Twitter Marketing Strategies

Twitter is the beating pulse of pop-culture, international news, politics, and so much more. Businesses of all kinds have turned to Twitter to accomplish a wide variety of marketing goals, PR objectives, and business functions.

Since its debut almost 15 years ago, Twitter has evolved from a platform for individuals to publish their every thought into a sophisticated marketing tool that empowers businesses create instantaneous engagement.

Even though user numbers fall below those of Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, Twitter is still one of the biggest social media platforms in the world.

Don’t be deceived by its seemingly simple interface. Between the platform’s unique user characteristics, exclusive lingo, and recent changes to the platform itself, effective Twitter marketing in 2023 requires thoughtful strategy.

In this article, we’ll cover what makes Twitter unique, the most important updates for marketers, how to optimize your profile, and 12 Twitter marketing tips for 2023. Keep reading to learn everything you’ll need to successfully market your business on Twitter!

Terminology: Navigating the Twittersphere

If you’re new to the platform, your head probably spins when you hear all the acronyms and terms used on Twitter. We’ve assembled a list of key terms to catch you up to speed.

• • @mention: This is the Twitter version of “tagging” someone. “Mentioning” someone by their Twitter username in a tweet or direct message will send that user a notification. @Mentions allow users to hold conversations.

• • #hashtags: You probably already know that hashtags categorize content into categories or topics. On Twitter, users can search for content by hashtags. Trending topics are also identified and organized by their hashtags.

• • Bots: Officially defined as “a social networking account powered by artificial intelligence.” Twitter bots can be spammy, helpful, or downright strange. For example, @netflix_bot tweets when new content has been added to the service. On the other hand, spambots can be designed to “spam” real accounts with tweets, @mentions, or other engagement to drive web traffic or sell products.

• • Crank tweets: These refer to intentionally misleading tweets, named after good-old-fashioned “crank” (prank) calls.

• • DM(s): Direct messages (DMs) are private messages between two users. DMs can only be sent to users following you.

• • Feed: This is a list of tweets, constantly updated. Users typically see their home feed first, which is a list of tweets from accounts and topics they follow.

• • MT: Modified tweets (MTs) refer to retweets someone has changed in some way. Think of this as paraphrasing information and giving credit to the original source.

• • PRT: Partial retweets (PRTs) are similar to modified tweets, but more specifically signifies that the re-posted has removed some of the original idea, usually to save space and/or add additional comments.

• • Reply: Replies are responses to a tweet another user has tagged you in. Normal replies are public, unless it’s a direct message (DM).

• • RT: Retweets are a major form of engagement. A “RT” at the front of a tweet indicates that the user found the content valuable enough to share with their own followers. Sometimes users put “via” to give credit to the original posted instead of “RT”, but both phrases mean the same thing.

• • Trolls: Infamously, “trolls” refer to people who abuse Twitter by spamming users, posting inflammatory content, or otherwise creating conflict.

• • Tweet: This is the name for the 280-character-or-less Twitter posts, which can be accompanied by GIFs, videos, images, and web links. By default, Tweets are public.

• • Trends/trending topic: Any topic that a large number of people are tweeting about at the same time is labeled as “trending” on Twitter. Users can easily access trends, typically personalized based on interests, location, and accounts following.

• • Unfollow: If someone unfollows you, your tweets will no longer appear in their home feed. This is basically the exact same as unfollowing on Facebook or Instagram.

Notable Characteristics/Benefits

If you are already building social media presences on other platforms, you might be wondering what makes Twitter unique among the ever-growing pool of social media networks.

Twitter users are distinctively quick-moving, trend-savvy, and value honesty and authenticity. Businesses that can meet user needs and expectations will be rewarded with loyalty, web traffic, and sales. Continue reading for more information on what distinguishes Twitter from other social networks, and what it means for marketers.

• • Quick as Lightning
    As you probably already know, Twitter moves faster than any other social media network. A Tweet has an estimated half-life of 18-24 minutes. Comparatively, an average Facebook post will continue to earn engagement for up to 5 hours, and successful Instagram posts can “live” up to 48 hours.The key takeaway here is that no single Tweet will be seen by all, or even most, of your followers.Twitter also allows you to create, share, and promote branded content quicker than any other platform. If you’ve done your research and created an effective Twitter marketing strategy, you could be creating engaging Tweets in seconds.

