Twitter has been our go-to portal for real time discovery about #WhatsHappening in every corner of the stop lights around the globe. Like a friend whom you want to rant your thoughts to. An avenue where we can withdraw ourselves outside our alter ego. A venue where we can check out the latest about famous celebrities and brands. To know who won the boxing event despite a delayed tv broadcast.
From then on, it started to be our human connection, a self-expression, and a place where everything is real time – a world where we discover good content.
Twitter, after all, is a live, public and conversational platform that instantly connects people with what’s most meaningful to them. It is said that Twitter is the shortest distance between you and what really interests you the most—whether about your favorite loveteam in a teleserye; the launch of a latest movie; to show love and support to your favorite KPOP band; and more importantly, to share opinion or ask questions about brands.
There has been a misconception that Twitter is merely a ground for selling, but really, it is not. It’s a tool to help you connect to your raw followers, and ultimately help them learn from you. You are there because your consumers want to deepen the connection, so feed them with what’s happening with your brand. They may say that, it is an avenue that floods you. It is the nature. Feeding and flooding you with damn good content.
Here are the three things you should consider to keep up and step our game on Twitter:
It’s all about planning
Your Twitter account shouldn’t be about number of followers. It should be the place where people go to have find information, gain new insights, and have meaningful conversation about your brand. That’s why planning is the first key step to achieve that goal. First, a brand positioning that is solid. A clear brand messaging that your consumers need to understand everyday. Next, hear the voice of your brand. How does he/she speak? Smart, playful, fun, inspiring? Figure it out. Third, who is your audience? Know the demographics of your consumers. Fourth step, curate and think of creative themes, an organized idea that will lead you to creating good content pillars. Lastly, be part of the lives of your consumers. Humanize your brand. At the end of the day, it should be like your brand is their best pal.
Create the game plan
We’re almost there. One step away. Let’s start pushing and creating that content since you already know the whatnots. Research shows that almost 310% of the Tweets with video content gain higher engagement rate versus Tweets that are plain old texts. Everything happens in a snap so it is important to grab their attention through creative video, photo, and GIFs. Imagine this: A video content that is shorter than 15 seconds with notable celebrities in the first few frames, with the effective use of “sound” strategy – one that includes visual cues to make the story easy to follow and drives recall. This will push content for your brand. Lastly, make your brand trend. Use hashtags. Create cultural hashtags to tap into trends or enter a world of cultural conversations, like #LetsMakeYourBrandTrend.
For instance, Durex brand made a campaign because of the abrupt growth of HIV cases in the Philippines, and right now the age starts to become younger. They made a campaign on Twitter and used the hashtag #AlwaysComePrepared which made a strong awareness to the audience who is trying to prevent the disease. The hashtag went on the number 1 spot of the what’s trending list. The tweet got 6,000,000 million impressions, and what’s more important is that the engagement was high. Another one is the Mayochup by the Heinz brand. They come on to Twitter to listen and be part of the conversation. They made a poll on Twitter and asked the audience if they wanted Mayochup with almost 1 million votes, and also asked them on how they wanted it to be called. A global conversation that made the campaign garnering 2.3 billion impressions worldwide with coverages from AdWeek, People’s Magazine, Fortune, and Time Magazine.
Now, let’s publish it
We’re on to the final step. What should we do now? First, Tweet regularly – your consumers are always on social media. Keep up. Second, there’s a reason behind the 280 characters for every Tweet. It should be direct and short but with a good and creative copy. Third, since you are on a “What’s happening?” world, be responsive to mentions, Retweets, and Likes in a snap that gives your consumers the experience of the brand directly communicating to them. Use Twitter as the medium where they can be heard by your brand in a jiffy. Last step is to evaluate and see the results of your engagement. Conduct quarterly audits to identify attributes of your most engaging content.
Notable Twitter users here in the Philippines gave tips on how to grow your community on Twitter.
Carlo Ople (@carloople) believes “It is never too late to reinvent yourself.” Ople, a fan of sneakers who adores the life of being a “Tito”, did not wander nor felt baffled being on social media. To him, if we really want to delve into something that we genuinely want, we wouldn’t be afraid to reinvent ourselves and bring out the real us, especiallon the digital age.
DJ Suzy of Magic 89.9 (@suzy899) likewise shared her thoughts on growing your community on Twitter. “People follow me because they want to hear me.” Just Tweeting what you feel about sports, entertainment, etc. Just being yourself sometimes presents a good content to your audience already.
Angkas (@angkas), a ride-hailing app, now has their brand reigning on Twitter. “Whatever is trending, jump on it – and if you’re gonna be on Twitter, you have to be agile. That’s important,” says Angkas.
Meanwhile, Follow The Trending Movement @FTTMPH is a Twitter page that features content that matters. They have been the most talked about Twitter profiles nowadays. “As a content provider, you have to follow the trending movement. To be aligned and to be on-time in posting,” says FTTMPH.
If you want brand recognition and your content to be felt, use Twitter. Be on Twitter.
