We all know Facebook is (no doubt) the social media giant. Any local business should definitely start there. But if you’ve already got your Facebook under control, branching out is the logical next step in growing your relationship with social.

Why Twitter?

Well, for starters…

  • 66% of users have discovered a new small- to medium-sized business on Twitter.
  • 94% of users purchase from the businesses they follow on Twitter.
  • 69% of users make purchases that were prompted by something they saw on Twitter.

Who are these users?

Chances are, they’re your customers! Check out these stats. In 2017:

  • Number of Daily Active Twitter Users = 100 million
  • Total number of Tweets sent per day = 500 million
  • There are over 67 million Twitter users in U.S.
  • The percentage of Twitter users on mobile = 80%

Twitter Uses for Your Local Business

Connect with New and Existing Customers

Your customers are already on Twitter and it is your job to find them and connect. So how do you find them?

The easiest way to start your search is by using local hashtags (#YesHashtagsHaveAPurpose). When it comes to social media, we use hashtags to draw attention, organize popular themes, and promote common interests. They can help you filter through, and locate, your target audience on Twitter, and they can also help your audience find you.

Once you’ve used hashtags to generate a large enough amount of leads, create a private Twitter list of your customers, and begin engaging with them!

Pro Tip: Keep an eye on your competition (and even the people they follow) on Twitter. This can help you get an idea of what is already working and who is interested in your services. Work smarter, not harder!

“Unlimited” Ways to Drive Traffic

Like other social media networks, Twitter affords an opportunity to drive your audience to your websites, blogs or anywhere else you’d like. Unlike other networks, Twitter makes it easy for you to leave your audience wanting more! Twitter has a character limit of 140, but this is in no way an actual limitation. In fact, Twitter has given us an opportunity to get creative and have some fun! Once you have a following, it’s your job to make sure your posts stand out in the millions of tweets your following sees every day.

Best Practices for Tweeting:

  • Include an eye-catching image.
  • Use relevant, pre-existing hashtags to extend your reach.
  • Create your own hashtags (ones you can re-use are best).
  • Share a quote from your blog posts.
  • Always link your website or other social media accounts.

The example below gets pretty close to perfect. All we would have added is a shortened link to our website to seal the sweet, cupcake-y deal.

Brand Awareness

One of the biggest mistakes a business can make on social media is to focus solely on promotions. The real goal is to become a trusted resource for your audience. If you start to tweet helpful or even just-for-fun content, your following will grow.

The magic of Twitter is that if your followers find your updates valuable, they will like them and retweet them, which is effortless exposure for your business. You should definitely still promote your products and services, but it should not be the priority nor so obvious.

It’s also important to engage your followers in a personal way. Being friendly and showing a human is on the other side of the conversation encourages people to engage back.

Customer Service

According to the ”Small Business Customer Insights Study” Twitter conducted, 85% of local business Twitter users said it’s important that businesses provide customer support on Twitter. Another study by Simply Measured showed that 99% of brands are on Twitter, and 30% of them have a dedicated customer service handle. The average response time was 5.1 hours with 10% of companies answering within an hour, and 93% of companies answering within 48 hours.

Twitter is public, so responding in a timely manner to your customers’ questions and helping them out can mean good publicity for you. Talk about the ultimate win-win situation!

Here is a prime example of how responsiveness is key to a pleasant customer service experience for your followers.

Networking

One thing that makes Twitter exceptionally valuable to your business is it’s the only social network where it is easy to connect with literally anyone and engage with them. This includes industry influencers! Influencers can include broadcasters, journalists, professors, analysts, and athletes–any person who has a large following in your field. Following them is a good place to start to show them that you are interested. If they don’t follow you back, don’t get discouraged! That’s why Twitter is so perfect for this. Unlike Facebook, you don’t have to be following each other in order to engage with one another.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of what using Twitter for your business can do for you. So what are you waiting for? The most important part of using Twitter is…USING IT! Staying active is the only way to get the same out of your customers.