     This rapid pace of content creation and sharing means that Twitter is incredibly noisy; there’s lots of content to compete with. To avoid being lost in the digital cloud, your strategy should reflect Twitter’s rapid pace (more on that later).

• • Short & Sweet
    Twitter is known for its brief content. Most of us probably remember when tweets were limited to 140 characters, although 280 is the current cap.Interestingly enough, increasing the character limit didn’t affect how people tweeted all that much. In fact, the average tweet length remained below 50 characters, even after the character limit was doubled a few years ago.That proves one thing: Twitter is inherently brief, quick-moving, and agile. Users want to create and read short tweets. Twitter feeds were designed for easy skimming, with the bulky information accessible via linking.

    Since Twitter moves so quickly, it’s important that content is brief, so that users can quickly move through their feeds and then select where to continue reading, typically on websites and/or blogs.Twitter’s character limit forces marketers to simplify messaging, often rewriting social posts for Twitter (which you should be doing regardless, by the way).

• • Intimacy & Immediacy
    Twitter also allows businesses to have direct one-on-one conversations with consumers, either through DMs or replies.On Twitter, businesses can engage directly with followers and customers in real-time, answering questions, celebrating shared successes, and participating in industry discussions. The conversational nature of Twitter naturally lends itself to more personal connections.In addition to this sense of intimacy, Twitter is inarguably the social network of immediacy. It’s “what’s happening.” People flock to the platform to observe and participate in the local and global conversations as they shift from hour to hour and even minute by minute.

    This discovery-focus means that Twitter users function in a different mindset than on other social platforms. Twitter users meet content in a receptive mindset, which means that information is more efficiently stored into long-term memory.Marketers should be happy to learn that Twitter users are open-minded and more likely to remember the information they discover on the platform. Businesses that keep up with both users and trends can leverage Twitter into a powerful marketing asset to grow brand awareness, deepen customer loyalty, and humanize their brand.

• • Keep It Real
    Today’s consumers expect more from businesses than ever before. It’s about more than just the products and prices; people are looking for genuine experiences that align with their values. The vast majority of all consumers report authenticity as highly important when selecting brands to support.At the same time, over 50 percent of consumers feel that less than half of brands create authentic content. Almost a third of millennials reported that they’ve unfollowed a business on social media because their content felt inauthentic.While Instagram is a platform to share only carefully curated highlights, Twitter is the platform to be your true self. Twitter’s character limit encourages users and brands alike to be direct and honest.

     

    

    Twitter allows businesses to share their brand voice and share what makes them unique. Even the most unorthodox methods have found massive success. For example, fast-food chain Wendy’s is unafraid to make harsh jokes at the expense of competitors, which go viral fairly frequently.

• • Keep an Ear to the Ground
    Twitter is a great place to gather customer feedback and offer customer support.Customers frequently visit Twitter to share their experiences (good and bad) with products, services, and businesses. The platform has long served as a speedy, informal avenue for customer support, to the point that Twitter offers built-in customer support features for businesses.Many businesses take advantage of this characteristic by creating an entirely separate “support” account. Current customers can follow and tweet this account and expect a timely response. Twitter support is a very attractive alternative to many people, since they can avoid waiting on hold or exchanging back-and-forth emails.

     

    

    Businesses that lean into Twitter for customer service reap the rewards; Twitter reports that customers who receive responses to customer service requests are willing to spend 3-20% more on an average-priced item from that business in the future.Customer support and tweets offering feedback are both amazing opportunities to practice social listening, which is the tracking, analyzing, and response to conversations about your business/brand on social media.Twitter can help reveal major flaws or common complaints. Any tweets from customers regarding what they liked, loved, or hated about any aspect of your business (customer service, product/service, website, etc.) are precious data points that should fuel improvements and future business strategy.Twitter is an exciting opportunity to directly respond to customers and improve your business, both of which are essential in today’s climate.

