Let’s Converse
A two-way conversation on a social media platform like Twitter is a dialogue where brands listen and respond to the wants and needs of their audience. It’s not about selling but about building your brand equity. Answer questions, give useful information and share ideas even if they aren’t yours. Educate, inform and delight your audience and soon they will consider you a valuable member of their community. They will look to you for information, advice and an opinion and will repay you by learning more about your business (and buying from you).
How To Have Twitter Conversations
Here are some of the ways you can converse with people on Twitter:
Mention People
This is the best way to start a conversation. Mention a few people in your tweets to start a conversation. You can discuss a trending topic, ask a question, or just compliment them on their work! Once they reply and the thread starts, other people may also join in the conversation!
Here’s how @airtelindia did it:
Brownie points if you can link it to your marketing strategy!
A conversation between two great visionaries:
Listen and Converse
Listen and respond when you have a valuable input. Using Twitter’s advanced search option, you can listen to what other people are talking about and their conversations and jump in whenever you can! Use the neat filters to find the most relevant content.
At first glance, the options may be intimidating but play around a little, and you will get a hang of it. In addition, in the search results page, you can filter the results further.
Here are a few examples of nifty shortcuts you can use on the search bar directly:
Another way you can find noise about your relevant industry is by creating lists. A Twitter list allows you to separate the Twitter accounts you follow into groups. You can create lists of your competitors, influencers, professional organizations as well as current and prospective customers. This will help you to “listen” more effectively and gain valuable insights. Maintaining lists according to motives will also help you eliminate the clutter and make your Twitter-time more productive.
The lists @myntra maintains:
@myntra is also a part of nearly 380 lists!
Twitter Chats
Twitter chats are open, moderated conversations that use a relevant hashtag for a certain topic. For example, #blogchat, #paidmedia, #GST, etc. If you type a hashtag in the search bar, you can see the tweets of anyone using that hashtag. Having your own unique hashtag that other people can use also has many benefits such as increasing your brand equity, helping to crowdsource content, creating a community using live tweeting, etc.
Here’s how @RelianceMobile and @Flipkart did it:
Reliance used a generic (and probably trending) topic to increase visibility whereas Flipkart is trying to build equity using a hashtag unique to their brand – #FlipQuote
Use Buttons
Replying, Retweeting and Liking are also ways of engaging with your audience and letting them know of your presence. The original tweeter may also take notice of your presence and promote you later.
Let’s see a few examples:
Flipkart’s friendly and casual presence is winning them a lot of fans.
Almost every brand is handling customer service on Twitter these days.
Share Interesting & Useful Content
Lastly, another way to spark conversation is by tweeting content that other people would be interested in. They can reply, retweet and like your tweet and even become your follower!
@YESBANK talks about something a lot of people would be interested to read.
While this is brand promotion, fans of BMW would find such messages useful.
Did we miss out on any tip? Let us know in the comments below.
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