How to Use Twitter Effectively

Twitter is a social networking site that is now heavily focused on delivering news to people online. On Twitter you will use short messages known as tweets in order to communicate with others on the platform. What makes Twitter standout from every other social media platform is that every time you post you will never be allowed to use more than 280 characters. If you think that’s short up until November 7th, 2017 Twitter only allowed use of 140 characters per tweet and still do in certain languages. The main reason for increasing the character limit was that it was hard to express a thought in languages like German that take a lot of characters to get a point across.

Twitter is a place where you can follow and read the tweets of brands, celebrities, friends, and other interesting people. Twitter tends to be much easier to follow a large amount of people since you’re only allowed to use 280 characters per post. Although tweet size is certainly reader friendly it can be difficult to formulate a thought using only 280 characters. Sometimes some serious creativity and effort needs to go into making a tweet that gets your point across but also stays within the 280-character limit. Even though these tweets have size restrictions you’re still able to share website links, videos, and pictures just like most other social media platforms. These tweet size restrictions may seem silly when you first hear about them and you may question why they exist at all. However, these small post sizes are wonderful when you take into consideration that we live in an attention deficit kind of world.  

On this social media platform, it is common for people to tweet frequently sometimes seconds after one tweet people will decide to post another. It’s a platform where people enjoy ranting about things like how bad their day was, how much their favorite sports team lets them down, how they feel about a certain politician and the many other things people tend to rant about. Twitter is also a lot of peoples go to spot to talk shit to celebrities. If you’re ever curious to see how extreme twitter can get, then I recommend going to president Trump’s twitter page and reading replies to his tweets. 

There tends to be a boat load of non-sense on twitter but if you follow the correct pages then you will be able to find tons of useful information and knowledgeable content. It’s also great for times when you’re not near a TV and something is on television that you want to know about. Simply touch the magnifying glass on the bottom of the app and search up a keyword related to the event you’re trying to get information on. Once you enter your search, you’ll be able to view the most popular tweets, the latest tweets, accounts, photos, and videos that are related to the keyword or keywords that you searched. It’s fantastic for when you just want to quickly catch up on what’s happening in the world.

Twitter can also be used as a very valuable marketing tool and one that can easily reach consumers if used correctly. There is a paid advertising method to Twitter that may not seem to perform well when compared to Instagram and Facebook but is still a phenomenal way to reach people with a message. Where twitter gets really valuable though is that it’s a place where people love to complain about literally everything. Every time someone complains about something on twitter is a chance for you to be able to bring that person some value. Especially since the search function is simple to navigate and effective. 

For example, let’s say that you own a tow truck and have a business centred around that truck. It can be quite difficult to find customers especially if the area you service has a lot of competition. Using twitter though there are several methods that can be used to gather people’s attention and make them aware of your service. You could start off by having a page that provides information about your service and what people can do when their vehicle breaks down. Let people know that it’s important to change their oil and give them other tips that may bring people value which will get them to follow your page. 

 You can find people involved with your area of expertise, but you can also get a good read on how people feel about things and what they want to change in the world. To get a better understanding about what people think search for phrases such as: I wish, I need to know, how can, how do you, what do I do, and similar things like that. A little bit of searching through Twitter can give you a whole lot of perspective on what’s happening in the world and what people want to happen. Try to keep positive and ensure you don’t let constant complaining on the internet drag your mood through the mud. 

Not only can you just create a page that positively reflects upon your product or service, but you can also directly reach people who may need what you offer. Let’s say your new page about your tow truck service isn’t generating much interest then maybe it’s time to switch to a more direct approach. You could literally search up something like “crappy cars” then offer people complaining about their crappy cars tips on how to deal with their situation. Also, if they’re in your area of service you could make them aware of your existence and ensure they know how to contact you in case they need a tow. You could even go to your competitions twitter page and see if anybody is complaining to them about receiving poor service. If there is, you can reply to said persons complaint and notify them that you run a service that brings people value and can be relied on. 

Twitter has what seems to be endless possibilities on how you can use it as an efficient tool. Another trend on Twitter right now is a giant rise in amateur journalism. The platform allows you to be able to reach massive amounts of people in a quick manner. Amateur journalists or just people who want to bring value and spread information in general are becoming more and more popular. This is largely due to the fact that the mainstream media is not trusted like they once were and tend to just glance over important issues. This was prevalent in the yellow vest protests that have been happening in France. The yellow vest protest is an example of an issue that people are interested in but can only find minimal coverage on mainstream media platforms. Luckily Twitter exists and allows people to find information from people who are actually there while it’s happening. It’s a situation that many people have been using Twitter to keep up with through the use of video, audio, picture and written content. 

Twitter even translates languages to your preferred language to ensure that we can be internationally connected with no worry of language barriers. This international connectivity is fantastic especially if you are selling a product that can be used anywhere on the planet. Tools like Twitter have connected us to the international community in an unprecedented way that we’ve never experienced before. This connectivity to all kinds of people far and wide is a gift to the world that should not be wasted.