• • Spy on Your Competitors
    Competitor analysis on Twitter can range from familiarizing yourself with your competitors, to a full-blown research into competitor strategies, followers, and content.There are dozens of free online tools that will help you benchmark your Twitter presence against your competitors, find potential customers in competitors’ audiences, identify effective hashtags, and more.The information gleaned from a Twitter competitor analysis can and should inform other areas of your social media strategy. We’re not saying you should try to copy and paste another business’ strategy. Let their accounts inspire you to compete and differentiate yourself, so that you’re fulfilling customer needs while standing out from the crowd.

     Even better, you can even collect complaints and suggestions directed towards your competitors. If you have a solution to that particular problem—you have a lead! You can reach out to users to offer your products/services as a solution. At the very least, complaints directed towards your competitors should be filed to inform future development.Regardless of how you use competitor research to grow your business, Twitter is one of the best resources for gathering this valuable data.

As you can see, Twitter is a creature of its own. In order to run successful Twitter marketing, you’ll have to understand how both users, industry leaders, and competitors are utilizing the platform so you can differentiate yourself and engage your audience.

Now that you understand what makes Twitter unique, let’s discuss recent and upcoming updates that will inform your Twitter marketing strategy. 

Twitter Updates: Past, Present, and Future

Now that we’ve covered how Twitter works, the expectations of users, and what makes it a special, it’s time to talk about how it’s changing.

Twitter is a business in its own right, so it’s constantly updating to improve user (and advertiser) experience. Those improvements often have major effects for brands, marketers, and advertisers.

Twitter has been very transparent about its vision for the future and the ways they plan to improve user experience. Thanks to that transparency, we can easily examine the changes that are recently, currently, or soon-to-be implemented.

Confirmed Changes

1. “Monetizable daily users” (mDAU)

 Unlike other platforms, Twitter has recently changed how it counts and categorizes its daily users. Rather than simply counting monthly/daily active users (like Facebook and Instagram), Twitter’s mDAU metric measures Twitter users who access the platform that are eligible to view ads.

This metric is actually much more helpful for businesses and marketers, regardless of whether you’re running Twitter Ads. In fact, categorizing users this way has revealed that despite monthly active users declining, monetizable daily users (mDAU) have regularly increased over the past 2 years.

Among other things, mDAU helps businesses understand how many users are seeing branded content, which is still relevant whether or not you’re running Twitter Ads.

Monetizable daily users also helps to filter out bots and inactive accounts, which brings us to confirmed change #2- the war on bots.

2. Bye-Bye, Bots

 Everyone hates bots, especially social media platforms themselves. Twitter is working hard to remove fake accounts, inactive accounts, and “trolls.”

We can expect to see a majority of these “worthless” accounts removed, which will increase transparency across the board.

Anyone who bought fake followers will find it’s been a complete waste of money, since these fake accounts will likely be among the first to go. Follower counts will increasingly reflect an account’s actual popularity.

For those of us building our Twitter presence organically, it also means we’re less likely to accidentally pick up spammy, ingenuine followers. If you’re marketing yourself organically, you probably won’t even notice the small follower loss.

On the positive side, it means that follower counts will more accurately reflect an account’s following. When we’re only examining real, active users, our engagement percentages are likely to increase since we know exactly how many people we’re delivering content to.

3. Follow Topics

Towards the end of 2019, Twitter gave users the ability to follow topics (not just user accounts).

This is a huge boost to discoverability, since users can now see relevant content from accounts they’re not following directly in their timeline. This is somewhat similar to Instagram’s “follow hashtag” feature.

Before this feature rolled out, the biggest discovery opportunity was the “trends for you” section, but those trends were more reflective of global and local trends than user interests.

Marketers should all be excited about this feature, as it provides invaluable opportunities to reach audience members who aren’t following your account (yet). If you use hashtags wisely, this feature will probably help grow your reach and following.

Optimize for Success

 If you’re just setting up your Twitter account now (or if you’re just getting serious about Twitter marketing now), the first step is to optimize your profile.

When it comes to Twitter, optimizing your profile means setting up profile elements to be easily searchable and enticing to potential new followers.

Tweets are short, and your most recent tweets won’t always be the most reflective of your business, your Twitter presence, and the value you bring to your followers. Twitter shares everything to your profile, so your most recent tweets might be replies to other users that don’t make sense out of context, retweets, or other communications that you aren’t exactly looking to show off.

That’s why the seven key parts of your Twitter profile are crucial. Let’s work through them now, step by step.

