Social media holds value for businesses of any size. It spans multiple demographics and spreads your company’s message. As a business owner, you should carefully consider how Twitter will fit into your overall social media marketing plan.

Here are some ideas on how to use Twitter for your business.

1. Use hashtags.

Hashtags are searchable identifying words or phrases that groups hundreds (or thousands) of tweets together. They’re a great way to increase the visibility of your content beyond your own followers. There are many popular hashtags that most active Twitter users are familiar with, like #FollowFriday and #ThrowbackThursday.

Many brands latch onto trending topics to contribute to the conversation or sell their products. You can also create your own hashtags to draw attention to your brand or events you are holding.

Only use hashtags that are relevant to your content. For example, if you tweet about starting a business, you might use the hashtag #entrepreneurship. You should also limit how many hashtags you use. The more you use, the less likely people are to interact with your content, because they’ll find your posts spam-like.

Also, look at the trending box every day. Located on the left-hand side of your timeline if you’re on desktop or on the search tab in the Twitter app, the trending box can provide inspiration on what to share with your followers. Again, just make sure it’s relevant to your brand and that you use the trending phrase or hashtag in your tweet.

2. Handle problems through direct messages.

Direct messaging has evolved over the years, especially for brands. This is a major platform for troubleshooting your customers’ issues and handling their problems, and the way you interact with them is important.

It’s smart to handle individual customer complaints and issues through DMs for a couple reasons. For one thing, you don’t want other users to see the problem and think less of your company. Also, there is no character limit on DMs, which gives you the freedom to help customers properly.

By default, only users you follow can send you DMs. You can set up your Twitter account to receive messages from anyone, though, making it easier for all customers to contact you. Simply go to Privacy Settings and enable “receive direct messages from anyone.”

3. Use photos, GIFs and polls.

Twitter allows you to add up to four photos to a post. You can also create graphics to add to your tweets. Not a Photoshop whiz? There are numerous tools online that can help you create the image you need.

Using photos and GIFs in your tweets is a great way to connect with followers. Twitter has a built-in GIF keyboard; you simply search for a keyword and choose the clip that best suits your tweet.

Engaging with your followers on Twitter is imperative to keep consumers interested in your brand. One fun way to involve your followers is to create a poll with these simple steps:

• Click the “compose” box at the top of your home timeline.
• Click the “add poll” icon that looks like a horizontal graph.
• Type your question into the main “compose” box.
• Enter your first poll response option into Choice 1 and the second option into Choice 2. You can list up to four answer options in your poll; each option can be up to 25 characters.

The poll stays live for 24 hours by default, but you can shorten that timeframe if you prefer.

4. Do live tweets.

Live tweeting is another potential way to get a topic trending on Twitter. Essentially, live tweeting is when a user tweets their reactions to an event as it happens, whether it’s entertainment or breaking news.

Live tweeting most commonly occurs with TV shows and televised events. It’s not uncommon during events such as these to see the trends box filled with related topics. For example, during the Oscars, you might see the official awards show hashtag listed along with the names of celebrities and films that have just won major awards.

If you throw an event and want your attendees to live tweet about it, it’s a good idea to create your own hashtag for the event and share it with your attendees so they can spread and follow it.

When you’re live tweeting or using multiple tweets for the same topic, make them responses to the original tweet. This makes it easier for users to follow the entire conversation.

5. Host and participate in Twitter chats.

Another way to engage your followers or get a topic trending is to host a Twitter chat on a topic relevant to your brand or expertise. Twitter chats are straightforward, but they require a relatively large and active follower base to be successful.

A Twitter chat happens when several Twitter users discuss a specific topic simultaneously using a shared hashtag.

Usually, one Twitter user hosts a chat at a specific time, with prepared questions and discussion points. The host will tweet out the questions, often labeled “Q1” (or whatever number the question is), and participants will respond with “A1” and their thoughts.

Twitter chats usually last about an hour. They are a great way to show how active you are on social media and to engage your followers (and theirs).

