With over 600 million tweets sent each day – that’s about 9,000 tweets every second – Twitter remains one of the most popular social media networks.

But is Twitter good for marketing, and can you promote your business on the platform?

The Loomly Team answers all your burning questions in this Twitter marketing FAQ.

What is Twitter marketing?

Twitter is a popular social media platform with an incredibly loyal fan base, where you can increase the awareness of your brand.

Twitter marketing involves creating, publishing, and distributing content for your target audience and followers on the social media platform.

Twitter provides plenty of possibilities for your brand to communicate with your audience. Moreover, it is one of the best places to connect and interact with your audience one-on-one.

Although its concise messaging remains one of its strong selling points, it’s no longer a short, text-only platform. Tweets can be made more engaging with visuals, including videos, GIFs, and emojis.

Is Twitter good for marketing?

There are several benefits of marketing on Twitter, including:

• Flexibility: You can decide what kind of content you want to publish and promote, and what type of audience you want to attract on the platform.
• Social listening: Twitter lets you listen to consumer opinions and leverage that information to create relevant and engaging content for your audience.
• Short messaging: Twitter forces you to write concise Tweets, but they can make your message more powerful and direct.
• Website traffic: You can increase traffic and leads to your website by including links to your posts and landing pages.
• Relevance: Twitter’s algorithm focuses heavily on timeliness and influence, which provides opportunities for real-time marketing.
• Advertising: As with Facebook and Instagram, Twitter also supports advertising, through promoted tweets, accounts, and trends.
• Analytics: Twitter provides precise analytics for impressions and interactions with your tweets so that you can track your performance.

Why should you advertise on Twitter?

People on Twitter are looking for great content and stories from the people, brands, and businesses that they’re interested in, as well as discovering something new.

Twitter ads allow you to:

• Reach the right audience by targeting based on interests, geography, gender, device, or users similar to your followers.
• Amplify the relevancy of your message by targeting keywords in people’s Tweets.
• Get your Tweets and your account in front of more people who are interested in you.

What are the pros and cons of using Twitter for business?

Here are the advantages and disadvantages of using Twitter for business:

Benefits of Twitter for business

• Reach a broad audience: Twitter has a large user base, which could include your potential customers. Using hashtags can help you reach an audience interested in a particular topic or location.
• Deliver customer service: The platform allows direct two-way communication with your customers. Because it’s a public interaction, if you do it well, it shows your business in a positive light.
• Brand identity: Being on Twitter can help communicate your brand ethos and personality so that it appeals to your target audience.
• Feedback: Twitter can be a valuable resource for gathering feedback from customers.
• Cost: It is free of charge to set up a Twitter account. While paid ads are available, many businesses see benefits from organic posts and interactions.

Challenges of Twitter for business

• Resources: Maintaining a presence on Twitter requires a time commitment. It’s also vital that the staff looking after the account have the right skills and training.
• Negative criticism: Customers could complain publicly about products or services, and negative comments can reflect poorly on your brand. However, dealing with complaints well can have a positive impact on your reputation.
• Time-sensitive: Unless you tweet at the right time, when your audience and followers are online, your tweets could easily be missed.
• Spam: Be wary of spam accounts on Twitter. In particular, do not click on suspicious links from users you don’t know.
• Limitations: You are restricted by Twitter’s 280-character limit. It can take time to learn how to communicate effectively with brevity.

How is Twitter used for marketing?

Here are 23 ways to use Twitter for marketing:

1. Choose an appropriate username
2. Create a brand-centric profile
3. Become a good listener
4. Interact and respond
5. Tweet often
6. Keep tweets short
7. Retweet and mention others
8. Create a content plan
9. Find influencers
10. Follow relevant users
11. Focus on follower needs and interests
12. Share media mentions
13. Use hashtags
14. Like tweets
15. Create Twitter Lists
16. Promote events
17. Include different media types
18. Use Direct Messages
19. Integrate Twitter into your website
20. Advertise on Twitter
21. Incorporate Twitter Cards
22. Define metrics and KPIs
23. Host Twitter Chats

What should my first tweet be?

When you set up your account, Twitter suggests a couple of tweets using the hashtag #MyFirstTweet. But if you want to be different, here are five things that you could tweet about:

1. Introduce yourself
2. Be informative
3. Offer ways to get in touch with you
4. Find peers and say “Hi”
5. Post a photo

How do you promote your business on Twitter?

Here are 12 ways to use Twitter to grow your business, traffic, and sales:

1. Implement Twitter Cards
2. Build your Twitter followers
3. Identify influencers and engage with them
4. Use Twitter Lists to manage your contacts
5. Use Twitter Ads to target your email list and website visitors
6. Use the right hashtags
7. Research your competitors’ audiences
8. Monitor Twitter for keyword mentions
9. Set up UTM tracking
10. Use your Pinned tweet
11. Use great headlines
12. Use Twitter Analytics to analyze and optimize

How much does it cost to advertise on Twitter?

Twitter advertising costs depend on your ad type, such as promoted tweets, promoted accounts, and promoted trends.

• Promoted tweets cost $0.50 to $2.00 for each action.
• Promoted accounts cost $2 to $4 for each follow.
• Promoted trends cost $200,000 per day.

Twitter Marketing FAQ in a Nutshell

Although Twitter may not appear as “trendy” as the latest social networks, like Instagram, it does have its quirks and can be used as a valid tool in your marketing strategy.