Friday 26 October 2012

Trick or Tweet? Waseem Saddique Marketing Services offers some top tips for using Twitter effectively for your business this Halloween.


Social Media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook and many others, have revolutionised the way in which businesses approach online marketing. In this article Birmingham based, internet marketing consultant, Waseem Saddique, unveils some of the techniques that will increase the impact of promoting your business via Twitter this Halloween.

Evidence from marketing studies suggest that consumer interest in businesses is greatly increased during seasonal occasions such as Christmas, Halloween, Easter, Valentine’s day and so on. In the age of Social Media, companies have recognised that, increased online marketing activity through resources such as Twitter enables them to attract the attention of consumers on a massive scale during these ‘festive’ periods.

Waseem Saddique comments: “There are a number of techniques that will enable your business to increase your audience reach this Halloween. Often the issue is that many businesses are just completely unaware of some of the features that Social Media platforms, such as Twitter, possess and how these features can be utilised to raise the profile of a business above that of competitors.”  

Some top tips

Learn to use Twitter as a search tool – Many businesses do not perceive Twitter to be a search tool, however, utilising the ‘advanced search feature’ on Twitter can greatly increase the impact of online marketing as it allows companies to track top trending topics, monitor competitor activity, connect with specific target audiences and widen the scope of people that a social media campaign can reach.

Maximise hash tag usage – The Twitter hash tag provides a simple way for people to identify tweets that follow a common thread. For business purposes, hash tags allow companies to raise brand awareness and to create ‘audience communities’ that share an interest in particular subjects. In this case, if a business was to hash tag ‘#Halloween’ any company referencing Halloween within a posted tweet, would reach an audience interested in the topic of Halloween.

Post regularly – As with all Social Media platforms, the need to post regularly is paramount. The more regular the tweets, the more regular the interaction, which in turn protects the longevity of your brand appearing on Twitter.

Condense your campaign – One of the benefits of Twitter is that it ‘forces’ businesses to say less in order to have a greater impact. Twitter posts are restricted by a maximum character count, which means that creativity in what is posted is a must. A ‘less is more’ approach needs to be adopted when it comes to internet marketing via Twitter.

Waseem Saddique advises: “Learn to scale back your content, identify the key words you want to get across to your audience and make your Tweet persuasive, give the consumer a reason to engage and interact with a Tweet. ‘Festive’ seasons, such as Halloween, certainly present an ideal opportunity to generate topical debate.”   

The benefits

It is worth noting that Twitter has over 100 million active users with an average 250 million Tweets posted on a daily basis. Furthermore, 50% of active Twitter users sign in daily. Therefore, becoming familiar with some of the advanced features that Twitter has to offer, could prove to be the difference in running an effective Social Media campaign this Halloween.