Social Media and Marketing: Using Twitter for Construction Marketing

Twitter, a social media platform designed with the intention of becoming a universal SMS service for its users, has become a key marketing tool being employed by businesses across the world. In the last eight years, Twitter’s subscribed user count increased to over three hundred and thirty million, making it a critical place for businesses to meet and connect with potential customers.

As of January 2018, Twitter was boasting 336 million members. The average Tweeter posts new material up to five times every day. In one twenty-four-hour period that means that there is over half a million new Tweets being posted online. For construction marketers, using Twitter in a way that allows them to stand out in all of this noise is quickly becoming a key issue that companies need to address.

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The Life of A Tweet

With such a huge number of tweets being uploaded every day, hitting the keyboard in the right places and partnering the words with the appropriate hashtags is the key for getting your business noticed on Twitter. Your customers may be out there on Twitter themselves, hash-tagging away in the hope of finding the company who is able to meet their needs exactly. As a business, using Twitter for construction marketing purposes, getting your own tweets out there, at the optimal moment or the customer to find, is the key to success on this social platform.

But how long does the average tweet last? What is its lifespan in this crowded Twitter landscape?

According to Hubspot, the typical lifespan of a tweet is eighteen minutes, making it the shortest exposure time for content across any social media platform. The figure does vary from user to user depending on the number of followers they have and the rapidness with which they follow up each tweet but the average for most of the Twitter universe is just eighteen minutes.

With this statistic, we can understand that in eighteen minutes one tweet is typed, posted, viewed by the maximum amount of people that it is possible for it to be seen by before being lost in the Twitter universe where it is unlikely to reach the appropriate audience ever again.

For construction marketing then, this is important. Ensuring that the content of a tweet is in prime condition when it meets its audience is the secret to success when it comes to using Twitter for the purposes of construction marketing.

Character Building

In 2017, Twitter made a move to expand the amount of content that it would allow its users to post at any one time. This saw the length of a tweet increase from 140 characters to 280. It was rolled out across most of the platform, with the exception of a handful of languages which, as yet, Twitter has yet to include.

But does being able to post more content on Twitter mean that you should?

At 140 characters, the amount of words a business was able to use was very limited. For construction marketing - a phrase that is twenty-two characters on its own - finding the right way to reach your audience was a challenge that become a skill for many companies. It was important to exercise conciseness while also being detailed and accurate with what you told your audience.

Including links to websites or images were also a problem for the typical Twitter user in business. Characters were lost on these features and often whole ‘threads’ of tweets were built in order to tell a story to an audience.

Being concise was key. When telling a story, detail is critical to helping your audience understand you. Short story writers have to pick which details are the most necessary and then carry them over into the tale in as fewer words as possible without confusing the reader. This is exactly the same on Twitter.

In 140 characters a story must be told; who you are, what you do or a planning to do, how the audience can reach you and a link or an image to help them follow you back to your website. Do you offer consultancy? Are you specialists in lead nurturing? Telling the audience what you are about in such a short space of time is not easy, but it can be done.

When Twitter launched its new 280-character tweet, many users rejoiced. According to the BBC, hitting the new, larger limit has seen many users gaining ‘more followers, more engagement and more time on the site’. For construction marketers on Twitter, this is a positive sign. There is now a greater amount of space available to you for advertising yourself, your services and specialisms as well as being able to post images and links without fear of the entire space being taken away from your words.

This doesn’t mean, however, that maxing out the character limit is a good idea all of the time. Construction marketing is about bringing a specific message to your audience and it’s important that when tweeting you keep to that message as closely as possible. Remember; you only have eighteen minutes in which to be seen by your desired audience.

The Twitter Toolbox

Like many other social media platforms, Twitter encourages the use of hashtags within content in order for subjects to be grouped together as a appropriate so that audiences can pick and choose what content they want to see.

This is important for the construction marketing industry, as it means picking the right words at the right moment in order to be seen by the right people. There is no point finishing a tweet with #constructiongenius when your audience, the potential customer, is searching for the wholly more professional #constructionmarketing.  

Tweeting little and often is also key. The more content you produce, the more likely you are to get seen. The same HubSpot article that found the lifespan of a tweet to be eighteen minutes also suggested that a business on Twitter should be producing up to twenty two tweets every day! That is twenty-two times that you could be telling your potential prospects about your company. At eighteen minutes per tweet that is over six and half hours of your content being in the prime place for your audience to find it.

If you want to do more then just reach out to your audience, and want to make a more solid connection with them on this social platform, it’s also a good idea to follow as many people as you can. Twitter users like gaining new followers; social media is an online popularity contest and as a business, it’s important for customers to feel that you want their custom, as much as they want to give it to you.

If a potential customer follows you; follow them back. If you see people tweeting about needing a service or product that you supply; follow them. This is for direct contact to be made privately via Twitter’s direct messaging tool. Customers may wish to speak over the phone without having to pass their number to you on an open, public platform. A private exchange, begun by a simple following on Twitter, could be the first step to meeting a prospect and making a sale.

Twitter is a brilliant tool for construction marketing. It is a place to meet and connect with potential clients, to find out what people are searching for when looking for businesses to help them in the ways that you can, and to unleash regular, well-crafted content that will boost your online presence through regular updates and tweets. The increased character limit means tweets are more likely to lead to connections and follows and tweeting more often increased your chances of making the most of that eighteen-minute window of opportunity!

Keep up-to-date with Insynth's tweets by following us @insynthltd and find us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ 

How Insynth Can Help You

Is your Twitter campaign producing the results you want? Insynth’s social media service is designed to provide you with complete control over your brand image and messaging across social media platforms.  We will work with you to tailor a personalised social media presence, advising you in terms of:

• Social consultancy: developing your personalised social media strategy based on your marketing goals.
• Managing your brand: securing engaging usernames and profiles that match your campaigns to highlight your brand image.
• Social tone and nature: finding the right voice and style for your brand’s social media presence.
• Social media monitoring: Highlighting customers’ positive feedback across your social media channels and involving you in conversations.
• Social PPC: Implementing social ads to develop your social media presence.
• Social PR: Networking on social media platforms to expand your range of contacts, prospects and clients.
• Creative Discussion: Creating fast, reactive updates to spark conversations and visibility online.
• Reporting and Analytics: Analysing data to review the effectiveness of your social media strategy and activity on each platform, to inform future activities.
• Cross Channel Promotion: Ensuring that your messages reach audiences across all social media and marketing channels to expand your reach.

About Insynth

Insynth Marketing is a leading UK construction marketing consultancy based in Shifnal in the West Midlands.  Insynth employ the latest inbound marketing techniques to help building product manufacturers grow their businesses by aggressively driving sales lead generation activity. 

As the only HubSpot certified agency to major on construction marketing, we bring together digital strategy, website design, SEO, content marketing, email marketing, sales automation, marketing automation and CRM implementation to produce successful campaigns and great results for our clients.

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