SOCIAL MEDIA AS A TOOL FOR

BUSINESS EXPANSION:

Twitter As A Case Study

Business Strategist,

IF YOU'RE NOT ONLINE, YOU'RE NOT IN LINE!“

Social media has become an

inevitable part of our daily life, and

whether we like it or not, social media is here to stay!

What exactly is

Social Media?

EXAMPLES

Internet forums

groups

blogs

microblogs

networking sites

social bookmarking sites

wikis

Podcasts

content communities for articles

video/photo sharing sites

Q & A sites

review sites, etc.

The SOCIAL MEDIA

encompasses ALL the

services that facilitate

creation, sharing and

exchange of user-

generated content.

The internet in 60 Seconds

Background

The Internet has made it possible for people and

businesses to have a wider reach due to its global

nature.

Businesses usually refer to the social media as a

consumer-generated media (CGM).

CGMs are relatively inexpensive, easily accessible

and enable anyone (private individuals) to publish or

access information.

So, what the heck about business going SOCIAL?

SMART BUSINESSES are using SOCIAL MEDIA to:

1. connect and engage with their customers

2. build long lasting valuable relationships

3. generate new leads

4. build awareness

5. educate people; and above all

6. manage reputation.

BUYING DECISIONS

MORE AND MORE PEOPLE ARE RELYING ON THE

SOCIAL MEDIA ONLINE TO SEEK REFERRALS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS FROM OTHERS, ASKING /

ANSWERING QUESTIONS AND SHARING THEIR

EXPERIENCES.

91% of people have gone into a store because of an online experience(Source: Marketing Land)

78% Of Consumers Say That The Posts Made By Companies On Social Media Influence Their

Purchases (Source: Forbes)

TWITTER AS A CASE STUDY

TWITTER Explained

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a short message communication tool that allows you to send out messages (tweets) up to 140 characters long to people who subscribe to you (followers) in real-time.

Your tweets can be ordinary text or may include a link to any web content (blog post, website page, PDF document, etc.) or a photograph or video.

People subscribe to (follow) your Twitter account, and you subscribe to others’. This allows you to read, reply to and easily share their tweets with your followers (retweet).

10(+1) FACTS ABOUT TWITTER

1. According to the State of the Twittersphere report, each day 5 to10 thousand new

people join Twitter. Current estimates of total users top out around 300 million.

(Now, that’s a lot of opportunity!)

2. According to Twitter, there are 255 million active Twitter users generating more

than 500 million Tweets per day.

3. There are 2.1 billion searches every day carried out on Twitter.

4. Twitter users are hungry for new ideas, opportunities, information, services, and

products. (So, if your business is not part of this exchange, you're leaving two huge

opportunities untouched: growing your business and improving it).

5. Twitter gives your critics a forum, but that means you can study them.

6. Twitter helps with business development- especially if your prospects are online.

7. Twitter can augment customer service.

8. Twitter introduced Group DMs (Direct Messaging) on January. 27, 2015. The format can accommodate up to 20 people at a time.

9. Twitter also keeps a public record of all updates, which can be mined with Twitter Search.

10. Companies have already started using twitter as it is the new way to promote, connect and brand a company.

11. Created by Jack Dorsey in March 2006, Twitter gained worldwide popularity with over 300 million users as of 2011. It was thus described as the "SMS" of the Internet.

10(+1) FACTS ABOUT TWITTER

WHY USE TWITTER?

Connecting with customers

Branding

Customers feedback

Marketing

News

Give away coupon codes and promotions

Twitter is Viral

Spying on competition

Increased Sales

Brand loyalty

LET’S START THE TWITTER

JOURNEY

How do i maximize the usage of twitter for my business’ success?

The 6 basic skills you need to master include:

How to open and operate a twitter account

How write and post the right contents on Twitter every time

How to get more retweets on Twitter

How to drive engagements (favourites, replies, etc) on Twitter

How to increase your organization’s twitter followership with only relevant

and targeted followers

Handling customer complaints properly on Twitter

CONFERENCE WORKING MANUAL

How to open and operate a twitter account

SKILL 1

Here are the fundamental components of your Twitter profile page and how you can maximize their impact:

A. @username

B. Profile photo

C. Header image

D. Bio

E. URL

F. Pinned Tweet

G. Location

1. Create a profile for your business

2. Change your visual branding

You can create a custom graphic

and use it for your Twitter

background. This means creating a

graphic file that matches your

business branding. You will then

need to upload this image under

Design in your profile settings.

