Define your “why” for Twitter success

By Nick Reese
Trends and insights
Young hipster male and female working laptop together in cafe

Why is your business on Twitter? Sure, there are many great reasons your brand should have an active Twitter presence. But if you don’t define why your brand specifically is on Twitter, it's unlikely that you (or your followers) will get everything you can out of your Twitter activity.

To define your reason, you must define your goal. Goal-setting is a critical aspect of any marketing activity—Twitter included. A brand that has a goal of brand management is going to use Twitter in a very different way than a brand that’s using Twitter to drive conversions or for customer service.

Finding your "why"

There are numerous goal-setting strategies you can use, such as S.M.A.R.T or OKRs. Whatever strategy you choose will include the two following elements:

  • Defining the goal: Make this as unambiguous as possible. “Get more followers” isn’t a goal. “Get 10,000 new followers in the 18-35 demographic by November” is a goal.
  • Measuring your goal: Tie your goals to your marketing KPIs. If it can tie into your overall business KPIs, all the better.

Once your goal is set, you’ll find it becomes much easier to manage your Twitter feed in a logical, consistent way. While not every single Tweet needs to accomplish your goal, every Tweet should be created with your goal in mind.

For example, if your goal is lead gen, not every Tweet will have a link to your landing page; some Tweets might be more focused on community engagement or thought leadership. However, if you keep your lead gen goal in mind then your other Tweets can be created in a way that naturally supports your ultimate objective.

What’s your Twitter goal?

If you don’t have a Twitter goal yet, it can be daunting to define one, especially if you already have an active Twitter presence. Rather than pick one at random, make sure to spend time with your company leadership, your marketing team, your employees, and researching the marketplace to understand both what your goals could be and what they should be. To get you started, here are some common Twitter goals:

  • Brand awareness as measured by followers and reach
  • Brand engagement as measured by replies and shares
  • Community engagement as measured by mentions
  • Traffic to your site or specific pages
  • Lead generation as measured by captured email addresses or content downloads
  • Conversions as measured by sales that came from Twitter
  • Customer support as measured by response time, customer satisfaction scores, and number of customers served

Use this list as a conversation starter for your team to find the "why" that’s relevant to your business while brainstorming how to make it specific. 

Additional reading:

 

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