Last week we discussed social media marketing strategies to help your business promote itself on Facebook without spending money on things like boosting your posts. In this week’s post, we’ll identify similar tips for free social media marketing on Twitter. These simple “hacks” can help your business drive site traffic, reach its target audience, and increase brand awareness – all for free!

First, What are Twitter Ads?

A promoted Tweet

Twitter ads are very similar to the Facebook ads that you’re probably familiar with in your newsfeed. Businesses will typically adopt a social media marketing strategy that focuses on driving awareness, engagement, or direct action from their audience, and they’ll choose an ad campaign tactic to match (such as the one at right, pulled from the Young Marketing Consulting Twitter feed.

While these ads will certainly get your message to the top of the tweetheap, they’re not the only way to succeed on Twitter.

Social Media Marketing Tip 1: Know when to tweet

Timing is everything in social media marketing. According to data provided by Kissmetrics, 6% of all retweets occur around 5:00 PM. Furthermore, while click-through rates are fairly steady throughout the week, Wednesday has the highest CTR. Now, it’s important to note that not every business is the same. You might run a business focused on weekend activities, and see your engagement spike on a Thursday night. For more business-focused content, you may see impressions at their highest early in the morning. The important thing is to experiment with different days and times throughout the week to find the optimal time for your business to Tweet. Consider where your business is located and who your target audience is (and when they use social media). You may find it helpful to use an analytics tool for your Twitter account. Hootsuite has an autoschedule tool which chooses a time for you based on when your tweets have performed best.

Source: Kissmetrics

Social Media Marketing Tip 2: Create relationships

Whether it’s in person or online, a good marketing strategy builds relationships in order to reach more consumers and increase brand awareness. To start creating meaningful relationships on Twitter, begin by finding your like-minded people. Search Twitter with relevant keywords and hashtags to identify influencers in your industry. These are people who have already established themselves and have a larger following. Additionally, check out who is following these influencers and add them to your list as well.

After you identify the right crowd, your next step is to engage. Twitter lists keep your followers organized so you can engage with different groups of people at different times. For example, your business could have lists of current customers, prospects, employees, etc. Reach out to people who aren’t familiar with your business by retweeting or starting a conversation with them. Monitor what your target audience is posting and post content that seems relevant to them. Ultimately, when it comes to Twitter, being social and creating conversations is your number one goal.

Social Media Marketing Tip 3: Create engaging tweets

This is arguably the easiest technique to increase your audiences’ engagement with your business. In 2014, Twitter analyzed over 2 million tweets to determine what type of content was retweeted the most. They found that photos averaged a 35% boost in retweets, while videos averaged 28%. The data also revealed that tweets which used quotes, used a number, and/or included hashtags had higher engagement levels. More recently, you can now tweet live broadcasts via Periscope. Viewers can further engage with your live session by typing comments. Whether it’s using graphics or tweeting a statistic, creating engaging tweets is a simple way to reach your social media marketing goals.

For higher engagement rates, tweet quotes as images

So there you have it, a few quick and easy ways to improve your social media marketing on Twitter, for free. If you’d like to talk more about how social media can help your business, why not contact Young Marketing Consulting today?