Social media is an essential tool that every business should be using these days. Each platform provides a method for free marketing and advertising when used effectively and a great way to promote your products, services and gain traffic to your website. With over 300 million users and 500 million monthly visitors without an account, Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms.
Having a business Twitter account should be a priority as part of every car dealership’s digital marketing strategy. That’s why we’ve put together this handy guide about how to create a Twitter account and successfully run it for your dealership. So, if you don’t yet have one then start at the beginning, or for those looking to run theirs more efficiently, simply skip the first two steps.
Open an account
It may seem simple, but there are a few important points to consider when it comes to your car dealership joining Twitter.
- Ensure you have signed out of a personal Twitter account before creating a new one
- Use your company’s name, a work email address and easy to remember password in the initial setup stages
You will then have to enter a username. Try to keep this as close to your dealership’s name as possible to make it easy for your audience to remember. At the same time make it concise, as users are limited to Tweeting only 140 characters at a time, so you don’t want them to waste 20 of them on an overlong name. Avoid dashes, underscores and other symbols if possible. Your intended username may already be taken though, so plan a few options in advance.
Edit your profile
Next you’ll need to complete the profile of your business Twitter account. This is the page most users will see first, so it’s important to upload a profile and cover image to catch their attention. It needs to fit in with the rest of your online branding, so maybe use the company logo and a photograph of your dealership as the profile and cover images respectively.
A background image can also be uploaded, but be careful as it needs to match your branding yet not distract users away from reading the tweets. Test it out first to ensure tweets are still easily readable. Provide a brief description of your dealership and ensure your business’ location and link to your website are included in the header too.
Build connections
Now your profile’s set up, it’s time to build and grow your Twitter audience. Begin by following individuals and companies that are related to your car dealership, from staff and customers to other local businesses. Hopefully they will return the favour and gradually build up your audience, which will lead to Twitter providing other suggested users to follow.
This can be done by manually searching or through scanning your email address book (which is much quicker). If you have other social media accounts or an email newsletter, include a link to your new Twitter profile and one from your website to help it grow too.
Tweet efficiently
It’s a good idea to post a few tweets before you begin following other accounts, so users can see that it is a genuine account. Five to ten should be good to start with, and from then on try and tweet at least twice a day, once in the morning and afternoon along with any retweets.
At first you will need to experiment with what you tweet to analyse what gains the most engagement. Generally, every Tweet needs to be informative and relatable to your target audience. Mix it up with a few funny tweets, some informative ones related to car news and a handful of promotional ones. Once you can see what is most effective, begin to plan tweets in advance. Create a weekly or monthly calendar for what you are going to tweet and when, from your business Twitter account.
Track traffic
A great way to discover what’s working and what isn’t is to track your Twitter traffic. The end goal from having an account is to increase sales, visibility and traffic to your website. Google Analytics is the most popular tool for tracking traffic, as it will provide data about your website including visits, social referrals, conversions and social networks sending traffic. You can then compare this data against that of other social media platforms you use to see what has the best effect and to influence your future tweets.
Follow these steps and it should be easy to create a Twitter account for your car dealership and ensure that this business Twitter account becomes a successful and useful tool for the future.
Image courtesy of iStock.
