Are you tweeting for tweeting’s sake or do you have a plan?

Twitter is quickly becoming one of the most important social media marketing tools a business can find. The number of users grows by the day—from students using Twitter to provide quick feedback for professors to customers interacting with their favorite brands. Each new user is a potential customer for any business that effectively utilizes the platform. However, businesses can’t attract new customers or connect with previous ones if they don’t know how to tweet strategically. Below are some tips that businesses can use to create effective tweets, retain customers and bring in more traffic.

Constructing a Tweet

• Businesses should post only focused tweets. A business’s tweets should always be relevant to its ultimate objectives. Though tweets don’t always need to mention a product or service explicitly, they should remain on topic.
• Tweets should have substance. Businesses should aim to create tweets that hold some value for readers. Though tweets are short, they should always provide the reader with novel or insightful information.
• Tweets should be interesting. Boring tweets will be ignored by consumers. Businesses should try to write tweets that are witty and intriguing. If customers are being entertained or learning something new, they will enjoy the tweet. The best tweets will entice the customer to visit the business’s website for more information about a topic, product or service.
• Tweets shouldn’t be spammy. If a business tweets blatant advertisements on a regular basis, consumers may break their connection with the company on Twitter. It’s okay to advertise products, but posts should be kept informative and useful.

Success on Twitter

• Businesses should interact with consumers. Social media is all about two-way communication. When consumers comment on a business’s tweet, either positively or negatively, the business should respond politely and promptly.
• Businesses should promote their profiles. Even the best tweets will go unnoticed if a business has no followers. Businesses can promote their Twitter profiles by submitting them to directories, advertising the profiles to current customers and linking their Twitter accounts to their other social media profiles.
• Businesses should tweet regularly. One of the most important strategies businesses can use to ensure the success of their social media marketing campaigns is to update their profiles regularly. Customers may be tempted to delete the connection if the business tweets infrequently.
• Businesses should monitor the effectiveness of their tweets. To utilize Twitter to its full potential, a business needs to gauge the effectiveness of its tweets. By doing so, the business can learn which tweets intrigue consumers the most and which are perceived as spammy or boring. Businesses can measure the effectiveness of a tweet by determining the number of times it is retweeted or, if it includes a link, how often the link is followed.

Twitter is an increasingly popular marketing tool among businesses in all industries. While effective tweets can drive traffic to a company’s website and increase its sales, ineffective tweets can actually harm the company. For this reason, businesses must construct each tweet carefully. A business should also make an effort to promote its Twitter profile, interact with its followers and monitor the effectiveness of its marketing campaign continuously.

About the author: Lindsey Harper Mac is a professional writer living in the Indianapolis area. She specializes in writing guest posts on social media and education. Currently, Lindsey is completing work on her master’s degree.