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October 5, 2020 Content Chat Recap: Best Practices For Building Relationships On Twitter

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The success of a company’s marketing activities can often come down to whether the brand has built strong relationships with its audience, meaning that even the flashiest campaign could fall flat if no one is listening. Social media channels are just one space to build relationships with a company’s audience, and Twitter especially has proven useful for brands and solopreneurs alike.

In this #ContentChat, we are joined by Masooma Memon (@InkandCopy), a freelance writer for SaaS and marketing brands, to discuss the best practices for building and nurturing relationships on Twitter. Read the full recap below, where we discuss why a company should invest in building relationships on Twitter, how brands can find their ideal audience on Twitter, the do’s and don’ts of DMs, and our top advice for how to build authentic relationships on social media.

Q1: Why should a company invest in building relationships with its audience on Twitter? What goals can doing so help accomplish?

Twitter can connect brands with their audience to build and reinforce relationships with greater ease than other channels. The key is to not solely focus on selling or blasting a message out—you build relationships by listening, responding, and interacting.

At a minimum, brands should monitor Twitter for any customer questions or complaints.

When brands use Twitter for relationship building, it often humanizes the brand, increases customer trust, and makes your audience more willing to share feedback or insights that help your company.

By building meaningful connections on Twitter, brands can achieve a range of business goals, including increased brand awareness, a boost to your site traffic, and (ideally) more or higher quality conversions and sales.

As with any channel you choose to invest in, though, first confirm that your audience is active on Twitter.

Q2: How do you find your ideal audience on Twitter? What tools can assist in this process?

Twitter has several built-in features that help you find your ideal audience. Start by searching hashtags relevant to your space, and explore the people that are most active on those hashtags. Twitter chats are another great way to find relevant people to connect with, and consider making lists to segment your audience types.

Expanding on Masooma’s advice above, B2B marketers can use LinkedIn to find relevant audience members on Twitter. This is done by searching for a target business on LinkedIn and reviewing their employees for potential fits.

Often, your Twitter momentum will build the more you follow and engage with other users (as long as they are a fit for your channel). Start by engaging with a few people that are a perfect fit for your team, and the site will start to recommend other relevant users. If you’re unsure where to start, consider reviewing your competitor’s followers (but do not simply follow them all and expect to win their business).

There are also plenty of tools to help. Check out the community recommendations below:

Q3: Once you’ve identified your audience, how do you reach out to them and start building a relationship without being intrusive or creepy?

Genuine engagement is the key to starting a relationship. Liking or retweeting their content is a great start, but it will only go so far—comment, quote tweet, and create original posts to share content from your audience.

Ensure that the person you’re trying to build a relationship with is using Twitter to discuss topics relevant to your company.

Add value in your engagements, and don’t focus on selling something. When sharing someone’s content, speak to why you found it valuable, ask questions, and show interest in their work.

To reiterate the above point: if your goal is to build a relationship, do not start by trying to make a sale. That means Twitter DMs pitching a sale is a no-go (and we’ll chat more about DMs in Q4).

Q4: What about DMs? What are the do’s and don’ts of DMing?

Do not cold DM someone trying to sell to them, even if they just connected with you.

If you just connected with someone and want to DM them to say “thanks for connecting,” Martin recommends you say it publicly (or not at all, as the best way to say thanks is to engage with the person).

DMs are appropriate when sharing relevant information or continuing a conversation that you do not want to be publicly available.

If you’ve started a conversation through Tweets that you want to continue in a person’s DMs, ask them if that is OK.

Remember that DMs are not email, and you should not spam someone with a multitude of messages between their responses.

Here are the key do’s and don’ts of Twitter DMs:

Q5: Let’s talk quantity versus quality. Is it worth it to spend money to reach a wider audience with your Tweets? Or do you recommend keeping things manageable, with the quality of your interactions leading to the right audience?

When deciding whether to pay to promote your tweets, first assess the goals of your channel and whether that sort of reach is needed. Without a plan or a purpose, paying to promote your tweets is a poor use of your budget.

Focus your efforts first on the quality of your connections (especially if you’re just getting started on Twitter), prioritizing engagement with your audience and increasing your reach through organic means.

Masooma recommends using lists to better understand the subsets of your audience and to ensure you’re giving each group an appropriate amount of attention.

Sponsoring Tweets can be a valuable use of your marketing budget if you understand who you need to reach and promote something relevant to their needs.

Larger campaigns may merit the use of sponsored posts, but, again, it will depend on your goals.

If you choose to promote your content, amplify the pieces that are already performing well and could be of interest to this new group you are targeting. If you pay to promote bad content, you will likely not achieve your intended results.

Q6: What mistakes do companies often make when trying to build relationships on Twitter?

One of the biggest mistakes brands make when trying to build relationships on Twitter is underestimating the time and resources it takes to build authentic relationships.

The community shared the other mistakes they’ve seen below. Some highlights include: copying other accounts instead of creating a unique brand voice and strategy, using too many hashtags, blasting out content without engaging with your audience, and posting the same content across all social channels.

Q7: What are your tips for building and nurturing relationships you’ve built on Twitter?

Check out the community tips below for building and nurturing relationships on Twitter, and comment with your additions.

About Alek Irvin

Alek Irvin is a content marketing professional with a rich history in social media management, executive thought leadership development, and media relations. As a consultant at Erika Heald Marketing Consulting, he creates human-focused content and thought leadership platforms that help brand leaders connect and engage with their communities. Alek has worked with a range of startups and Fortune 500 companies across the B2B technology and consumer spaces, including IBM, Dell Technologies, Hitch Works, Emtrain, Integrate, and Frameable. Connect with him on Twitter @AlekIrvin.

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