Why use Twitter?

A digital strategy is fundamental in the success of your business. With over 90% of people using a mobile device at any one time, it is essential to create an online presence in order expand your network and advertise your brand. Word of mouth has long been used as a traditional form of marketing and it has now evolved online. 

Benefits of Twitter for your business 

1. Twitter can broaden your audience reach and provide you with the opportunity to engage with followers. 
2. It can help to increase brand awareness and outline promotional activities which can attract new audiences. 
3. Twitter helps you to network with other businesses in the industry and keep up to date with the latest trends. 
4. Engaging with your community and audience is vital as this helps to build the business reputation, and trust. You also gain valuable feedback from happy or unhappy customers – and how you react to these comments outlines the values of your business. 
5. Remember that images and videos standout. Be sure to retweet images you are tagged in and thank the person for sharing. 
6. Use relevant hashtags and keep an eye out for trending hashtags! These will help further your audience reach and can be found by taking note of hashtags used by your competitors, the industry and potential customers. 

Top Tips to help you get started! 

Twitter recommends images are sized as follows:  

• Header image: 1500px x 500px 
• Profile image: 400px x 400px 
• Image within a post: 506 x 253px (Max size: 1024px x 512px)

Mention: This is how you talk to someone on Twitter, helping to further your audience reach, while also interacting and starting conversations with other businesses, new audiences, or speaking directly to customers. 

Place an @ symbol before the username of a person/company e.g. -@NITouristBoard then the rest of your tweet. It doesn’t matter where in the tweet you put the @ NITouristBoard, but common practice is usually to place it at the beginning. If you don’t use the @ symbol that person won’t be notified and therefore is unlikely to see it. If you place the @Name at the beginning of your tweet, only the account being mentioned will see your tweet. If you place a full stop before the @name, then the tweet will be visible to everyone on Twitter. You can mention anyone even if you’re not following them and likewise, they can mention you even if they’re not following you. 

Hashtags: A hashtag (written with a # symbol) is used to index keywords or topics on Twitter, allowing people to easily follow topics they are interested in i.e. #DiscoverNI. Hashtags help people find what they are looking for easily and it is worth studying which hashtags your competitors and target audience are using frequently in order for your brand to get noticed. 

Trends: These are subjects that are being most tweeted about at that particular time. Trends are found on the left hand side of your home page. When signed into your account on the web, trends will be tailored for you based on your location, which can be changed at any time, and who you follow. However, there will be many world and local news events and conversations that will appear in your trends regardless of your personalisation. When starting to create your business page, follow likeminded businesses and keep up to date with trends in order to identify what is going on in your location. 

Paul McGarrity from Octave Digital shares some tips and advice on making the most of the channels available to help grow your business.

As part of the Tourism Enterprise Development (TED Programme) Paul McGarrity, Octave Digital delivered a webinar about Social Media and Search Marketing for Tourism.