Why Every Business Needs a Twitter Presence

Online business is a huge component of the global economy. In many respects, online commerce is just as impactful as traditional commerce in the physical world. Countless billions are spent annually on goods and services via the internet, leading many businesses incapable of resisting the temptation to reach out to consumers in a variety of ways. Through e-commerce websites, online portfolios, email marketing, blogs and social media, many businesses are having a huge impact on their bottom lines.

One particular area of note is social media, where billions are being earned through a variety of organic and paid strategies. While Facebook often gets much attention in this regard, Twitter is just as powerful at driving consumer decisions in the global marketplace. Here’s what you need to know about having a business presence on Twitter.

Drive Traffic to Your Website

The more platforms that your business has to reach people, the more traffic your business will receive. While having an excellent website is crucial to online business success, you will likely fall short of your goals if you do not diversify your marketing efforts. An active Twitter account is a great way to network with like-minded individuals and share content among niche audiences. Whether you want to promote a product, sell a service or hype an upcoming event, Twitter can be used to guide that traffic to your website in meaningful ways. Once-small businesses like Sun Bingo built their businesses on the back of social media traffic, appealing to an initially small group of people who visited and then shared their websites with their followers.

Boost SEO Potential

Every time you use Twitter, you create some form of content associated with your business’ name. This can be good for a number of reasons, including brand recognition and reach. However, another area in which Twitter can help you is with search engine optimisation. Simply put, SEO is what helps ensure that your business’ website ranks well in search engine results. If you are adept with Twitter and use a variety of common keywords and phrases in your tweets, then search engines will gradually begin to detect this. An association will begin to develop between your brand and those words, thereby improving your ranking in search engine queries associated with those words. While there are other, more powerful ways to boost SEO, the use of Twitter generates social signals that can improve business visibility in both search and social media.

Build Relationships

Twitter provides a certain level of intimacy that is lacking on many other social media networks. With Twitter, businesses have a unique ability to interact with followers and cultivate brand loyalty in ways that are just not possible elsewhere. Especially when used in conjunction with Twitter marketing strategies, your interaction with followers can help improve the number of retweets you generate, increase the number of visits to your website and grow your follower base. Additionally, your followers can be easily followed and researched on a one-on-one basis, helping you to discern valuable market and consumer-level data about the people who are most likely to find value in your business’ products and services.

Retarget Visitors

In a world where every little bit of data about your audience can improve your sales, it’s no wonder more businesses are using Twitter. Remarketing to people who have visited your website or Twitter profile is easier than ever before, thanks to conversion tracking options available to users. This can be used to track who has visited your Twitter page – or your website – for the purposes of showing them specific ads in the future. Since those who have visited or interacted with your business in some way are far more likely to respond to marketing efforts, this can help save businesses time and money.

Better Customer Service

Businesses are made or broken on the shores of customer service. Word of mouth can destroy an otherwise great business if customer service is consistently awful. Where Twitter can help is that it allows for immediate and public responses to criticisms or problems. Not only will you collect valuable information about potential problems with your business, but you’ll be able to demonstrate value to the customer and the public by responding in a prompt, friendly and helpful way.

Negate the Competition’s Advantage

As if all of these benefits weren’t enough to convince you to begin using Twitter today, here’s one more consideration: your competition is likely already doing so. Whether you’re a local business or a multinational e-commerce brand, there will always be competition attempting to unseat you and take your business. If you cede any corner of the internet to your competitors, then you will lose valuable customers. By being active on Twitter, you prevent the competition from gaining ground in one more medium.

Twitter provides businesses with a powerful platform to shape the narrative surrounding their offerings. It can be used to increase visibility, target customers more effectively, provide better customer service and so much more. There are many other reasons any business should be using Twitter, but these important reasons are the main points to consider when evaluating the business benefits of social media.