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Twitter Roundup (19Aug): Why Business Must Use Twitter for Business Development

by Tweepforce 0 Comments

After the success of last week’s Twitter round-up, we have summarised Twitter’s progress to help businesses, brands and digital agencies to leverage one of the most open and customer-driven social media platforms for businesses development.

Data Confirms that Tweets Influence Buyers

Recent Findings from Datalogix suggest that Twitter users who engage with promoted tweets buy more i.e. if you retweet, favourite, or reply to a tweet, you’re likely paying attention, understanding what’s been promoted, and reacting to it emotionally enough to respond. That engagement, Datalogix’ study says, drove an average 12% sales increase across 35 brands with dozens of products in the study.

Second, people who are exposed to a brand’s organic tweets buy 8% more than those who are not. This is possibly inevitable, as Twitter followers are very self-selecting. However, the fascinating part is that this buy-more impact increased almost 300% when users saw five or more un-paid tweets.

The third, and most striking, finding is that a brand’s Twitter followers who see the brand’s promoted tweets buy almost a third more than other followers who simply see organic tweets.

Twitter and TV Complement Each Other

This Nielsen study found that Twitter chatter had a really good effect on certain TV genres. For example, tweets around reality programming influenced ratings for 44% of episodes. Comedy shows gained a 37% ratings increase from Twitter exposure. Sports programs got a lift of 28%, while drama shows had an 18% hit. Overall After analysing more than 200 episodes of prime-time television programs, Nielsen indicated that a surge in the number of tweets about a show increased its ratings almost a third of the time. The reverse is also true: The more people tuning in, the more usage there is on Twitter.

Facebook is Copying Twitter

Facebook has rolled out Twitter-like features in recent months. First, “Verified” accounts to let users know that a celebrity’s profile is genuine. Second, “Hashtag” to help group conversations on and around the same subject. Third, embeddable posts, which let interesting things that happen on Facebook also appear on web sites and blogs. And very recently Facebook has indicated that it intends to introduce another Twitterish feature called “Trending Topics” — a billboard that streamlines things lots of Facebook users are talking about.

What does this mean for businesses?

Spend Money on Twitter Advertising and Align that to Live Events and TV Shows

Brands must start allocating some portion of their online advertising budget to Twitter advertising, especially businesses that can see their potential customers are tweeting or reading tweets during live events, and watching TV. Businesses can also use some Twitter marketing tools to measure their customer activities and engage them when they are active on Twitter.

Alight Twitter and Facebook Advertising to leverage 1.5bn audience together

Facebook alignment to Twitter, first with introduction of the Hashtag and now the inevitable Twitter-like Facebook status timeline means businesses can align their Twitter and Facebook advertising strategy with complementing Hashtag and status updates.

Ten Ways to Use Twitter to Improve Your Business

by Tweepforce 0 Comments
Ten Ways to Use Twitter to Improve Your Business

There is little doubt that with over 200 million active users, Twitter is one area where forward thinking business owners should be focusing their attentions. However, as many businesses have found out to their cost, the use of social media to propel a business forward is an action which requires careful planning, effort and forethought if it is to prove successful.

There are many key points to establishing a successful Twitter campaign, ten of which we’ve listed below;

 1. Look after your Existing Followers

 It’s all too easy to concentrate on new opportunities only, but that could be erroneous. If there are already people interacting, reacting to your posts and communicating with you then ensure that you give them your attention too.

 2. Welcome New Followers

 If people have taken the time to follow you then let them know they have been seen and matter to you. Developing the relationship with a friendly tweet could be hugely beneficial.

 3. Invite People In

 If you have customer contact forms or email out information to your customers then ask for their Twitter information so that you can add them to your following list.

 4. Keep it Geographical

If you know you’re going to be basing either yourself or your new product in a specific location, check your followers list and give them a shout. Invite them to see you and ensure that they know you’ve sought them out especially.  

 5. Look for Cries for Help

Twitter is often a place to vent frustration and it’s well worth the effort of ensuring that if your customers are having problems with your products or services, you’re on hand to deliver an apology and/or solution quickly and effectively.

6. Remember Your Hashtags

If you’re already using keywords to strong effect in your website and/or blog then it’s well worth considering that they could be just as useful and give strong results in Twitter.  