3. Create a Twitter landing page

A Twitter landing page is a special page on your website designed to introduce people from Twitter to your business. This is a great way to provide additional information of interest to Twitter users looking into your business.

Your Twitter landing page could include:

A personal message from you

Details about your business products and services

How to become a customer

What you tweet about

The people behind your Twitter account

Note: Even though you have more space, it is advisable you keep your Twitter landing page short and to-the-point to make a great impression on your visitors.

4. Start Following People

When you follow another Twitter user, you subscribe to read what they share.

In general, start following people in these CATEGORIES:

Your customers

Your business partners, suppliers, contractors and vendors

Your competitors or peers

Trade organizations or professional organizations for your industry

Businesses in your neighbourhood

Businesses run by people you know (your professional network)

5. Start Tweeting

In general, there are five types of Twitter messages:

1) Tweet: a message you send out to everyone who follows you. This is the heart of

Twitter communication.

2) @Reply: a message you send out as a reply to a message you received. The @reply is a

public message that mentions the Twitter username of the person. It shows up in the tweet

stream of everyone who follows both of you, and on the @connect (mentions) page of

the Twitter user.

3) Mention: a message you send out that mentions another Twitter username.

4) Retweet: a message originally written and initially shared by either one of

your followers or one of the people you follow, that you now share with

everyone who follows you.

5) Direct Message: message sent to another user privately. It is only possible to do with a user who you follow but who also follows you.

How to Write And Post The Right Contents

On Twitter Every Time

SKILL 2

TIPS for Tweets that spark conversations with your followers

and keep them engaged.

Here are a few tips for creating Tweets that spark conversations with your followers and

keep them engaged:

Know the difference between voice and tone.

Talk with people, not at them.

Keep Tweets conversational.

Think about how your content will be consumed by your followers.

When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of

just dumping a link.

Write Tweets geared towards your goals

Don’t make the mistake of only posting business content

Use Twitter to listen to what’s being said about your business.

Here are some

great,

conversational

examples from

Twitter’s downloada

ble #MtgKickstart

resource.

Most viral words and phrases

Ripenn looked at the most viral words and phrases on four sites that focus specifically

on viral content, including Upworthy and ViralNova. On these lists you’ll notice:

Imperative words that tell you to do something, like see, make, look.

Visual words like video and photos point to the importance of multimedia

content.

A lot of superlatives like “the most” and “the best” and “blow your mind.”

Audience-referencing phrases like “make you,” “when you,” and “you see.” If

you’re talking to “me,” I am more likely to feel strongly about the content.

How-to phrases that explain a process or teach a skill.

”

“ It has been discovered that

tweets that contained more

adverbs and verbs have a higher

click-through rate than tweets

with more nouns and adjectives.

SO THE GENERAL RULE THAT ACTION WORDS MAKE FOR STRONGER, MORE COMPELLING

WRITING IS ALSO TRUE FOR TWEETS.

How To Get More Retweets On Twitter

SKILL 3

Twitter is particularly powerful at driving “amplification” for brand messages–majorly through retweets. In fact, 78% of user engagement with a brand’s

Tweets is in the form of Retweets, according to a Salesforce research.

Here are (26-15) tricks for getting ReTweets

1) Be A Retweeter

Sometimes, if you retweet someone’s tweets enough, that person will return the favour

and retweet one of your tweets. But here's the key: When you retweet someone else’s

tweets, you must make sure these are the types of tweets that are related to what you

tweet about on Twitter.

2) Engage With Your Audience

The people who you have numerous conversations with are going to be the ones who

retweet you often. Having these conversations will turn strangers into friends, and friends

like to talk about each other and spread the word.

3) Think About Your Audience

It is important to know what kind of content your audience would want to retweet. You

need to tweet the type of content that your audience would want to retweet.

4) Build Connections With Influencers

If you connect with enough of these people, some of them may decide to retweet one

of your tweets. But be sure to connect mainly with the influencers in your own niche

instead of just connecting with someone because that person has a large audience.

5) Tweet With Pictures

Tweets with pictures get more than two times the number of retweets than tweets without

pictures.

Buffer once took a

sample of 100 tweets

from a particular

account and

compared the

engagement averages

of tweets with and

without images

included using Buffer’s

built-in analytics.

