Marketing on Twitter in an Engagement-First World

While the buzz in the marketing industry usually happens on social media, there’s been a lot of buzzes recently about social media.

The news about how Cambridge Analytica used Facebook data highlighted the importance of data privacy. Twitter’s commitment to end malicious bot activity related to propaganda showed that not all automation is good. These revelations have spurred a whole host of changes on social media platforms, including new features and new policies.

For marketers, keeping up-to-date with these changes is important to make sure you’re playing by the rules, but it’s also a great opportunity to stop and think about the right way to tap into the one-to-one relationships and open conversations on social media that fuel the best marketing.

At Socedo, we help B2B marketers find and build their target audience on Twitter. As such, we’ve made some updates to Socedo discussed below. It’s also a good idea to make sure, if you’re using other tools outside of Socedo, that you are following the best practices.

The Twitter Rules lay the general groundwork for tools, businesses, and users alike to avoid spam, malicious activity, and unwanted content. Furthermore, the Twitter Automation Rules are meant to clarify where automation and automated tools are and are not okay on the platform.

Here are a few points to keep in mind when marketing on Twitter, and how we’ve addressed them as a tool for B2B social media marketing.

Be Mindful of Following

The power of Socedo as a tool is in the AI-powered search engine that discovers which people on Twitter are the best fit for your business and the most likely to engage with you. We take the hours it typically takes a social media manager to do keyword research, find relevant users, and filter for the best prospects, and we do it in minutes. When it comes time to engage, however, it’s time for a human to step in.

Per Twitter’s policies, “you may not follow or unfollow Twitter accounts in a bulk, aggressive, or indiscriminate manner.”

Building your audience on Twitter is a fantastic way to increase social engagements, grow brand awareness, and drive traffic to your website, but it only matters if your followers are in your target audience. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time (and theirs!).

Socedo has always advocated honing in on your target audience, so you’re following the people who most want to engage with you. Now you’ll notice that the setting to “Follow All Approved Prospects” and to “Approve All” have been removed from the Socedo platform.

When you have a Twitter handle connected in Socedo, you’ll see the buttons on the Prospects page say “Follow.” You need to select each person you wish to follow or have our Managed Services team make those decisions and take those manual follow actions for you.

Don’t Spam Your Audience

Spam is never the answer in the marketing world. Twitter states that your should not “spam or bother users, or otherwise send them unsolicited messages.” This applies to public @mentions, as well as private direct messages.

In Socedo, we have removed our direct messaging functionality. You should also be mindful of other tools you might be used to manage direct messages or other replies. In fact, we’ve found that giving your followers relevant, useful content in your editorial calendar actually drives more traffic to your website than sending direct messages.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have meaningful conversations with your audience. You should still use response management tools to answer your customer’s questions and comments, and we’ll be working with Twitter to find a messaging solution that complies with the Twitter Rules and also helps B2B marketers forge relationships with their best audience.

Use Unique vs Duplicate Content

Whether it’s in your tweets or direct messages, sharing the exact same content multiple times, across multiple handles, or to multiple people is not a good strategy. . . in fact, that’s true for any marketing channel!

Just like you wouldn’t send the same email to a lead over and over again, no matter how engaged they are, you should avoid duplicative content on Twitter.

As Twitter states, “you may not post duplicative or substantially similar Tweets on one account or over multiple accounts.” This applies to mentions, replies, and other messages as well.

Some customers use Socedo’s multiple campaigns to build audiences on multiple handles, across different product lines or for different personas. While Socedo does not enable users to send tweets, messages, or replies of any kind, you should be mindful of how you are using other social media management tools to engage your audience on multiple handles. For example, repurpose your content to share a stat from your content in one tweet and a quote in another, both of which are highly engaging content types on Twitter!

An Engagement-First World

When we focus first on how our audience wants to engage with us, not only do we forge long-term trust, but our engagement rates skyrocket. While there will certainly be more changes to come for social media networks, these changes should be welcomed by marketers. No longer do brands have to focus on “cutting through the noise.” Now, the marketing teams who put their audience first, share relevant content, and create meaningful relationships will be the ones who come out on top.

If you have any questions about the changes we’ve made our best practices about your Twitter marketing strategy in general, you can email [email protected]