How can marketers use Twitter for business?

Twitter is a great social media platform for marketers. As younger people are moving away From Facebook and to Twitter, businesses would do well to focus their marketing energies here - if the 18-27 age demographic is their target audience.Some of the ways marketers can use Twitter for business and include sharing links (there's 86% more engagement on posts that include links); posting images relevant to their objective (there's 200% more engagement on posts using images!); responding to customers promptly with good customer support, and of course contests are always popular and a good way to increase engagement and build conversations.

Nike has done a great job at using Twitter to respond to customer concerns about all of their products. They've created a separate Twitter handle @NikeSupport which makes it easy for customers to contact them about any problems they are having. They respond promptly and publicly to customer issues, which is key to good customer service and building relationships. They will also admit when there's an issue with one of their products and let customers know they're working on the problem and what they can expect. This builds trust, another good marketing technique.

Etsy is a good example of a company looking to drive customers back to their site and build customer loyalty. They post often and include images and antidotes from their shops, as well as occasional contests. They tweet links to different shops on their sites, and have encouraged those with Etsy shops to tweet links to certain products. 

Zappos is a good example of a company with great customer service taking full advantage of Twitter. They encourage all of their employees to tweet. They use a lot of product images in their tweets and have conversations with their customers on Twitter.

One company that is doing a good over all job using Twitter is Dove. Their key messages are that they are a company that wants to help all women realize their beauty potential. Their voice is positive, encouraging, fun and engaging. They ask questions, inviting responses, have contests, post coupons and links, post positive quotes, ask people to retweet them, and post images of their products. They respond to posts about their company in a positive, prompt way. I think they are engaging and building brand loyalty.They have a variety of products, and do use YouTube videos, They do use Vine now, for videos like this one below, but I think they could do a little better. 
At the very least, post more videos.  They do have a lot of products, so I think that lends them to a lot of unique marketing opportunities.Follow Dove on Twitter, and see what I'm talking about.

Other companies using Twitter well for marketing include Starbucks, The Home Depot, Whole Foods Market,  Ford Motor Company, H&R Block, JetBlue, and there have also been some marketing snafus on Twitter, such as Kenneth Cole's tweet about Syria, and Urban Outfitters inappropriate tweet about hurricane Sandy.

It's important to remember that Twitter, like most social media marketing platforms, is changing. The companies who were on top of the list for best social media marketers five years ago may not even be on the list now. The marketers who keep up with and adapt to the rapidly changing tools will come out on top. It's best to remember the field is wide open. This is a great time to be in marketing and embrace the latest tools available.

Questions or comments? Did I miss some great marketing on Twitter? Please let me know in the comments section down below!