Is your business using Twitter the right way?

A corporate brand’s public relations strategy can benefit considerably by using Twitter as it gives the business the ability to connect and interact with its customers on a regular basis. The clients can follow the business on Twitter and can send queries which can be answered by the company’s representative.

People around the world can read a business’ posts on Twitter, which gives Twitter a vaster scope than traditional forms of advertising. Not all businesses cater to customers on a global scale, but the way in which the Internet has opened doors to a global marketplace, a business can now reach potential new clients through Twitter.

Though many businesses in a variety of fields use social media, those that use it effectively develop a strong reputation as being cutting-edge. If used effectively as a public relations tool, Twitter can show the business in a positive light.

One of the key characteristics of any successful corporate house’s public relations strategy is the correct usage of social media. If a business is faced with a rumour about it, for instance, it can use Twitter to instantly substantiate or diffuse the rumour.

Twitter can be used for publicising news, blog posts, videos, basically, any kind of content. A lot of companies still only share their own content on Twitter.

It works well to retweet what other people have said about their own companies (or about a specific business house personally). Another excellent way of using twitter is to Live-tweet from events, using a hashtag that has been set up for the event, or creating one from scratch.

A very useful way to use twitter is to pitch a story with journalists on Twitter.

Also, a business house can create important lists on twitter and can make these lists public or private. Depending upon the nature of work, they can set up any number of lists to track what specific people/companies are saying.

One can also keep tabs on what specific groups of people – who are important to a business or organisation for a variety of reasons – are saying, and reply to them regularly to start building reputation that is so critical for any profession and business house. Today, this is better known as influencer engagement.

A business house needs to be very careful and must monitor the needs of target journalists & bloggers, since often they will field queries on Twitter. They must learn who could be potential community leaders and influencers for their specific field by keeping tabs on who regularly, and appropriately, participates in conversations around specific keywords/keyword phrases.

Twitter can play a vital role in the hard core PR profession. One can also use Twitter for PR by integrating photo-sharing via Instagram, tweeting out Pins from Pinterest, and so forth.

Here it is important to make it clear that the point is not to list all the various ways there are to promote content via Twitter; it is to go beyond in such a way that corporate houses can really see the benefits and start using a platform that has truly revolutionised how we communicate. A platform that can be easily used to make better, and mutually beneficial, connections with people for better business results.

Ritu Bararia

Founder at Little-joy Communications

Ritu is a Corporate Communications leader, Mentor, Author, Public Relations Evangelist, Thought leader, Advisor. She has nearly two decades of working experience having spearheaded Communications, PR and Corporate Affairs with corporate brands such as Kingfisher Airlines, The Park Hotels, Bird Group.

She quit her corporate career in the beginning of 2018 to try her hand at various related things within communications space. She turned into a published author in 2020 with her maiden book ‘Little Joys of Communication’.

Currently Ritu is Senior Director at SCoRe and, Executive Director Communicators Guild – India (CGI).