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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