1. Banner / Header Image

Your banner (or header) image takes up the most space on your Twitter profile, and is often the first thing users notice when they visit your profile.

Don’t waste this valuable Twitter real estate. Create a graphic that accurately represents your brand, personality, and value proposition.

Businesses with more established Twitter presences can use their banner image to promote a new product, offer, or limited-time campaign.

Our tip: Don’t just upload any image. It looks obvious and sloppy when a banner image doesn’t fit into the predefined 1500 x 500-pixel ratio. If you need help editing or creating your banner image, you can use a free online graphic design program (like Canva or Adobe Spark).

2. Profile Picture

Your profile picture should be consistent with the images you use on other social media networks.

Since your profile picture appears next to every tweet, reply, and message you send, using your logo as your profile picture can help improve brand awareness and recognition.

Our tip: Make sure your logo isn’t awkwardly cropped, off-center, or incorrectly scaled. Your logo should be clearly visible and take up the full available space. Profile pictures always appear as circles, so ensure your logo still works with the corners trimmed. Two or three-toned logos are the easiest to identify when they’re shrunk down in feeds.

3. Profile Name

This one is fairly simple—your Twitter name should simply be your business name. Twitter limits you to 20 characters, so if your business name is too long, you’ll have to find a way to shorten or abbreviate it without confusing readers.

4. Create a Twitter “Handle” (Username)

A Twitter handle is an account’s unique username. Your handle is distinct from your profile name (in step #3).

Keep your social media usernames consistent (or as consistent as possible) across all platforms, so people can more easily find your other profiles.

With over 330 million accounts as of 2019, finding a truly unique Twitter handle closely matching your business name might require a few tries.

Our tip: Adding numbers to make your Twitter handle unique might seem like an easy solution, but it reads as unprofessional and can confuse people searching for your business. If you need to distinguish your Twitter handle, consider adding your industry, location, “HQ”, or a call to action (“@GetCodeless”).

5. Write a Killer Bio

This is probably the first copy that users will read (after your profile name), and you only have 160 characters, so make the most of them. This is not the place to be vague or lackluster.

Our tip: Write a brief, value-driven bio that finishes with a call to action leading users to the next desirable step. Your bio should tell users (1) why they should follow your Twitter account and (2) where they should go next to interact with your business.

6. Trackable Link

Twitter only offers one space to include a link. Again, with limited opportunities, you should be strategic to make the most of it.

Including a trackable link (like those provided by bit.ly or ow.ly) will allow you to see how many clicks the link receives over time and information about who is clicking on your link, providing insights on how well users respond to your call-to-action.

7. Pinned Tweet

Pinned tweets are any tweets an account has “pinned” (saved) to the top of their profile. Since it’s not a required profile element, many businesses forget to take advantage of this feature.

Pinned tweets are great ways to share more about your brand story or highlight any current promotions. In the example below, teenage magazine Seventeen promotes its latest digital cover.

To pin a tweet, simply click the drop-down arrow on any tweet and select the option “Pin to your profile page.”

Our tip: Remember to update and change your pinned tweet often. These should reflect your most current new products/services, promotions, or any seasonal messages.

As your business grows and evolves, don’t forget to update your Twitter profile. Your Twitter presence should always reflect “what’s happening” with your business.

Feel free to change your trackable links and pinned tweets with different campaigns. Your bio and banner image can even be tweaked for new promotions, but we recommend only changing your profile picture if you’ve done a complete re-branding.

Now that you’re set up for success, let’s dive into our 12 Twitter marketing tips for 2023.

Twitter Marketing Strategy & 12 Tips for 2023

 1. Build a Data-Driven Strategy

 Just like any other form of digital marketing, Twitter marketing cannot be highly effective without a data-driven strategy.

Your Twitter strategy should be based on thorough audience research, a strong brand mission and vision, and an understanding of Twitter itself. Follow the broad steps below to get started.

It can evolve over time, but your Twitter marketing strategy should address your target audience, goals and objectives, content ideas, posting schedule, and measurement metrics (to analyze success – see #12 below).

2. Be Found with #Hashtags

 If you’re not using hashtags, you might as well not be on Twitter. Tweets with hashtags earn twice the engagement rate as those without. Even more, hashtags are the primary way to increase reach and help users discover your profile.