The results? Tweets with

images received 18%

more click-throughs,

89% more favorites, and

150% more retweets

6) Ask For The Retweet

Salesforce found that tweets that specifically ask followers to “Retweet” receive 12X

higher retweet rates than those that do not. When “Retweet” is spelled out, the retweet

rate is 23X higher than the average. When using the shortened version, the letters “RT,”

instead, the retweet rate is only 10X higher. Including “Retweet” at the end of your tweet

therefore works better than including “RT” or “r/t” at the end of your tweet.

7) Make Your Tweets 70-100 Characters Long

Although there’s no magical length for a Tweet, a recent report by Buddy Media

revealed that Tweets shorter than 100 characters get a 17% higher engagement rate.

Track Social also found that the perfect Tweet length was right around 100 characters

Therefore, making the length of your tweets between 70 and 100 characters is the optimal length for getting the most retweets.

8) Embed Your Tweets In Your Blog Posts

Some of the readers who enjoy your blog post will also be likely to retweet the

embedded tweets. As more people read your blog and retweet the tweets,

more audiences will see your tweets and retweet them.

9) Tweet With 1-2 Hashtags

Hashtags are like the SEO for Twitter and other social networks as well. They

have a big impact on a tweet’s visibility.

The more hashtags are in a tweet, the harder that tweet is to read. Including 1

to 2 hashtags in the same tweet will result in a higher number of retweets than

tweeting with no hashtags or more than two hashtags

10) Tweet Motivational Quotes

Motivational quotes fill people with a good attitude and confidence.

People will want to share this feeling with their audiences, and doing that

means retweeting your tweet.

11) Tweet Trending Topics

[Talk about 2015 general elections, Nollywood, soccer…] Out of the

millions of topics that get tweeted about on Twitter, trending topics are

the most popular of them all. When you tweet about trending topics,

only be sure to tweet about it when you can say something clever or

relevant.

20

How To Drive Engagements (Favorites,

Replies, etc) On Twitter

SKILL 4

”

“36% of all tweets get at least one RT, and

43% of all tweets get at least on Favorite.

The story with replies is quite

different. Only 0.7% of tweets get a reply.

Engagement on Twitter is primarily defined by Retweets and Favorites.

Great content leads to engagement and amplification.

What really drives Retweets, Favorites,

And Replies?

Twitter users have passionate conversations, explore topics

and share interesting content. Becoming a part of that

active and energetic engagement is a great way to build

relationships and create advocates for your business.

Want tweets that drive engagement?

Get visual and creative. Followers are more likely to respond to Tweets that contain images and are funny, newsworthy and inspiring.

[Some tools for creating designs with graphics design skills e.g canva, picmonkey, PicsArt]Some available on Android, iOS

Ask for what you want.Increase your reach by explicitly asking for replies, favorites or mentions.

Seize the moment.Tap into popular conversations around seasonal, cultural and industry-based events.

Initiate conversations

If you go to Followerwonk right now, you can search for key terms in your industry or do a comparison of competitors' followers. Take a look at the resulting users, then sort them by Social Authority. Find those that have the highest @response rate and engage with them!

Tweet when your followers are online

Tweets that drive direct response

If you want to get followers to take an immediate action:

Start with a compelling offer.

Pique curiosity, drive clicks and generate leads by delivering a relevant and timely offer.

Create a sense of urgency.For instance, limit the availability of your offer to a specific time period, such as 24 hours or a

week.

Include a clear call to action.

If you want people to click on a URL, don’t include hashtags, mentions, or photos that could

distract from your link.

Include a link to your menu

Include links in your tweets. This gives your followers further action to take, and lets them

interact with your more.

How to increase your organization’s twitter

followership with only relevant and

targeted followers

SKILL 5

To increase your organization’s followership

Engage with influencers in your field regularly

Make your profile and recent tweets compelling

Follow with a purpose

Tweet frequently, but not too frequently

Unfollow anyone that doesn’t follow back within 7 days.

Handling customer complaints properly on

Twitter

SKILL 6

To successfully handle customer complaints on Twitter:

Be quick in responding to comments and questions. Monitor your

mentions!

Avoid going on negative rants, keep it positive and upbeat!

Use Twitter to listen to what’s being said about your business, and then

respond in a conversational and authentic way.

Use direct messages for 1-to-1 conversations if you feel there’s no value

to Twitter at large to hear the conversation

Use services like Twitter Search to make sure you see if someone’s

talking about you. Try to participate where it makes sense.

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