6. Interact with influencers and customers.

It’s important to interact with the right people on Twitter. It’s always smart to engage with your customers to keep them happy and with potential customers to help them learn about your business. Perhaps you also want to focus on others, such as journalists or influencers whose specialties are relevant to your brand, and an easy way to do that is with Twitter lists.

“[Take] advantage of the Twitter list function to create groups of journalists who are friendly to your cause or potential customers, influencers, [and] industry-specific trade show attendees,” said Jason Myers, senior account executive at The Content Factory. “You can then filter out the noise of random follower tweets and target your engagement to those folks who are more likely to help you reach your social media marketing objectives.”

7. Advertise on Twitter.

Twitter is free to use, but if you’d like to pay to promote your account on the platform, you have plenty of advertising options.

• Promoted Tweets: These ads look just like regular tweets, except that they are labeled “promoted” at the bottom, and they appear in the regular Twitter feeds of users who might not be following you yet. Promoted Tweets are a way to increase engagement and expand your reach to a wider group of users beyond your follower base.
• Promoted Accounts: Promoted Accounts are designed to help brands become more discoverable and grow their numbers of followers. These ads are displayed in multiple locations on Twitter, including in the “who to follow” box on a user’s homepage, on the home Twitter feed, and in search results. Your Promoted Account ads target Twitter users whose interests are relevant to your brand, so you might gain followers who are actively engage with your content. All of the ads are labeled “promoted” just like Promoted Tweets so users can distinguish them from other content on their feeds.
• Promoted Trends: Promoted Trends appear at the top of the trending topics list in the trends box on Twitter. They, too, are clearly labeled as “promoted,” but otherwise, these ads look exactly like other trending topics, and users can interact with them in the same ways. While Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts target specific users, Promoted Trends are visible to all users during their promotion period, including on the Twitter mobile app. Promoted Trends are a good way to get people talking about your business with a specific hashtag.

In addition to these options, Twitter has a host of marketing tools to help you improve your campaigns.

• Twitter Amplify: Amplify allows you to share real-time television content (for example, videos of sports highlights) that you can integrate with your brand or sponsors. This can help you reach users besides your current followers by delivering content to targeted audiences.
• Promoted Video: While Amplify gives you the ability to share videos from TV programs and other broadcasts, Promoted Video opens up the possibilities even further, allowing you to use any kind of video and thus be more creative with your campaigns. Unlike embedded YouTube videos, Promoted Video content is hosted directly by Twitter and only available as a paid marketing tool.
• Mobile app promotion: If your brand has launched an app, whether it’s the cornerstone of your business or a complementary tool for your service, this is the tool for you. This option lets you target your desired audience on mobile devices to drive app downloads. You can create a custom image and app description for the ad and target users by location, gender, language, and mobile platform. For example, if your app is available only on iOS devices, you can target users who access Twitter from those devices. The tool also features a unique measurement system that shows you how your campaign is impacting your app installations, purchases and registrations.

Key takeaway: To increase your chances of success on Twitter, consider using and creating hashtags, sharing GIFs and other images, creating polls, handling customer issues privately over DM, and maybe even paying for advertising to increase your reach.

Verified accounts on Twitter

A blue checkmark next to a user’s display name indicates a verified account. This means that the social network considers the user to be a prominent brand or influential individual, and it confirms the user is who they say they are.

According to the site, an account may be verified if Twitter determines it to be of public interest. Typically, this includes accounts of public figures in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business and other areas of popular interest.

A verified Twitter user can lose their verified status if they change their handle or protect their tweets (i.e., make their tweets visible only to their followers). In these instances, Twitter will automatically review the user’s account to ensure it’s still eligible for verification. Consider this if you decide to rebrand.

In November 2017, Twitter suspended its verification process. Many users viewed it as an endorsement by Twitter and criticized the social media platform for verifying accounts of controversial people. However, in December 2020, Twitter announced that it was bringing back the verification process.

Key takeaway: The blue checkmark verifies to Twitter users that an account is the authentic profile of an influential brand or public figure. After being suspended in 2017, the verification program is back in 2022.