By Phoebe Eileen
When I made my first Twitter account back in 2009, I would never have imagined that the website could help grow brands and small businesses as it does today. Establishing a following is the key to drawing attention to your brand. However, the world of social media is incredibly fast-paced, with users who are quick to move on to the next new site to 'blow up.' Is it possible for small businesses to keep up? I reviewed both platforms and realized that we have been looking at this all wrong!
Is Twitter still relevant?
I remember visiting with family a few weeks ago and having an interesting discussion with my niece, Lizbeth on this topic. I’ve never known a high schooler quite as knowledgeable about what’s hot on social media as this bubbly, inquisitive girl is. She was curious about what platform I preferred, and genuinely laughed when I told her that I spend most of my time on Twitter. Imagine my surprise when this was her response,
"Eh, but Auntie, Twitter is for old people. Everyone else is on TikTok!"
Now, at 29 years of age, I know I'm not getting any younger, but her statement made me wonder if I was so behind the times that I had fallen out of touch with what was popular.
Social is the name of the game. It means that to keep up, you always want to be where the people are. And I had just received the news that most people weren't on my favorite platform anymore.
It got me thinking about what it means for businesses using Twitter in the rapidly changing social media landscape. Is the site still relevant for small businesses in the face of looming giants like TikTok?
Every platform is unique
While we refer to all of these websites collectively as social media, each of them works quite differently.
The creators of Twitter intended for it to be a microblogging platform when they launched it in 2006, a place where people could write, send, and receive the short messages, pictures, or videos that we call tweets. Following any user on the site allows you to see their tweets on your home feed, which you can like, retweet (which means to share to your followers), or reply to. Here you can follow accounts for small businesses, which can tweet as well! You need to create an account first before accessing the site, and your feed grows the more people you follow.
In comparison, TikTok is primarily a video-sharing platform, officially launched to the world in 2016. Users film and upload videos of themselves doing anything from dancing to performing skits, and their followers will react by liking, commenting, or sharing. As a video-based website, the application prides itself on its stellar customization tools. Open up the app, and a slew of videos immediately starts to play on screen, all before even creating an account!
Both of these platforms work differently, and for small businesses, this is a strong advantage!
How Twitter works for a small business
The beautiful thing about Twitter is that you do not always have to have a large following to succeed. It’s about connecting with people and engaging in discussions constantly. The goal is to build a community around your brand or make it a prominent part of an already built community. Here are some of the features that businesses exploit to make this happen.
The spread of hashtags
As the staple of Twitter's viral culture, a hashtag's true strength shines when it starts trending because it means many people are paying attention to such a specific topic. Businesses create their own hashtag to spread or join an already trending hashtag with a funny, quirky, or informative tweet. Red Bull's #PutACanOnIt hashtag fetched plenty of engagement for the brand in 2014, while the restaurant chain Denny's hopped on the successful #collegein5words hashtag, further popularizing their service.
The regular use of photos and videos
The famous saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words. I'm not sure what this means for a video (maybe it's worth more?), but well-captioned media can get people replying to or retweeting a business. Media can be creative promotional materials or content reporting on something related to your brand. Either way, people will always take a look when it pops up on their feed!
Retweeting and replying to trending tweets
Anytime I see a viral tweet, I cannot resist opening it up to see the replies or checking the quote tweets, which are retweets that allow users to add extra comments before sharing the tweets with their followers. This is true for many Twitter users. Imagine a well-placed reply or quote tweet from a brand's account that adds to the conversation and garners likes. It would be even better if it promotes the brand in the process. The goal is to get many people to see and interact with a business account's replies or retweets. Confection company Moonpie executed this perfectly and received plenty of engagement as a result!
Interacting with influencers on the platform to raise awareness
The best thing about influencers is that every single one of their tweets gets plenty of engagement. They have built a following, and working with them could send some of that attention your way. Businesses can craft a reply or quote tweet in response to a tweet they have made, referencing their product or service as a viable solution. A business can reach out to influencers in the DMs (direct messages) and see if they can collaborate. As an influencer attracts attention, so does a business by extension.
