Strategic Factory Blog

As a Twitter user you may have participated in various brand’s campaigns. Perhaps your favorite clothing company ran a photo contest, or your favorite health blog did a countdown post, or maybe your favorite author hosted a Twitter party. Whichever campaign you’ve participated in, it probably helped you develop a deeper appreciation for the brand by making you even more engaged and exposed to their valuable offerings.

I’m sure you’d like to generate the same feelings within your audience by offering them valuable content through a Twitter campaign. Running a strategic Twitter campaign is the best way to increase brand engagement, gain more fans and eventually get more sales. There are several types of campaigns that your brand could implement, however, I’ve seen the most success with the following:

Countdown Tweets

Hosting a countdown on your Twitter profile is an intriguing way to keep your followers on the edge of their seats waiting for your juicy content. By hosting a countdown you command their attention and encourage them to linger on your newsfeed longer. If your content is fascinating this will make them come back for more.

To host a Twitter countdown campaign you will need to gather information on a compelling topic that is relative to your brand. Organize the information in chronological order and make number one the most surprising and shocking tidbit. Announce it via all of your social media profiles at least 24 hours ahead of time with a hook to attract followers.

An example of a hook could be:

Join us @ 3:00 pm for the Top 20 Ways to Get Clear Skin (#1 Is In Your Fridge Right Now! And No, It’s Not Water).

Once you’ve hooked your audience you should pre-schedule the tweets so that you don’t have to tweet them manually. Instead of worrying about tweeting them manually you can monitor any engagement that occurs and respond accordingly.

Always follow your countdown campaign with a call-to-action. The call-to-action could be a simple, “share these tips if they benefited you.”

Countdown Campaign Checklist:

• Create a countdown of 20-50 fun facts or tips
• Create a hook tweet
• Create a hashtag
• Market your countdown on your blog, mailing list and other social media platforms
• Encourage other leading influencers in your industry to repost/retweet
• Consider “sponsoring your tweet” on Twitter (a sponsored tweet is a tweet that you paid Twitter to promote)
• Schedule your countdown tweets
• Prepare to engage with your audience

Throw a Twitter Party

Similar to a countdown campaign, the goal of a Twitter party is to get your audience to engage with your brand. At a twitter party you are the curator and it is your job to start the conversation. Choose a topic that can keep your audience engaged for an hour. Ask them questions and retweet their responses. Remember to include a unique hashtag for the party that includes your brand’s name.

This is a great way to get hundreds, possibly thousands of eyes on your brand, thus boosting your Twitter follows, mailing list and even sales. Avoid selling anything at the party. Think about it, if you went to your friend’s birthday party to have a good time you would be offended if they tried to sell you something while you were celebrating. Instead of selling one of your amazing products, give something away! Yes, like a party favor. Let your guests walk away with a free sample, e-book or consultation. This is also a creative lead generation technique. Have your guest visit a landing page where there is an automated contact form that will send their gift. Honor your guest by ensuring that this is a valuable gift encouraging them to stay engaged with your brand.

Twitter Party Checklist:

• Select a date
• Choose a theme (build it around a holiday for greater traction, for example a New Year’s Resolutions Party)
• Create a catchy hashtag
• Market the party on all social media, mailing lists and your website as well as other third party sites
• Create a party favor (giveaway) and landing page
• Prepare a list of conversation starters and segue
• Respond to as many of the tweets that you can and retweet every engaging tweet

Twitter Contests

A contest is an excellent way to garner attention around your brand and engage your audience. There are many types of contests that you could promote on your Twitter account. You can run a Sweepstakes where you send users to a landing page to enter their email for a chance to win. Have the criteria be that they must retweet the contest to enter. Make it mandatory that they must follow you to be considered to win.

Another kind of contest that your brand could sponsor is a photo contest having users demonstrating your service or product in the picture. This is beneficial to your business because this creates user-generated content. This also promotes your current offerings. Be sure to include a hashtag for contestants to post and share.

Interactive contest are another great option. These are simple to host and you could do them often. An example of an interactive contest would be to post a daily or weekly question and whomever tweets back the correct answer will win a gift from your company. If you host the contest frequently your audience will be waiting on standby each time to participate, thus drawing more attention your brand.

Twitter Contest Checklist 

• Choose a date range (the contest should last more than a day so that you can get more engagement)
• Create content and the rules for your contest
• Create a hashtag for the contest
• Market the contest on all social media profiles
• Automate your contest to ensure that it is run on time

Running a Twitter campaign can be fun and rewarding for your organization. All it takes is strategy, creativity and a willingness to test the different variables.