Twitter has long been used as an effective marketing tool. From pizza delivery firms to airlines, brands have discovered that the 140-character platform is perfect for engaging their target audiences and making their campaigns shareable.
But how effective is Twitter as a corporate comms tool? The answer to that is ‘very effective’ – but only if you do it right.
Last week, Portland hosted a discussion event: ‘Twitter for corporate comms and campaigns’. We invited Oli Newton, Brand and Agency advocate at Twitter UK, to share his advice on how companies can make best use of Twitter as a corporate comms channel.
With input from around the room, including some tips from our digital specialists, this is Portland’s summary:
Creating hashtags
- Make sure it’s easy to remember
- Don’t feel obliged to use your company name as part of the hashtag
- Do some research to find out whether it’s already in use and, if so, how it’s being used
- Use capital letters to divide up multiple words, as no spaces are allowed in hashtags, avoiding any Susan Boyle-style #susanalbumparty situations (think about it…)
- Use the hashtag as much as possible
Writing tweets
- Know who your audience is and write your tweets in a way that will resonate with them
- Avoid corporate speak and any words or terms which won’t sound authentic
- Don’t let your legal team get their hands all over your tweets and turning it into legally-compliant jargon: keep the lawyers happy by keeping it simple and staying on-message
- Keep practicing – you won’t be a world-class tweeter straight away: practice makes perfect!
Keep it simple
- Make sure your tweets look nice and clean – don’t fill them with multiple hashtags, @mentions and links
- Think about the action you want your readers to perform and clearly direct them to that action
- Remember that you don’t have to make jokes and be funny on Twitter!
Engaging people
- Ask questions, don’t just make statements
- Listen and react to what people say
- Use pictures and video to draw people in
- Try to get celebrities and other influential tweeters involved in your conversations
Telling your corporate story
- Think about how you make yourself relevant on Twitter]
- Despite the odd media scare-story, don’t shy away from Q&A sessions: they are a greta way to build your brand and engage followers
- If you’re working with a partner organisation who is more ‘fun’ or ‘interesting’ make sure you capitalise on this
- Listen to your audience and their criticisms as they may have a good point
Things to think about when setting KPIs
- Are you trying to shift sentiment around certain issues?
- Which key media and influencers should you be developing relationships with on Twitter?
- Are the right people seeing and sharing your stories?
Dealing with a crisis
- Have you got the right internal processes in place and are they as streamlined as possible?
- Respond to the changing situation as quickly as possible
- Make sure you use the right tone of voice (it may be different to your ‘usual’ tone of voice – but still be authentic)
- Make sure you’ve built your network of followers – they can act as your advocates in times of crisis
If you’d like to know more about how your organisation can make the most of Twitter, do get in touch with us.
You can also follow Oli Newton (@olinewton) and Mark Flanagan (@markflanagan_) on Twitter.