10 Marketing Lessons from Successful Brands on Twitter

With Twitter having more than 300 million user accounts, it has become an important network for companies to reach out to their customers. There are well-established and successful brands that have come up with best practices companies could emulate to attract a loyal following and transform customers into brand advocates.

We’ve listed ten marketing lessons from successful brands in Twitter. Read on to find out how they’re using Twitter to market their business.

1. Don’t be afraid to apologize and send a personal message to a customer.

Most companies have hundreds of thousands of followers, the more established and well-known brands, probably millions. Instead of only replying to positive feedback, learn to acknowledge criticism and complaints as well. An apology does more than simply ignoring a tweet.

Jet Blue Airways has 1.6 million followers and only 14 people handling its Twitter account. Yet they manage to acknowledge customers who have criticisms or complaints and educate them in the process as well.

2. Twitter isn’t just a feed to announce your sales or new products. Use it as a real-time response tool to create conversations with your customers.

To generate publicity on the recent release of The Hunger Games movie on DVD, Target conducted a national live trivia contest on Twitter. This is a great way to engage customers, generate buzz on a product launch and make new connections with new followers.

3. Whenever possible, take advantage of multimedia to showcase your brand’s personality.

With Twitter having updates regarding sharing, uploading and tagging pictures, it has become easier to showcase different sides of brand’s personality with pictures — take advantage of it!

Starbucks use pictures to convey messages to customers and to engage them. They don’t use pictures to promote products but use them to ask questions, wait for feedback, start conversations and even highlight customers’ favorite Starbucks products.

4. Like in traditional advertising, celebrities are great endorsers.

Celebrities often have larger followings on Twitter than most company brands, engaging them will help you increase your follower count. Celebrities can easily influence your brand too, so choose well.

5. Twitter is not about you, it’s about your audience.

While you can always use the network to promote, figuring out what your audience wants to hear and tweeting about it is a better way to build loyalty and following.

Luxury retailer Bergdorf Goodman doesn’t only tweet about its products but includes a variety of topics about New York fashion, style and more.

6. Your end goal should be not to increase sales but to bring value and service to your customers.

Whole Foods Market has 3.6 million followers and they continue to bring value and service to their customers by replying to every question about nutrition and supplements in their feed. This kind of dedication might unlikely bring new sales but is a surefire way to build customer loyalty.

7. If your brand is supposed to be fun, it would help to showcase a sense of humor in your Twitter feed from time to time. Embrace negative comments and highlight the positive ones.

Taco Bell is a global brand that does a remarkable job in displaying a sense of humor. They know how to have fun! They also embraced the bad tweets with the good, tweeting; “It’s all real here! Don’t filter out the bad stuff” and linking to a fan who wrote: “Picture looks great but your food still sucks.”

8. Know the technicalities of Twitter so you can use it to your advantage.

Learn about hashtags, trending topics, and managing lists. This will allow you not only to reach a broader scope of followers and gain new ones, but will allow you to manage your account better.

Cisco Systems hosts Twitter chats around relevant hashtags. You can do this too!

9. Think global, post local.

Big brands waste their chance of engaging customers by treating Twitter like a mass mega-phone for announcements. Post target messages based on active followers’ location from time to time, especially those who are engaged to your brand.

Target customizes posts based on users’ location, highlighting weather, traffic or ongoing important events around the area.

10. If you offer a product or service that goes beyond business hours, it is good practice to figure out a way to be responsive on Twitter whenever a customer needs help.

Delta’s “Assist” account notes that “We’re listening around the clock, 7 days a week.” They don’t just listen, they respond to customer questions and complaints, whenever and wherever they are made.

Originally published at www.infinitcontact.com.