The numbers don’t lie- Twitter Stats for business are showing a significant drop in Twitter usage and are projected to drop even more in the near future. It’s true, collecting and analyzing data that’s directly related to your industry (like the changes and trends) is an important step towards strengthening business growth strategies. But relying too heavily on general stats can steer you in the wrong direction, too.
Small Business Owners and large corporations have different resources at their disposal so marketing strategies will be different, even if only slightly. I know that there’s talk that “Twitter is dead” but I say – don’t give up on Twitter. To the Small Business Owner, Twitter still has value, despite what the research says. And it’s not that the research isn’t relevant to SBO’s and Entrepreneurs, because it is. But knowing when to favor your own research and experiences is invaluable to the growth of your business. Know what works for your business.
For example, I use Twitter as one tool (among many in my entrepreneurial tool box) for boosting “internet marketing activities” as recommended by iMarketing Factory in their blog post entitled, “The Importance of Twitter for Small Business”. In this post, the writer points out the many ways Twitter is still beneficial to the small business. Here are a few of the reasons why you should continue using Twitter for business:
- To build relationships with your customer
- To create brand awareness
- To provide information about your services
- To survey and get feedback
- To manage your online reputation
- To promote your company’s blog
What Am I Doing to Grow My Twitter Page?
Step 1: Less Promoting
Ironically, in order to increase engagement on my Twitter page, I had to stop trying to sell my services. In business, promoting services (or products) can quickly become a primary objective when trying to generate more sales and increase exposure. And exposure is everything, right? Well, right and wrong. On Twitter (and other social media platforms) it’s easy to overwhelm our Twitter users with over exposure or what I like to call “buy this, try that -content”. Users tend to ignore pages like these because of their cold marketing attempts to sell and promote. Lesson Learned. Avoid falling into this trap. Cut back your promotional tweets to no more than 10% of your posting- so for example, if you post 10 times per week then only one tweet per week should focus on selling/promoting. Promoting is good but only if those we promote to haven’t tuned us out yet!
Step 2: Tracking Activity
Twitter has a feature that allows you to track and monitor “Twitter activity”. What’s being tracked and monitored?
- Impressions – how many people saw your tweet on twitter
- Likes
- Re-tweets
- Hashtag clicks
- Link clicks
Browse this part of your Twitter page to see how you’re doing! Also keep an eye on how many users started following your Twitter page or added your page to one of their Twitter lists. (If you want, create a spreadsheet to track changes in your pages’ growth then convert it into a graph afterward, for a visual picture of the changes.)
I also did a little research and found that most Twitter experts recommend adding variety to social media posts. For example, attaching images on one post and inserting links on another helps to keep posts engaging. Paying attention to these helps me to understand what users want to see on my page: business tips, quotes and links to helpful articles/blogs.
Step 3: Posting What Followers Want
With what I learned, I revamped my social media page, to add more variety. Although it’s still in the early stages, the growth has been constant- I’ve added several more followers each week plus I’ve had an increase in likes and clicks! So far, I’m pleased. Here are a few examples from my recently revamped Twitter page:
Tips:
Quotes:
Links to blog posts/articles:
Becky Gregory is an Executive Virtual Assistant and owns Virtual Administrative Services (VAS) www.virtualadminservices.com