Tips for Turning Twitter into a Valuable B2C Marketing Tool

Many business owners undervalue Twitter as a useful marketing tool for building brands and connecting with consumers. Social overuse of Twitter to report the inane, decidedly ordinary events of daily life has given Twitter a bad rap as a business tool. When used judiciously, Twitter can be an effective tool for expanding your reach in social media, which is now considered a crucial part of any B2C marketing strategy.

In addition to product marketing, B2C marketers find that Twitter is useful for monitoring conversations about their products as well as communicating in a customer service role. Many companies are using Twitter as their primary customer support tool, which helps improve customer satisfaction and retention rates.

The immediacy of Twitter is what makes this inbound marketing application such a powerful business tool, but it is also one of the primary reasons that more business owners have not embraced Twitter. Belief that tweets can only be sent in real time makes Twitter seem too constrictive and time intensive. However, programs that allow you to pre-program tweets for future publication and the ability to text in tweets from your mobile phone have significantly increased the freedom and usability of this inbound marketing tool.

Business users will find that certain Twitter applications enhance Twitter use, making this popular social media platform easier and more efficient to use. Applications like Tweet Deck and Twitter Feed allow Twitter to become a more successful and productive partner in your overall inbound marketing strategy.

Here’s a rundown of some of the most useful Twitter aids for business users:

• TweetDeck allows simultaneous posts to Twitter and Facebook. TweetDeck is an essential tool for managing tweets that allows you to search by topic and organize followers into groups to better track potential leads.
• HootSuite is a multi-account, multi-network application that allows you to engage in Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn conversations from a single platform.
• Twuffer is a post scheduler that allows you to pre-post tweets and schedule them for later release. This application is a real time saver, allowing business users to budget tweets so creation doesn’t interfere with your work schedule.
• Twitter Feed allows you to integrate blog posts with Twitter, increasing interaction and expanding your consumer base for both platforms.
• Twitter Grader speaks to your competitive drive, rating your tweets against other users based on number of followers, number of updates and tweeting frequency.
• TweetBeep helps you manage your brand’s online identity by alerting you when Twitter users tweet about your company.
• Twitoria is another Twitter management tool that helps you find and delete inactive followers.
• Owitter is another Twitter management tool that alerts you when followers drop you, allowing you to fine tune your message to better connect with your target audience.

How are you using Twitter for B2C marketing, and what challenges are you facing in daily use?

We have some ideas for building your brand using Twitter and other social media tools.