7. Investigating your Customers

If your customers are tweeting about something then it’s important to them – make it important to you too and use it in conversation with them and they’ll soon see that you’re paying close attention.

8. Follow Your Viewers

You don’t only have to follow those people who’ve followed you. Why not look at users who’ve viewed your page and haven’t followed and follow them – they’ll soon notice you!

9. Testimonials

Where clients have taken the time to tweet positive things about your products, take the time to retweet them as testimonials

10. Spy on the Competition

Monitoring leads who mention your competitors can give you a huge advantage as you get to see what they like or dislike and act accordingly.  

Twitter is the best lead generation tool for businesses or brands

by Tweepforce 0 Comments
Twitter is the best lead generation tool for businesses or brands

In so many ways, the potential of Twitter for business, social CRM and sentiment analysis is obvious. Twitter is, after all, a real-time open system with more than 200m active users and 1bn tweets every two days. It’s a place where people talk about their intentions, interests and planned social engagements, and it’s also where industry experts are continually ready to give information on the latest topics and trends. According to a recent study, however, Twitter all too often fails to convert content into leads, with even such a relatively antiquated option as email marketing proving to be of greater value. So, how can businesses use the information garnered from Twitter for lead generation, while avoiding spamming?

Determining the best way to do lead generation

The good news for struggling social media marketers is that various Twitter tools exist with sentiment, location and social influence filters, which when used along with keywords, can filter the right people. Filtering people based on location, sentiments and social influence, then only on keywords, can be done via Twitter’s own Advanced Search page or with Tweepforce. A company specialising in holidays, for example, may need to find people who are looking for a holidays package to the place for which they sell packages, rather than all holiday seekers or those who have already bought packages.

Engaging with the right people, but not spamming

The key, therefore, is to engage with the right people in a non-spammy fashion. Once you find the right people, you should try to engage them depending on their social profile, or in other words, attempt to get their attention. For example, for those users who have only recently adopted Twitter or who are unfamiliar with Twitter other than tweeting, you may simply use the @ symbol, paired with their username, to respond to them.

In the case of more experienced users, more opportunities exist to engage them, as these users check their @ connection tabs more often, alongside other Twitter activities. You could therefore favourite their tweet, follow them, add them to a public list, retweet them or accompany a retweet with a quote. Don’t forget, either, the great power of geo indexing, which allows you to determine where tweets are sent from – a technology that only becomes even more powerful when automated.

In Tweepforce, for example, an advanced location identifier option allows you to detect location within tweet text, tweet geo location or user’s location. By adopting these methods, your business will attract attention, but not at the cost of appearing to be a spammer. However, you will also need to make sure that the profile or tweet is very precise after you have performed any of the aforementioned actions, so that the target customer only needs to take one quick look to ascertain what exactly you do, and how you can cater to their interests.

Introduce an automation element to lead generation

However, it also makes sense to introduce an automation element to your lead generation from Twitter CRM. After all, with 1bn tweets being made every two days, you don’t have any hope of manually tracking enough of them. What you can do, however, is use certain social CRM tools in order to fully or semi automate this process. Tools exist that can filter keywords based on such parameters as social keywords, social influence, locations and sentiments, in addition to setting appropriate actions against each tweet found in this process. For instance, if someone is looking for a holiday package to Greece, you could automatically send them a tweet with a link to a page on your website for a Greek holiday package, possibly with a discount code included. For automation, you could use Hootsuite search, the Buffer app or the Tweepforce lead generation tool. Indeed, there is a very advanced search option in Tweepforce that enables you to filter tweets based on location, sentiments, social profile and keywords. On the basis of the subsequent sentiment analysis, businesses can set an appropriate response, ensuring the high conversion statistics that only precise action can bring.

Twitter: the economical and very high conversion lead generation tool

Twitter is open to all of the means by which a business can filter the right tweets or people to find leads, and with the use of some smart technology such as engaging people with a response to their tweets, endorsing or appreciating their thoughts, those leads can also be converted into business. Such personal and precise ways of engaging with target customers ensures a very high conversion rate, and guess what? This particular lead generation process is also far cheaper than running Pay-Per-Click or social ads. By making use of Hootsuite search, Buffer app or Tweepforce for the automation of lead generation, you can achieve so many more conversions and generate more revenue from your social CRM campaign.

