The ultimate guide to using a Twitter business account

Twitter is a powerful marketing tool when it comes to achieving our marketing goals and creating a Twitter business account is a great way to communicate and engage with your target audience. With more than 300 million active users it’s a person’s first port of call to see what’s happening in the world or to discover something new.

With hundreds of millions of users connecting and sharing content on Twitter every day, it’s the go to social platform for brands to raise awareness, build and strengthen relationships with existing and prospective customers and improve their online visibility.

So, who is on Twitter these days…

• There are 192 million daily active users on Twitter.
• The total number of Twitter users in the UK is 15.25 million.
• Twitter users send out 500 million Tweets per day.
• 63% of Twitter users are between 35-65 years old.
• 40 percent of Twitter users carried out a purchase after seeing it on Twitter.
• 75 percent of B2B businesses market their products and/or services on Twitter.
• Average time spent on Twitter by users is 3.39 minutes per session.

[Source: Statista and DataReportal, 2019]

What is a Twitter business account?

Technically speaking, there’s no real difference between a Twitter business account and a Twitter personal account. You complete the same sign-up process as everyone else, but instead of filling out your personal details you sign up with your company name and contact details, with the intention of using your account to promote your brand.

A Twitter business account can be a great addition to your social media marketing strategy as it allows interaction in real-time and with most Twitter users predominantly on mobiles it enables quick and easy communication. Loyal and satisfied users will ‘retweet’ and ‘favourite’ as a form of referral or recommendation and through constant and viral tweeting, your brand awareness will be enhanced.

For ‘official’ Twitter accounts, always look out for a blue checkmark next to a user’s display name – this indicates it is a verified account. This means that the social network considers the user to be a prominent brand or influential individual, and it confirms the user is who they say they are.

How to use Twitter for business

It’s important to build a profile that stands out from the crowd, you want to make your twitter business account as relevant to your company as possible. EVery little detail needs to be optimised – from ensuring your profile pic is updated (no one wants to see the Twitter egg) to having an engaging and descriptive bio.

Once you’ve set up your profile your focus should be all about the content. Twitter is great for creating intrigue by broadcasting short pieces of information and breaking news. It’s great for linking posts to other social media platforms, setting yourself up as an authority leader in your industry and pointing traffic to your website where visitors can gather more information.

Regular tweets scheduled throughout the week; throughout various times of the day will ensure you are reaching out to as many people as possible. With other social media platforms, customers will look at your profile and scroll through your posts, whereas on Twitter you are more likely to be found via the newsfeed, so it is imperative to have several daily tweets being published.

It’s a good idea to experiment with the times and days you tweet as this can also have a big impact on your audience reach. Review your analytics so you can understand when your audience is online and from that you should be able to work out when you ‘sweet spot’ is.

Other things to think about when using Twitter for business include:

Use hashtags on your Twitter business account

Utilising keywords with hashtags (#) enables people to find your industry and services available really easily. Carry out hashtag research to ensure you are using the most relevant and trending hashtags to really optimise your tweet. We’d recommend using one or two well thought out hashtags per tweet to avoid coming across as too spammy.

Use photos, gif’s and polls

With only 140 characters to get your message across using photos, graphics, GIF’s and even polls are a great way to enhance your tweet and potentially add additional information to your tweet that you wouldn’t necessarily have had space for.

Polls are a great way to gauge your audience’s interest; they can also help with key business decisions or new product or service launches.

Interact with your Twitter audience and influencers

It’s important to interact with the right people on Twitter, your customer’s will be your most important focus as you’ll want to keep them happy and with new prospective customers, you’ll want to educate them about your business, products and services.

You’ll also want to follow and start conversations with relevant industry journalists and influencers and keep an eye on other businesses that potentially you might like to form business partnerships with.

Add value with your content

As part of your social media marketing strategy, you should have a clear understanding of your messaging and the types of content you want to produce. Your customers interest is at the forefront of everything and anything you produce, so always ask yourself – Is this content interesting, inspiring, educational or entertaining? If the answer is no, then go back to the drawing board and start again.

It’s important to remember that Twitter as a social platform should be used to connect and spark conversations.

Monitor your Twitter business account

Don’t forget to monitor your account after you done all the hard work of tweeting. This platform works best if it is closely monitored, so make sure you join in with trending topics, comment and like tweets and reply to queries, conversations in real-time or ideally within 24 hours minimum.

Benefits of using twitter for your business:

• Free brand exposure – Twitter allows engagement with people in a viral way, so your loyal and satisfied users will ‘retweet’ and ‘favourite’ as a form of referral or recommendation. Through constant and vital tweeting, your brand awareness would be enhanced and the best bit… it’s all completely free!
• Reach a wider audience – by bringing your brand to Twitter you can start engaging with new audiences, identifying relevant influencers and begin networking with potential partners.
• Stay on trend and in the know – THE place to be to keep on top of everything going on in the world and staying one step ahead of the game by being the first to hear any breaking news.
• Build brand awareness – you can share information quickly and start conversations with your audience instantaneously. Once your audience is aligned with your brand and you’re producing relevant and interesting content they won’t be able to help themselves by retweeting and sharing your content with their own followers.
• An engaged audience – Twitter is a great place to interact with your customers and start building relationships. If your customers are tweeting about you that’s great word of mouth for your brand.

How to set up a Twitter business account

Now it’s time to take action and set up your own Twitter business account.

You will also need to make sure you have the following information to hand:

• Your business name, short bio (maximum 160 words)
• A profile photo and cover photo

Follow these easy steps to create your Twitter business account:

Step 1: Sign up to Twitter

Go to www.twitter.com/home

Click on ‘Sign up for Twitter’ and add the following information:

• Name (use your business name)
• Phone or email (just click ‘Use email instead’ to add your email)
  • You will have to use a mobile number if you choose the phone option as Twitter will verify your account with a text message
• Date of birth (don’t worry this won’t show on your profile it’s to confirm you meet the age requirements)

Step 2: Verifying your Twitter account

Once you’ve completed the first step, Twitter will ask if they can send you a verification code to the mobile number you entered. Enter the code you receive in the space provided and click ‘Next’.

You’ll then be asked to set up a password that is at least 6 characters

Step 3: Complete your Twitter profile

Now the basics are set up you can start building your profile.

• Pick a profile picture – this is usually your business logo (approximately 400 x 400 pixels)
• Describe yourself – add a description of your business. Be sure to keep it under 160 characters.
• Select your interests – this is so Twitter can show you like-minded users and accounts for you to follow. Select a few that feel good and will provide good content for your business account. You can always add to this at a later stage.
• Notifications – choose whether you want to receive notifications of any action taken on or related to your account, this could include follows, likes, retweets and direct messages.

Step 4: Update your Twitter business profile

Next, you’ll want to add a cover photo and add your website URL to your twitter business account profile. You can do this by going to your main profile page and clicking on ‘Edit profile’.

You’ll also be able to edit any information you’ve already added such as your name, username, update your bio and add your location if you have headquarters of offices.

Once everything is completed click ‘Save’.

Step 5: Start tweeting!