with a username have been simplified, too. New Tweets that begin with a username will reach all your followers. You no longer have to use the ”.@” convention to broadcast Tweets broadly. If you want a reply to be seen by all your followers, Retweet it to signal that you intend for it to be viewed more broadly.
ow to employ Twitter as a marketing tool to drive more traffic to your website
Dozens have used Twitter to market their brands, products and services and drive more traffic to their websites successfully. How did they do it? Read on!
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Optimize
Brand your company identity and voice. Your Twitter bio should tell people who you are and what you do clearly. It should also include a link to your website or a landing page to drive more traffic to your website.
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Interact
Follow and interact with the influencers and experts in your target area(s) on a regular and daily basis. Search tools like Topsy or Followerwonk will find like-minded prospects, customers and influencers/media. These tools search keywords that relate to your industry.
Make a list of 100 of the thought leaders, potential clients/customers, big-name bloggers and writers, potential partners, etc. who are most influencial in your space. Then add them to a private Twitter list and engage with them daily. Be casual, helpful and not promotional. Build relationships and then look for opportunities to collaborate.
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Involve Colleagues
Build your brand internally. Make sure your coworkers are following you on Twitter, tweeting, retweeting and engaging.
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Tweet Regularly
The evidence of an active, healthy profile is seen by tweeting regularly. You cannot keep up if you only tweet once a week or once a month. People will forget about you.
Posting and engaging daily and consistently will keep you top of mind. Tweet only relevant or useful information and content your followers will read, click on, retweet and/or favorite.
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Ask for Twitter Love
Don’t be afraid to ask your followers to retweet, mention, favorite your tweets or share content with a fresh tweet.
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Track and Respond
Track mentions and respond if appropriate. Also track brand mentions and keywords to find out what is being said about you. If appropriate, respond politely and professionally. Customer service is the new marketing, and many customers post product queries and complaints on Twitter.
- Set up Twitter searches for terms relevant to your brand
- Monitor the conversations in that search
- Engage with the conversations when appropriate
For example, say you’re a dentist in Cheyenne, WY. Set up a search for the term “dentist Cheyenne.” Then, when you then see someone in Cheyenne tweet “I need to go to the dentist but it’s so hard to get an appointment,” you could jump in and tweet, “We’d love to have you as our new patient.”
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Retweet
Feel free to retweet. Retweets help link you with and cement your own thought leadership within your industry.
[bctt tweet=”#Twitter – One of the most powerful tools available to #DriveMoreTrafficToYourWebsite. #HowToTweet” username=”@rocknrobinva”]
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Favorite Tweets
Favoriting tweets can get someone’s attention more than a retweet or a mention will.
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Follow Trends or Hashtags
Make relevant connections to your brand with trending topics and hashtags. Your handle will be seen when people search tweets regarding particular hashtags when you put your business among trending topics.
Tagging posts with one or two relevant and trending hashtags will help you reach new users. Hashtags should be used sparingly though. When over used or attached to irrelevant content, they can be seen as ‘Twitter spam.’ Two or three hashtags is plenty.
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Run Contests
Run contests or offer discounts or special deals to your Twitter followers. For example: ‘The next 50 people who retweet me will receive a coupon for 50 percent off …’ Do a random drawing. Again, for example: Have people post pictures of themselves in your store or using your products, then do a random drawing for a coupon or discount.
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Get Visual
Use images, videos and other rich media in your tweets. Why? Photos and videos drive three to four more clicks on Twitter. It’s a proven fact that images, videos and other rich media receive more views, clicks and shares than plain-text tweets.
Community managers may be doing a great job engaging followers with banal posts about enjoying the weekend, but they are much less effective than rich, in-stream content. Consumers want to interact with and view content designed for their social mobile context. For example, they want to view a film trailer and find out where the movie is playing in their neighborhood. That’s an effective tweet. Research shows that rich tweets have significantly lower negative feedback.
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Promote Tweets
Target your audience directly with Promoted Tweets. When you fail to define exactly who you’re trying to reach, you’re wasting time and spending money needlessly.
Establish trust and credibility by providing value. Don’t use spammy tweets that trick people into clicking a link.
When your promoted tweets run for too long, they get “stale” or old. Keep tweets fresh. If you want to continue to tweet a message to make sure it gets across to your followers, say it differently.
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Integrate
Have you integrated Twitter with your other marketing efforts? Just like other social media platforms, Twitter is much more effective when you integrate with your other marketing activities. For example, let your email subscribers know if you’re running a promotion or contest on Twitter.
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Use Twitter Analytics
Once you’ve built an audience, find out what resonates and what doesn’t resonate with them. Use Twitter’s native analytics daily. Twitter’s analytics dashboard will tell you your best days to tweet, the types of content that your followers favor and the demographics of the followers you’re attracting. Then you can continue doing what works and rework or reevaluate what doesn’t.
Twitter is one of the most powerful tools available to drive more traffic to your website. Are you utilizing it well? Generate more traffic to your website and convert that traffic into sales.
Are you short on the time it takes to use Twitter to drive more traffic to your website? Call Rockin’ Robin at (307) 631-1867 for a free consultation today. Find out how Rockin’ Robin can market your business using Twitter.
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