7 reasons for brands to use twitter for business & product development

by Tweepforce 0 Comments
7 reasons for brands to use twitter for business & product development

A recent Twitter case study for companies reveals that Twitter can not only be a strong medium for customer service or reputation management, but can also be a very strong source for business and product development. In addition, there are some additional case studies which suggest that organisations can grow on Twitter faster than Facebook! Here we have summarised reasons for why small and big businesses must leverage Twitter for lead generation, product discovery and delivery, to make real revenue!

1. Realtime sheer numbers can’t be ignored

Twitter, with 200M+ monthly active users globally, 120M+ active mobile users monthly, one billion Tweets every 2.5 days and with each Twitter user following an average of six brands, presents a strong case that brands should not to ignore this medium and should find ways to tap realtime buzz to generate leads and convert those leads into real revenue!

2. Tweets with intents and interest invite brands to reach out to consumers

The best thing about Twitter is that the people show their interest and intent in realtime. For example, if a user is intending to buy a smartphone, a simple tweet to ask for suggestions can usually attract lots of attention from all over the place. In this example, where a user tweets for suggestions before buying a smartphone, his friends and followers reply, and brands can also tap into this opportunity to promote their product.

3. Twitter has a vast mobile presence

Over 60% of Twitter active users access the social network via a mobile device and further studies suggest that those who use their mobile as a primary device are three times more likely to access Twitter while shopping compared to the average user, 53% more likely to recall seeing an ad compared to average user and 66% more likely to retweet. Overall, Twitter is one of the most accessed social networks via mobile devices and the growing popularity of mobiles is a great reason for businesses to find ways to leverage this network to reach out to as many consumers as they can. Plus, a Twitter app can even substitute for a mobile app and save huge costs for businesses, compared to aligning their content to different mobile platforms and then promoting their products!

4. Twitter is the social network most aligned to TV viewership

A Twitter study claims that 85% of US mobile device owners incorporate their device into their TV viewing experience monthly, 64% of Twitter mobile-primary users use Twitter in front of the TV at home, 25% of Twitter mobile-primary users tweet about the shows they’re watching and an 8.5% increase in Twitter volume correlates with a 1% increase in viewership ratings! In addition Twitter bought online sentiment analysis start-up Blufin Labs and joined hands with Nielsan Research to demonstrate that Twitter is poised to leverage an automatic connection between their platform and TV viewership.

5. Tweets can embed to other platforms to enhance the customer journey

140 character Tweets with image, video and call to action button can be embed into any website or blog by adding a simple code and embedded tweets stand out on the page because they include graphic elements, so they draw the eyes of your visitors. If a business replies, Twitter posts not only the reply, but also the original tweet, giving you a conversation view. This puts individual tweets into context so they make more sense. Recently Twitter launched Twitter Card, which enables businesses to embed call to action buttons, such as a link to an app store or shopping cart check out. So a tweet with YouTube and Vine Video or a Flickr image with call to action button can be integrated into any website and enrich the customer experience!

6. A hashtag can reach across networks i.e. multiply audience

Recent adoption of the hashtag by Facebook confirms the power of this scripted language, which is universally accepted by Google+ and LinkedIn. However, Twitter has dominated conversations centred around the hashtag (#) for quite some time. If we believe the experts, “Twitter’s major pitch to advertisers is to tack little hashtag addendums and catchphrases onto the end of their commercials. From there, a viewer can do a quick search for the hashtag to track conversation about the ad and connect with other folks. Same with TV marketers: Identify a hashtag with your show and viewers can talk about the action in real time.” This means Twitter, with cross platform publishing tools like Hootsuite, provides a huge opportunity for brands to join the hashtag bandwagon and reach out across networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+!

7. Twitter API enables a combination of manual and automation actions

Despite the recent negative press that Twitter received for their API’s terms and conditions, they still have a more open and rich API than any other social network, which means with the help of tools like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and now Tweepforce, businesses can leverage this very realtime 24*7 platform by amalgamating manual and automatic actions for business and product development. For example, a business can set an automatic search for people interested in their products and services and once relevant tweets are collected, they can manually take appropriate actions against each tweet.

Twitter is a real-time data powerhouse, combines consumer interests like TV viewership, and intent (active users follow at least six brands), and reaches a huge mobile audience, crossing networks via hashtag and embedded tweets. It can definitely help brands’ lead generation and product development, going well beyond reputation management!