3 Ways You Can Use Twitter to Boost Sales

Since its founding in 2006, the social media engine Twitter, has been an incredible asset for brands to maintain an open dialogue with their customers. Despite the platform being in the spotlight for the wrong reasons, numerous brands continue to successfully use Twitter to boost sales. Over the past few months, the platform has caught a lot of flack with the recent shut down of Vine, and a rumored for sale sign on the platform that’s starting to gather cobwebs.

Just because its parent company is having a difficult time selling the platform as a whole, doesn’t mean you can’t still use Twitter to boost sales for your brand. With recent partnerships between Twitter and the major sports leagues to live stream games, the platform still has some legs. For brands interested in marketing to males between the ages of 19-29, (Twitter’s largest demo of users), don’t write the platform off just yet.

If you’re not already familiar with Twitter, the ways brands can use it to reach people are essentially endless. From direct marketing, increasing brand recognition, displaying brand-relevant content, holding contests, giveaways, to interacting with followers through favorites, Retweets and comments— the list goes on and on.

As one of the best direct response social media tools, there also comes an incredible challenge. The biggest of which, is the 140 character limit.

Earlier this year, however, Twitter announced that photos, polls, GIFs, and videos, as well as Twitter handles in replies (marked with an @ symbol) will no longer count toward the dreaded 140 character maximum.

With these lessened limitations comes all new ways for brands to maximize their presence on Twitter.

Here are the three of the ways brands can still utilize these slight changes to get big results in effectively reaching new customers.

1. Use plenty of graphics

In March of 2014, Twitter undertook a study to see what kinds of factors made people most likely to engage with a verified user’s Tweet.

Not surprisingly, they found that photos, #hashtags, links, videos and Tweets containing numbers (like sports scores for example), had quantitative effects on user’s interactions with those Tweets.

On average, the study found that the addition of photo’s boosted Retweets by 35%, video’s boosted Retweets by 28%, and quotes, numbers, and hashtags had marks of 19%, 17%, and 16%, respectively.

What this says is pretty clear— users enjoy visually engaging tweets! In order to boost your Retweets and ensure your Tweets reach your maximum potential audience, make sure to use plenty of graphics to liven things up.

HOWEVER…

2. Twitter is not Instagram—so stay true to the format

With the ability to add photos, video’s and GIFs without affecting the 140 character limit, many brands might be tempted to pile on the graphics on in every tweet.

But graphics should only be there to compliment your content, not take its place. One of the beautiful things about Twitter’s format is that brands are forced to be concise in their creativity.

Limitations provide an awesome opportunity to show off clever copy in a confined space, so don’t try to change the medium, embrace it! Show your followers some creativity with a combination of copy and graphics – just make sure your graphics are enhancing your copy and not replacing it.

3. Utilize Twitter’s “@name” feature to get more from your Twitter interactions

In addition to the lessened character limitations, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently announced another significant change that will impact the way brands Tweet.

First, Tweets beginning with “@name” are now seen by all of your followers. Before the change, people could only broadcast tweets by affixing a period to the @name, but now, simply adding the @name at the beginning of the Tweet ensures it will be seen by all of your followers.

There’s been great marketing interactions over the past few years with back and forth banter between two different brands, or between brands and their customers, on Twitter.

So use this feature to display some clever banter and witty wordplay while interacting with consumers or other brands, and your followers will respond to it. Another great aspect of this function is that it can be used to show your followers the strength of your customer service. Many brands have leaned on the platform as their primary customer service platform, an extremely effective method if you’re looking to indirectly use Twitter to boost sales.

Responding promptly and professionally to customers’ requests, complaints, and comments is a great way to show all of  your followers how your brand handles feedback. Make sure your customer service team is up to the task and even negative interactions with customers can produce widespread positive results amongst your following.

There are plenty of ways brands still continue to use Twitter to boost sales, and these are just few ideas to start making the most of every Twitter interaction for your brand.

Effective marketing on Twitter is all about making the most of a confined space in a timely way in real time. Make sure you’re utilizing graphics, relying on strong copy and making the most of Twitter’s new features.

Getting the most out of every social media interaction for your brand is a huge deal. Every small engagement has the capability to gain or lose customers (and subsequently sales) for your brand.

Blue Bear Creative is a Denver social media agency focused on helping food and beverage brands market to millennials.