One of the most efficient methods of sharing content as a means of marketing is through word of mouth. As a brand or startup, growing your presence on online social media platforms is crucial when getting your name out in the world.
Twitter has the potential to be effective when it comes to online marketing, with over 800 Million users worldwide and 70% of Malaysian Twitter users interacting every day on the platform.
Novita Jong, the Senior Sales Lead APAC from Twitter, spoke on “The Ultimate Startup Marketing Strategy” during MA2016 and listed down the ten rules on how to properly utilise Twitter as a platform for marketing strategies.
1) Define your brand identity.
Your brand identity is supposed to be a flat representation of your vision. Therefore your Twitter profile needs to reflect that. Make use of the layout and fill it with the personality and image you wish to portray to the public of what your brand stands for.
Three ways you can maximise on the layout is by using the description to express your brand and values, let your followers know what to expect from following your profile, or you could use it to explain your product/service.
The pinned tweet feature should also be a post highlighting your brand identity so when users access your profile, they will instantly be able to relate and determine themselves if you are worth following or not.
2) Establish your own niche.
Tying back with brand identity, brands need to be aware on creating their niche.
“Stand for something or fall for anything,” said Novita in her talk. “It’s crucial that brands be known for something specific, whether it be a domain of knowledge or a clear brand preposition so people can know what to expect when they’re keeping tabs on your brand.”
A problem most companies face is when the content posted on their profile don’t align with their brand identity. This usually happens when the social media team’s posts contradicts the brand identity content. You need to remember that the postings on your brand profile should be holistic with the brand identity. Always maintain one brand personality wherever you go.
3) Be consumer-centric.
As a startup or brand a question to always ask yourself is, who is your audience? This is an exercise that should be practiced not only for your social media platforms but your business as a whole.
Your audience will consist of those with direct interest in your industry, people who can influence your business, and your brand advocates. These are people who can utilise the power of spreading content through word-of-mouth so brands need to take more care about this.
You can be consumer centric by personifying these consumers. Don’t think of them as mere users, see them as actual people. Give them character descriptions and put a human voice to them.
“You need to remember that you’re talking to people to which your brand is trying to reach so make a conscious exercise to actually tailor that voice accordingly,” said Novita.
4) Recognise your champions.
In order for your content to travel, you need to identify the sources that can help you with that.
There are 3 types of champions to consider which are celebrities, influencers and brand advocates. According to your own expenses, find out which one you would be able to maximise the most.
The one that deserves attention the most is brand advocates. These are people who are already loyal to your brand and will advocate for it because it’s personified and relatable to them as a person. Use them to improve your social media presence.
Advocates are your brand fanatics who live and breathe your brand and readily share their experiences so you should consider ways to engage actively and celebrate their fandom.
5) Design participation.
Having a large following is impressive but it does not have much of an impact if participation is low. Engage your followers through content such as quizzes, polls and contests. There are so many ways to make use of content so instead of using one singular method, combine them into a series.
Generate a campaign by featuring a particular icon into a series of content to design participation as well as maintain it. This not only provides your brand a value but also draws your consumers too since they will be receiving content they’re interested in.
6) Capitalise on culture.
Culture isn’t just something that is cultivated offline, the online world has seen the emergence of certain cultural trends as well. For example, a popular one was the blue and black versus white and gold dress phenomenon that took the internet by storm. Determine ways to break through the clutter and create memorable moments of heat and impact.
Leverage on imagery to auto-expand in the timeline and hashtags to broaden scale organically. Using these aspects is an important part of your content because having just plain text is not enough to gain attention anymore.
It doesn’t matter whether your product has any direct relation—if it’s something that is generating conversation on the internet, you should take the opportunity to jump on it and add your own spin.
7) Curate content.
When it comes to creating content, something people worry about is not having enough time to build it from scratch. But content does not necessarily need to be built, you can borrow it as well.
“White papers, blogs, events, conferences, keynote addresses and partnered content. All of these are available for you to raid through and adapt for your own using. Use that opportunity to curate and distribute it accordingly,” said Novita.
If you attend any particular events or conferences, pictures and videos are essential to drive engagement with your followers so fill up your timeline with share-worthy content whenever you can.
8) Determine content pillars.
Content pillars are categorised as content you use as a base for the engagement you’re creating for your followers. Content pillars can be seen as a big chunk of content that you then cut into smaller pieces and use as a series of content.
In a practical sense, imagine the big chunk as one article which you then dissect into sizable chunks and share it over time on your profile.
9) Draft a content calendar.
For the next 3 months, prepare a calendar that drafts out your content to be pushed out. Make sure to map out cultural triggers, major events, important match-ups, announcements, brand events and promotions. For example, your campaign moments or promotional discounts you wish to blast on your Twitter handle.
Your content calendar should be pre-planned but make it flexible enough so if there is something current, you can easily just insert it in. Auto-posting is available on twitter so you can schedule your tweets in advance. Twitter also has a calendar called #OwnTheMoment where it helps show any public events or holidays according to your country.
10) Invest in your audience.
Now that you have the organic reach and have the expenses to push it further, Twitter has a few avenues for you to explore. Any content worth investing into is worth being viewed as an asset to your business.
Using promoted products, amplify your content to the right people at the right time. Because no matter how good your content is, it’s useless if no one sees it. It all comes down to who you say it to, where and when.
Examples of their products include follower campaigns, promoted tweets and lead generations, which cover most areas that can benefit your marketing strategy efficiently.
Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) aims to build a Sustainable Entrepreneurship Ecosystem by catalysing creativity & innovation for long term nation impact. For its third installment, MaGIC Academy (#MA2016) gathered serial entrepreneurs, founders, philanthropists, investors, corporate leaders and startup enthusiasts from across the globe. You can follow MaGIC on Instagram and Twitter for more information: @magic_cyberjaya
Feature Image Credit: yahoo.com
