Information about what’s working for businesses on Twitter
There are plenty of Twitter strategies out there.
Many focus on the types of tweets that should be sent, the manner in which you should engage with people, tools for making the Twitter experience easier and ways to market yourself appropriately.
Regardless of the strategy you use, a recent study from InboxQ puts social media activities into perspective for online businesses.
Here is some helpful insight from the “Twitter Q&A Census”, released on May 26th, 2011.
Reasons why you need to engage with your audience on Twitter:
Reason for Audience Engagement #1: Eighty percent (80%) of Twitter users worldwide believe that the answers given by businesses on Twitter are as trustworthy as the answers from individual people. This approval of content from businesses shows the potential for real communication with your audiences.
Reason for Audience Engagement #2: Fifty-nine percent (59%) of users surveyed expressed the desire to have businesses respond to them via Twitter. Over half of your audience wants to engage with you…it’s necessary to meet them on this desire, because it can lead to stronger relationships.
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Reason for Audience Engagement #3: Sixty-four percent (64%) of respondents said they were more likely to buy from brands that respond to them. This shows a great amount of customer loyalty as a relationship is respected between both the company and the customer.
Furthermore, nearly 60% of people surveyed mentioned being more likely to follow a brand that responds to their questions on Twitter. Again, here’s an instance of customer loyalty developing.
However, according to a recent article from eMarketer, many online brands are not taking advantage of this opportunity to communicate effectively with their audience as only “21% of Twitter users with under 100 followers and 41% of users with over 100 followers” have received responses from businesses.
My suggestion: Engage more. Engage all followers into a conversation; in addition to responding by using an @ or direct message, bringing the answer’s subject matter to the masses. Engage more people into the conversation. If one person had the question, isn’t it possible others had the same question?
