Your Business Needs Twitter

It’s hard to miss articles about Twitter’s troubles, and its decline in usership. If your a marketer you may be considering rethinking your social strategy, but to discount Twitter’s capabilities would be a mistake.

The Trouble

Facebook was an easy transition for Myspace users who already knew how to upload pictures and post comments. It’s first users were college students who probably had a Friendster account, Myspace page or at the very least chatted online with instant messenger. They were young people from around the world starting a new school and looking to make new friends.

As Facebook’s users evolved, so did it’s usership and dashboard. They were able to grow by keeping it simple to share and interact. The reason people still use Facebook isn’t any different from why people keep purchasing iPhones. Everyone has one.

Unlike the transition from Myspace to Facebook, Twitter was an entirely different platform. It worked differently. Your “success” or happiness with Twitter was entirely up to you as a user. Unlike Facebook where you could be added by someone because you went to elementary with them, on Twitter you started with 0 friends.

Like the early days of Facebook, not many of your friends had a Twitter account. You followed business pages or celebrities, but all that did was fill your newsfeed.

Twitter is challenging. You could tweet all day, only to find that no one likes, reposts or tweets back. We all like to feel accepted and liked, and without engagement or reciprocation it’s easy to get disheartened and give up.

Overcoming

I created a Twitter account and let it sit there for three years before I started using it. Like many I tweeted a few things, only to see them die in the abyss and gave up. Fast forward three years when I started blogging. I was looking for a way to reach other bloggers and grow my traffic.

I did research, and read articles about how to grow your Twitter followers and increase engagement. I went from having 3 followers to over 1,500 in a few months without investing in advertising or a professional media manager.

Why Businesses Still Need Twitter

After a while I found that it was actually easier to network and interact with potential clients on Twitter than on Facebook. On Facebook hashtags are relatively useless, and while it may be easier to make friends on Facebook it’s not as easy to earn business. Unless you invest budget towards advertising.

On Facebook landing high up on Facebook search result pages takes a lot more optimization than Twitter where hashtags come into play. In order to gain engagement on Facebook as a business, especially for those smaller brands, boosting and advertising is almost always required.

On Twitter you can post several times a day without losing your audience. You can increase engagement by retweeting and engaging with other users. Use hashtags to come up in search, and actually be found by other thought leaders and customers.

Unlike Facebook ad campaigns that offer no support, Twitter provides ad support and has led to many closed deals.

Getting Started

Regardless of the platform it can be difficult to get started on social, but with the right guidance your brand can grow significantly with the power of social traffic.

Learn more about I Dream of SEO and our social media services today.