Social Media Business Personas Part 2 | Twitter, Business Humor and Dad Jokes, OH MY

When Twitter first came about, digital marketers worried about a potential massive shift away from Facebook. As the platform took form, we soon realized that Twitter would essentially just become another cog in the social media machine. We don’t mean to understate the necessity for many brands to have SOME sort of Twitter presence. However, we often find that the return on investment isn’t quite there...yet.

Here’s the lowdown:

Twitter currently has 313 Million active monthly users and counting. Sounds impressive, right? What if we told you that only 24% of those users are adults living in the United States.
We can’t speak for international brands but for us, this is a huge deterrent. Social media marketing in general offers a TON of tools/methods of targeting people and getting a good bang for your buck. But at least here at DSB Creative, we’re not in the business of wasting a ton of our time trying to target a mere 24% of social users.

When you really take a look at the data, using Twitter for traditional marketing purposes doesn’t really make sense. Sprout social reported in 2017 survey of United States senior ad buyers that, “Twitter ranked last as a the platform to drive ROI”. Sick burn. In addition, multiple studies have shown that users generally only keep the ‘ole bird around in order to keep up with and engage with breaking news/events.

We could give you a million data points on twitter users and audiences but let's cut to what you really want to know. ‍

What the hell do I need Twitter for? ‍

The best answer is… it depends. As a general rule, we tend to see that B2C brands have more success on Twitter. That’s not to say that B2B brands can’t find success as well...it just might be trickier.

We’ve seen brands pumping out humor, retweets and GIFs with little to no actual marketing content. We’ve also seen the platform used solely as a means of responding to customer service requests. We’re personally partial to the funny stuff. You know, the tom foolery, shenanigans, riff-raff. What works for you will depend on your business and of course you’ll always need to work to:

A good example of a Twitter business page with a solid professional tone would be JetBlue. Though they are a B2C business, they don’t lean on humor to get their customer engagement going. JetBlue is extremely vigilant and have a solid reputation of firing back quick and helpful answers to customer inquiries:

Though they do pump out a little bit of social marketing content (such as cheap flights, special offers, etc.) most of their tweets are centered on responding to customer needs. This has worked well for them over the years and often leads to positive reviews. ‍

Other brands find wild success in utilizing humor. A prime example is B2C brand, Taco Bell. Everyone loves a good joke and the nature of Twitter (mindless scrolling) lends itself to this kind of tweeting. It also helps customers to feel like they have a personal relationship with a brand when they are retweeted or receive a direct reply:

The Twitter tool belt: ‍

• ‍Twitter live and live tweeting: If your brand hosts or gets involved with a ton of local events/charities, Twitter would be an awesome way to get people involved. Users often live tweet from large events and report their experiences in real time (hello, free advertisement). ‍
• Twitter Ads: Twitter responded with their own version of ads soon after Facebook rolled out Ads Manager. You can find all kinds of training videos/articles online but long story short, it is a means of gaining new followers, subscribers or website traffic (depending on your goal). Again, we do not personally use this feature but it has proven effective for some larger B2B brands we’ve spoken to. ‍
• Hashtags: Last but certainly not least, there’s always the good ‘ole hashtag. Effective hashtags can strike up conversations and guide them in a way that benefits your brand immensely. The best part about them is they can be as silly, serious or catchy as you like. As long as it gets the customer talking, it’s a win win.Another huge benefit of using hashtags is that it makes it easy for all of your customers to follow along with and contribute to whatever conversation you’re wanting them to have. ‍
• Charmin is a classic example
• of using both humor and hashtags to guide customer conversation. You might be surprised how much people are willing to talk about their bathroom experiences. If you haven’t already seen their thread on the hashtag #tweetfromtheseat, do yourself a favor.

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All in all, Twitter could be a beautiful addition to your business’ social media presence. How you go about utilizing the platform is completely up to you. There’s no shame in testing the water with humor, live tweets, questions for clients, etc. Any form of success is based in trial and error.

For tips on getting your Twitter business page set up, click here.

NOW GET OUT THERE AND GET TO TWEETING!