
Twitter is a unique social media platform. A cross between a blog, instant message service and social network, Twitter lets you write mini blog posts no longer than 280 characters, and to interact with people in your network.
Back in the early days, Twitter was criticised and dismissed as a useless fad. In my opinion, this happened because Twitter described itself as:
A service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
After all, who cares if your plane is late or if you found traffic going to work, right?
However, in the last decade, people and companies have discovered many ways to use Twitter a marketing and business tool and it has become one of the top social networks worldwide.
Here are some ways you can use Twitter to support your marketing and branding efforts:
- Press releases: You can keep your audience up to date with your brand’s latest developments by posting links to your press releases.
- Time-sensitive special offers: You can use Twitter to promote items on sale and special offers.
- Post event updates: If you go to a conference or trade show, you can tweet about the latest developments.
- News updates: Twitter can be a good medium to post news items of interest to your customers.
- Disaster Relief: Organizations such as the Red Cross are using Twitter to post updates on their efforts to help during natural disasters and emergencies such as the recent hurricane Dorian.
- Daily schedules: Musicians, politicians such as Trump and other traveling acts are using Twitter to post news about their appearances, schedules, etc.
- Links to interesting web pages: You can use Twitter to tweet website or blog posts you have found interesting.
- Content marketing: When you write new content for your blog you can Tweet your new blog posts to reach a wider audience.
- Blog widgets: You can install Twitter widgets on your blog’s sidebar to show your latest tweets and give your blog a more interactive feel.
- Real estate listings: Real estate agents can use Twitter to post links to new property listings.
- Promotions: If you have a “deal of the day”, “daily lunch special” or any other recurring, time-sensitive promotion you can announce it on Twitter.
- Recruitment tool: Many companies have filled job positions with people they found through Twitter.
- Personal branding: By drafting a compelling personal profile, posting brief insights on topics related to your field, and by nurturing your network of followers, over time your Twitter account can turn into a strong personal branding tool.
Another beauty of Twitter is that’s it’s very easy to post. You can do so from any smartphone device these days or directly through Twitter’s website.
Brian Jackson is the former owner of Shoestring Branding, a marketing and branding blog for entrepreneurs, with an emphasis on internet-based tools and strategies. It was recently acquired by BrandBlast.com