Using the analytics feature to monitor performance
I believe analytics are the best features of platforms like Twitter, especially for businesses in general. Twitter gives you data on the number of people your tweets reach, the demographics of your audience, their interests, and the trending topics that they would like. It also lets you track your follower growth and check the performance of your account each month. Armed with this information, any business can tailor its tweets to reach the people they want, firmly placing them on the pathway to the best possible engagement.
Embedding tweets on your website
People like to look at tweets, even outside of the app itself. I know this from the many screenshots of tweets I see posted on other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
Businesses take advantage of this and embed tweets on their official websites to improve each visiting user's experience! Embedding them in blogs and other posts adds to their exposure, helping increase a brand's following in the process. The best place to showcase your brand is on your website, and your tweets make for a great tie-in that merges the engagement with what you have to offer!
How TikTok works for a small business
With over 600 million active users each month, TikTok is the dream platform for any business to reach many potential customers.
The engagement rates for this platform are also very high. Users reply, like, and share posts more here than on most other social networks so awareness can spread rapidly. Here's how businesses utilize these advantages to grow.
Regularly making quality videos
TikTok is primarily a video-sharing platform, so the better the quality of a video is, the more people will like, share or reply to it. Consistency is important because regular posts keep your content on people's timelines. The chances of one of a brand's posts going viral are higher the more they post too. So more content is ultimately more attention for any business.
Launching challenges
One of the hallmarks of TikTok's culture is challenges. People replicate video themes in their own unique ways and spread them to create a trend. Remember the viral sea shanty challenge? Many people built on a simple tune to create a series of entertaining music videos. Businesses can launch branded challenges showcasing their products or services and let everyone just go crazy with their own creations, ultimately keeping the focus on the brand regardless of the content.
Collaborating with influencers
A popular figure in the TikTok community showcasing a brand regularly in their videos makes for great marketing. A great example was Chipotle's #ChipotleLidFlip challenge, which enlisted famous influencer David Dobkirk. It resulted in over 200 million views on all related videos of the challenge. Influencers attract attention to what they do, and small businesses can capitalize on it through collaborations with them!
Sharing user-generated content
As a small business, any mention of your brand on TikTok can be an opportunity to spread awareness. Sharing these posts yourself increases the number of people who see this content. User-generated content is more organic because people make them on their own, and businesses don't have to collaborate with them in any way aside from sharing.
So how does Twitter compare to TikTok?
Overall, these two platforms are not the same. Even though TikTok has more active users, Twitter is not too far behind at over 300 million users. Teens and young adults make up over 60% of TikTok's user-base, while on Twitter they only make up about 33%. That explains why Lizbeth said that everyone was on there. There are simply more young people actively using the network!
“The features you can use to help your small business grow differ depending on which site you choose. It can be tempting to jump on the next big social network as a marketing strategy; however, remembering who your target market is should always be your guiding principle.“
To conclude: Twitter is still very relevant.
So yes, I believe that Twitter continues to be more relevant for small businesses than it has ever been. My niece may have made a somewhat valid point about Twitter being for an older generation. However, this is only an age demographic difference, heavily influenced by general user preferences. It doesn't mean that Twitter is dead and forgotten by any means, just that the content offered on it is a bit different. As the generation that grew as the internet did, we continue to use older platforms like Twitter to grow our businesses and see its ever-strong potential, even if we are slowly becoming 'old people'.
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PHOEBE EILEEN
Phoebe is a bit of a nerd who likes to write about both current events and history. Her love for the written word inspires her years of experiences as she turns her thoughts into blog posts that she shares with the world. When she's not crafting her next write-up, she is relaxing with a good book or a quick videogame with her friends.
Find her online:
Medium: @phoebeabongo
Twitter: @leeniephoebe