Use influencers, trends, SEO keyword research, and competitor research to determine which hashtags to use. Generally speaking, data shows that tweets with 1-3 hashtags perform the best.

In fact, too many hashtags can actually make you look spammy and therefore lower engagement.

Always make sure that your hashtags are truly relevant to both your business and the content itself.

3. Post Advantageously

 Let’s circle back to the average half-life of a tweet: approximately 18 minutes. What’s more, a tweet reaches 75% of its potential engagement in under three hours. That’s fast.

Since engagement influences where and how your tweet is displayed to your followers (see #6), it’s critical to post when most of your audience is online and engaged.

Unfortunately, we can’t give you a one-size-fits-all chart with the best posting times. The best Twitter posting times will depend largely on your unique combination of industry, niche, and target audience. You can start with industry best practices, which is generally between 12-6 pm EST.

From there, track tweet performances over time through Twitter’s free Twitter Analytics tool or another third-party social media tool. Identify when your tweets earn the highest engagement rates, and focus in on those times.

Once you’ve identified the best posting times for your business, you can use TweetDeck from Twitter to schedule your tweets. Scheduling your tweets allows you to see the big picture of your Twitter presence and frees you from setting alarms to post manually throughout your day.

Continue to refine your posting schedule over time. The more you post, the more data you’ll have, giving you a clearer and clearer idea of your ideal post times.

 4. Create Great Twitter Content

 Of course, you should always create great content for all of your social media accounts, but that’s a bit of a moving target.

What works best on Instagram or Facebook is not always what will work best on Twitter. When creating your Twitter content, keep the following guidelines in mind.

• • Get to the point. Twitter doesn’t give you that much space and Twitter users don’t have much patience, so leave the flowery language at home and say what you need to say.

• • Be helpful. You want your followers to actually read and use your content, so they’ll think favorably about your business and products. In order to do this, create content they’ll find helpful. Look back on your audience research and offer relief to their pain points, cater to their interests, and answer their questions.

• • Curate content. Twitter allows you to share third-party content, via retweets or link sharing. Find, categorize, and share high-quality, relevant content to your followers. Curating content in this way provides value to your followers, builds relationships in your industry, and helps generate content.

 5. Drive Engagement with Multimedia

You’re probably already aware that the power of multimedia continues to rise across all social media platforms. Twitter users love to watch videos, and most of them want to see more videos from all kinds of accounts (celebrities, brands, and fellow users). Most importantly, multimedia drives engagement and conversions better than text-only tweets.

As you manage your Twitter account, include multimedia whenever possible. Instagram images can work, although for the best results we recommend re-formatting graphics to fit into Twitter’s rectangular aspect ratio.

6.  Work with the Algorithm, Not Against It

 Like we’ve said before, Twitter is a busy platform. Everything moves quickly, which also means that there’s a massive amount of content constantly being posted. Hundreds of millions of tweets are sent every day.

Twitter no longer displays tweets in reverse chronological order, but instead uses its own algorithm to determine which tweets to show where in a given user’s feed or search results.

Similar to the algorithms used by Facebook and Pinterest, the Twitter algorithm aims to serve users content they’ll find relevant, useful, and engaging. Put simply, tweets that earn engagement will be shown to larger and larger audiences, and self-promoting, spammy tweets will be penalized.

As you create your Twitter content, keep the algorithm in mind. It’s not just about posting frequency and times; quality is perhaps most important for a successful tweet. Focus on the content that your followers will find helpful or inspiring, and find ways to achieve your marketing goals without making them feel constantly “sold to.”

7. Strike Up Conversations

Earlier on, we mentioned that Twitter is about conversations, not just broadcasting. Sure, you can still send out tweets sharing your thoughts or content. However, in order to be really successful your Twitter strategy should focus on starting and participating in conversations.

This can take multiple forms. If someone has a question that your content can answer—tweet them your answer (and a link to your content!). If an industry influencer asks a question—send a thoughtful response. If you’ve noticed an upcoming industry event or current trend—ask your followers what they think about it.

Do you see the pattern here?

Not only do conversations drive engagement (increasing reach and attracting new followers), but they also humanize your brand.

People feel more valued when brands converse with them directly. It also shows others that you’re an active, caring member of your online community, building a sense of authenticity that consumers appreciate.

