Black Friday is coming and, according to recent research, Twitter is the number one social media platform to draw customers to your website if you’re looking to make sales during the Christmas online bonanza.
According to a recent study, commissioned by Twitter, its users love Christmas shopping (81% of Twitter users vs. 56% of non-users said so) and begin shopping earlier with more one third making Christmas purchases prior to October. Most importantly in the run up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, more than half of the Twitter users surveyed said that seeing a product on Twitter made them more likely to buy it. The survey also found that 52% of users bought products that they had first learnt about through Twitter and that more than half of the surveyed users checked Twitter whilst shopping at retail stores.
So, how do you make the most of Twitter to promote your website this Christmas?
Here are three “battlefield tested” techniques that we’d recommend trying out.
1. Make sure you are measuring your Return on Investment.
Social media marketing can sometimes feel like you are shouting into a void. If your tweets attract a dearth of responses or retweets, this doesn’t mean they are necessarily worthless. Make sure your analytics are configured properly so that you can isolate traffic, and conversions, that are referred from Twitter and other social platforms.
2. Use images and video
Twitter’s own research indicates that tweets with images and video receive double the engagement of pure-text tweets.
Experiment with different types of images to see which attract the most attention from your target audience. Remember that some types of content might be ideal to generate retweets whilst another type might perform best for sales. Keep track of how each tweet performs to ensure you’re delivering the right type of content.
3. Time your tweets
The timing of a tweet is crucial. Recent research has shown that afternoon tweets have significantly higher click-through rates than tweets sent in the morning. Tweets sent before 8am are great for generating web traffic during the pre-work commute, whilst tweets between 5 and 6pm can be best for producing sales. Remember that people use Twitter on the weekends as well, so schedule some tweets for Saturday and Sunday.
Have you got a great Twitter tip? Share it with us on Twitter!
