Ten Ways Twitter Has Redefined Digital Marketing

Do you think that Facebook is the only social media channel that you need to incorporate into your digital marketing strategy? If you did, you may want to reconsider. Twitter is another social media platform that businesses should incorporate into their overall strategy, and failing to do so is costing you a lot of traffic.

There were times when many people thought Twitter was going to bite the dust due to internal blunders and competition with other social media giants. But they pulled through and consequently changed the digital marketing landscape over the last ten years in the following ways.

1. Brand Authenticity

People have been able to use Twitter to effectively humanize their companies and build credibility and authenticity. Twitter helps facilitate this in a few key ways. First of all, it gives businesses the opportunity to react to events with a speed and flexibility that didn’t exist in past decades. Furthermore, they allow businesses to interact with people on a personal basis, allowing companies to directly respond to customer queries.

2. Real-Time Marketing

Some people will even make the argument that Twitter innovated real-time marketing. Any massively popular, viral, or trending news stories are frequently reacted to by businesses hours, even minutes, after the event has taken place. For example, many beverage and food companies are able to react to sporting events (like the Superbowl) in real-time. Anytime a world event or large breaking news hits the media, you can bet that businesses are going to try to capitalize on the news.

3. Cultural Movements

Twitter has been a platform for a lot of political, social, and cultural movements. For example, just look at the #SpeakBeautiful campaign from 2015. Yet again, this allows businesses to react to new cultural events that, in decades past, could really only be reacted to through archaic media such as the press.

4. New Types of Content

Twitter is more than a way to post status updates, as previously thought when Facebook and other social media platforms were still relatively new. But it really provides a platform for new types of content. Who would have ever thought that Vines (extremely short videos) would ever become and effective marketing tool?

5. Personalized Content

Twitter also allows businesses to create personalized content at an extremely rapid rate. This gives businesses the power to directly interact with individual members of their audience and answer questions one-on-one. Many companies (and personal brands) have even made content in direct response to user interaction on Twitter.

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6. Multichannel Presence

Twitter has a strong relationship with other types of marketing channels, such television. Plenty of businesses have incorporated Twitter handles and hashtags into their television advertisements, such as Mercedes’s #YOUDRIVE campaign. In addition, their service is platform independent, allowing users to Tweet from just about any device imaginable.

7. Live Video

Live video was a surprise for most Twitter users, and it all started when Twitter acquired Periscope. Now users aren’t limited to videos that are only 30 seconds long. In fact, users can stream videos for as long as they want, further bolstering digital marketing opportunities through Twitter.

8. The Iconic Hashtag

I’ve heard tell of members of younger generations look at older mobile phones in confusion, wondering why there’s a “hashtag” button on an old mobile phone that didn’t even have an LCD display. Hashtags have become so ubiquitous that many people don’t know it’s called the pound sign. And it allows people to build audiences and communicate with large groups of people nearly effortlessly.

9. Improved Customer Service

The days of waiting in phone queues and listening to awful music while waiting for a customer service representative are fading. Believe it or not, there are a lot of companies that turn to Twitter to improve their customer service experience. Some people simply voice their complaints to the right Twitter account for answers to their questions.

10. IoT

The Internet of Things is an incredible change in the way humans interact with their environment. Connected Internet devices already outnumber the total human beings in existence, and Twitter has followed suit with this trend. Back in the 2012 Olympics in London, there was even an underwater camera that would Tweet updated shots of the pool.

In Summary

If you think Twitter is a second-rate social media platform, you’re missing out on opportunities to grow your business. The honest truth is that your business should use Twitter to directly interact with customers, but it can also be used as a way to distribute content (see: social producer vs listener). If you don’t have the time to market your business on social media channels, it’s time to reach out to a professional. Social media provides the unprecedented opportunity to make a big impact – even with a low marketing budget.