When it comes to running a small business successfully, one of the most important aspects of marketing is having a strong online presence. This means having a beautiful website, that’s viewable both on desktop screens as well as on phone screens, and posting on social media as much as you can. There are lots of guides out there on Facebook and Instagram, which are driven in large part by image and video posts, but when it comes to using Twitter correctly, it’s a bit different. Twitter is all about developing the right voice--often funny and informative--and using the right hashtags to get attention. Just like Instagram, with the right hashtags you can get lots of followers and likes, and if you’re lucky, you’ll make connections both with other customers or businesses, and even possible investors.
Even if you’ve mastered Twitter, or perfected the art of taking the perfect shot for Instagram, and think you have a great tone in your posts, there are always ways to do better. That’s where using the right tools comes in--and if you use these, you’re sure to get more engagement than ever.
1 Social Steeze
If you’ve already gotten some followers by using the right hashtags and making connections in your industry, that’s a great start. But if you’re serious about getting followers, you need to use the right service. That’s where a tool like Social Steeze is helpful. They can help you buy real Instagram followers--not fake ones--and help you get more engagement, too. Because even though it’s important to spend time on social media finding followers, there’s a lot more you can be doing with your time, such as curating the content you release.
Think about it: the total number of monthly active Twitter users is over 1 billion, so the only way to get as many as you can is by using the right engagement tools.
2 Hootsuite
One of the most important aspects of using social media correctly is having a schedule for posting on your separate social media accounts. And even if you’ve got a full-time social media manager hired, it’s easy to lose track of when and where you’re posting, especially if it’s been a busy month or week. That’s why Hootsuite is a great tool. According to a blogger on Think Digital First,
“Hootsuite has been my favourite Social Media scheduling tool for a number of years. You can integrate the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn and manage all of the messages you share across each network in a matter of seconds...Hootsuite helps...save a lot of time because you can schedule in advance.”
There’s a reason why Hootsuite had 16 million users as of August 2018, and that’s because it’s one of the most effective social media schedule tools out there. So if you aren’t using it already, it’s time to get started.
3 Twitter Analytics
Any marketer knows that, without analytics, a social media platform can only be so powerful. That’s why Twitter Analytics is such a great tool. This free plugin is available to any Twitter user and will provide you with useful information such as tweet frequency, impressions, profile visits, mentions, and added followers. Additionally, you’ll learn who follows you the most, as well as which tweets are most successful and top mentions (month by month). This can help you decide what you’re going to tweet about next, and to whom. Considering that 21 percent of American adults use this social media platform, this will help you reach that large number.
4 Periscope
Sure, Twitter’s usually about tweeting and saying something clever. But just because many of your tweets are plain text, that doesn’t mean you can’t go the extra mile and post a fun image or interesting video. That’s where a tool like Periscope is useful. Periscope is a video streaming app that’s integrated directly into Twitter, which means that the videos will show up right on your followers’ accounts. Considering the popularity of Snapchat and Instagram stories, this is another way to get branded videos out to the people who enjoy your posts.
In the fourth quarter of 2016 alone, live video from Twitter’s content partners got over 31 million viewers--so this is going to be a huge part of Twitter in the future. If you don’t have a high-quality phone for creating videos, maybe it’s time to invest in that, too.
These are some of the best tools you can use to run your small business’s social account successfully. Once you’ve created a tone that goes along with your brand, and started tweeting, these tools will make all the difference. Are there any other Twitter-related tools you’ve used that are effective?