8. Respond Quickly with Social Customer Service

As we mentioned previously, businesses and customers alike increasingly turn to social media for customer service. Twitter in particular has emerged as the go-to platform for social customer service.

Small businesses don’t need to create entirely separate accounts for customer service, but it’s still a good idea to include it in your day-to-day Twitter operations.

Social customer service is an incredibly cost-effective way to increase customer satisfaction, resolve potential (and real) PR issues, and build trust.

Since all replies and tweets are public, responding thoughtfully to customer frustrations or complaints improves brand reputation. Addressing complaints head-on is far, far better than leaving negative comments in the Twitter-verse to be read by everyone—including your competitors and potential customers.

9. Tweet Frequently

 Remember when we said that it’s almost impossible for a single tweet to be seen by all of your followers? Between the sheer volume of tweets sent globally and the Twitter algorithm, you should anticipate that only a small percentage of followers will see any given tweet.

The solution to this problem is to tweet often. Unlike Facebook and Instagram, where you can easily lose followers by overwhelming them with too much content, Twitter has a much higher threshold.

Marketing software company CoShare recently compiled research from 14 trusted sources and discovered that data supports an average of 15 tweets a day for optimal results.

That might sound like a lot, especially if you’re used to posting about once or twice a day to Instagram and Facebook. It’s not as difficult as it sounds.

First of all, you can (carefully) re-purpose tweets—after all, there’s no way all of your followers saw it the first time around!

If you’ve got a really strong piece of content, repackage its best parts into other content formats such as infographics, livestreams, quote images, SlideShare presentations and blog posts.

In fact, you can even re-tweet the original piece of content, with a new frame. As long as you mix up your messaging and call-to-action, it will still feel fresh.

Secondly, the 15 recommended tweets a day includes retweets, so you don’t have to create each tweet from scratch. However, we recommend that you add some kind of value to most of your re-tweets. Adding even a brief comment ensures that you’re still sharing your brand voice and creating a unique presence.

10. Influence the (Micro-)Influencers

 The popularity (and effectiveness) of influencer marketing is growing by the day, and Instagram is not the only social network with persuasive users.

In fact, a recent survey conducted by Collective Bias reveals that only 3 percent of consumers find celebrity endorsements convincing, but 30 percent of consumers are more likely to buy products recommended by non-celebrity bloggers. It seems celebrities have lost consumer trust and micro-influencers hold maximum influence.

This is great news for start-ups and small businesses, since micro-influencers are infinitely more accessible than major celebrities. However, in a time where literally anyone can become an influencer, it’s important to find the right ones to partner with.

Overall, it’s crucial to find an influencer with an engaged, relevant audience. They should also be someone you trust to reflect your brand reputation.

Once you’ve identified a few influencers in your niche, reach out to them with an offer that benefits them. Most commonly, influencers are given a few sample products to use, post about, and possibly even giveaway to their followers.

11. Monitor Yourself & Competitors

 As mentioned previously, Twitter is a fountain of valuable data.

Track your brand/company keywords through Twitter Analytics to see what users are saying about you. Celebrate successes and address complaints. Leave no reference to your brand un-acknowledged, regardless of whether or not a user has @mentioned you.

Additionally, follow your competitors. This gives you easy access to their current marketing efforts.

Finally, track a few competitors’ brand/company keywords and be on the lookout for any complaints or suggestions. If you can solve a problem or answer a question better or faster than your competition, you’re likely to earn a new lead and/or follower.

12. Measure Results

 If you aren’t doing tracking and measuring your results, you simply aren’t marketing strategically. Tracking and measuring your results are vital to evaluate your success, learn the content your audience responds best to, and identify areas for future growth.

You don’t need sophisticated social media software to measure and analyze your results. Twitter Analytics is free to all business accounts, and includes a wide range of data points. For those just getting started, we recommend tracking tweets with highest engagement rate to identify trends in best posting times, content types, and hashtags.

CONCLUSION

Twitter offers valuable opportunities to research your market, engage directly and immediately with your audience, and build your brand. The platform has come a long way in it’s 15+ years on the scene. Focus on building meaningful relationships with competitors, influencers, and audience members alike, and your Twitter presence will support your success—one 240-character tweet at a time.