If a tree falls in the woods, and nobody’s there to hear it, does it make a noise?
Regardless of your personal philosophy on this age old question, one thing is certain — if a potential customer is making noise on social media, and you’re not there to hear it, somebody else surely will. Listening to and engaging with your audience is more important than ever in a time when your presence is no longer a surprise — it’s the expectation.
Take Advantage of Twitter
Twitter is perhaps the ideal platform for community engagement and outreach. By its very nature, it’s enabled for quick, simple interactions with a targeted audience. While it bestows upon its users the tools to reach a large audience in one fell swoop, its greatest benefit comes in the ability to engage with users one-to-one.
Gone are the days when simply existing in the social stratosphere sufficed. When you publish your content to your social platforms, you’re competing for attention with friends, family and beloved brands for valuable facetime.
Your content needs to connect with users on a deeper level. It used to be enough to simply produce content. Now, it’s important to produce content that makes your audience care about your brand, because you’re literally competing with the people and things your audience loves.
Join and Contribute to the Conversation
So, why are community engagement and outreach so successful on Twitter? Simply because Twitter allows you to join and add to relevant conversations whenever you feel like it.
To be sure, someone somewhere is discussing something relevant to your business. And as the expert in your business, you undoubtedly have information, products and/or services that could provide great value to these users.
Twitter gives you access to people who may not have known about your business, but have needs and interests directly related to it. And a one-on-one conversation will always be more engaging than an ad, or a piece of content blasted out to all of your users. It also puts a more human voice to your business, letting customers new and old know that there’s a face behind the username.
Cultivate New Customers
Targeting users that are more likely to engage with you is a fantastic way to cultivate new customers for your business. There’s plenty of data to show that engaged fans are more loyal fans, spending significantly more money in their time as a customer than unengaged fans.
With a little patience, know-how and forethought, a snowball effect can occur, with users starting conversations with you, and bringing their friends and followers along for the ride.
It’s important to remember that the conversation doesn’t always have to end in a sale. While it’s important to include a call-to-action when relevant, simply holding a relevant conversation with a potential customer creates a link between your business and their interests/needs. The conversation might not lead to a sale NOW, but you can be sure that it’s planting the seeds for future business.
At the very least, reaching out to your current and potential customer base on Twitter will help create greater awareness of your brand and its goals, and lets your customers know there’s an additional forum where you can be reached.
At its best, engaging with your customers through Twitter can create loyal brand followers, expand your audience, increase word-of-mouth, and lead to the ever-desired social conversion.
V Digital Services
Of course, your end goal is always to move the bottom line. This can be a realistic goal with social, but it’s important to remember that reaching that goal is a process that can take some time to realize.
While engaging and reaching out via Twitter may not immediately lead to increased sales, there’s always the possibility of making a good customer into a truly loyal customer, and that’s a relationship that pays off for years to come.
Are you interested in learning more about how Twitter can help your business grow? The experienced social media team at V Digital Services is ready to help. Contact us today!
Creating Community, Twitter