How to Use X (Twitter) to Market Your Small Business: 5 Tips

One of the best ways to reach your target audience and connect with future clients is through social media. However, in order to be effective on these platforms, you’ll need to tailor your writing to the specific social platform you’re using.

With a global user base of nearly 600 million people, X (Twitter) is one of the top social media platforms for online networking and marketing communications. Similar to LinkedIn and Facebook, you’ll find that it is a useful platform for connecting with your clients, colleagues, and future prospects.

With X’s 280-character limit for free accounts, crafting concise, impactful messages is essential. Follow these five tips to grow your audience and build meaningful connections.

1. Create a Personality

Take the time to get to know your target audience—their needs, interests, and sense of humor—and craft your writing accordingly. Whether you post as yourself or your consultancy, a consistent personality helps build stronger connections with followers. Use this tone to engage in ways that resonate and feel relatable to your audience.

2. Choose Your Words and Phrases Wisely

When composing a tweet, there are a few key elements that can help you craft the perfect message.

• First, ensure the words you choose are simple, easy-to-read, and interesting. Think action words rather nouns.
• Take advantage of hashtags. Messages with hashtags more engagement than those without. Hashtags can help provide context and expand your reach to people who are interested in what you’re talking about. Online tools such as Trendsmap or Hashtagify.me can help you find top hashtags related to your content. Just don’t overdo it—one or two is plenty.
• If applicable, end with a short call to action. Ask your followers a question, ask for a repost, or ask people to click on a link.

3. Post Relevant and Valuable Content

Avoid focusing solely on the content you’ve created—highlight the impact it has made. Instead, aim for a good mix of industry-related current events, shared content from other thought leaders, and your own content such as blog posts. Be sure to follow other industry experts and retweet and comment on what they are talking about.

4. Think Beyond Text

Sometimes X’s character limit simply isn’t enough to get your message across. But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Including links to images, videos, or websites in your posts increases engagement and makes your tweets more likely to be shared. However, a post that simply contains a link probably won’t gain much attention. The key is to write a creative message that acts as a teaser to capture the attention of your followers and then encourages them to click the link.

5. Engage with Your Followers

X encourages users to interact and directly communicate with the brands or businesses they follow. If your followers reach out to you with questions or comments, don’t hesitate to respond to their messages. Better yet, take the initiative yourself and respond to other messages posted by your followers. Chances are, they’ll appreciate the communication.