5 Ways to Integrate Twitter Into Your Cross-Channel Marketing Campaigns

Your customers aren’t only on Twitter. They’re on Facebook in the evenings, watching TV while they get ready for work, reading the news on the subway and browsing forums in bed. In short: they can be anywhere, at any time. Is your message reaching them?

Twitter can be a powerful tool on its own to drive brand awareness, create a stellar reputation and even generate leads. However, it is also a powerful tool when used in combination with other channels, to reach your audience on their terms.

Here are 5 ideas for integrating Twitter into a cross-channel marketing campaign:

1. Learn about your audience

One aspect of Twitter that many marketers overlook is its ability to provide deep audience insights, that can fuel not only Twitter-based campaigns, but all aspects of a marketing strategy.

Because Twitter is an open, real-time network, you can tap into the behaviors, demographics, interests and more of your audience (or any audience you want to focus in on). Using third-party tools to gather and analyze this social data, you can develop a more targeted marketing campaign, from the landing pages you create to the magazine ad copy you write.

2. Connect with their favorite TV shows

Many TV watchers – especially those who just can’t get enough live and reality TV – will use their “second screen” (typically a tablet, their smartphone or a laptop) while watching their favorite shows. So why not use this knowledge to your advantage, and run a Twitter campaign?

If you know what TV shows or sports games your audience loves, try searching for their hashtags on Twitter. Then, while the show is broadcasting, you can tweet alongside your audience. You have the opportunity to tweet a related contest, show that you share the same interests as your audience, or just monitor how they engage with this TV show to inform future campaigns.

3. Run a contest

A Twitter contest is one thing, but a “social media contest” is a different beast altogether. Running a contest that spans Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other networks isn’t necessarily easy, but the results are often worth it.

Your audience probably has multiple touchpoints with your brand, in addition to Twitter. So if you are running a contest of any type, promote it across all of your marketing channels – social media as well as your blog, website and wherever else it makes sense. This will ensure that your audience sees the contest wherever they are online.

And if you’re able to collect responses from your audience across multiple channels, you’re likely to see better participation and positive word-of-mouth.

4. Promote a live event

Whether you’re hosting a live event or just attending, using Twitter while it’s happening is a great way to engage with your audience. However, you can also bake Twitter into a multi-channel live event strategy – tweeting behind-the-scenes images while you blog about key takeaways and post Instagram pictures of visitors to your booth, for instance.

5. Target better search and display ads

If part of your marketing strategy involves using ads to reach your audience, Twitter can help with that, too. You can learn about the type of content that resonates with your audience on Twitter by examining your past tweets on Twitter Analytics. From there, it’s simply a matter of mirroring the tone of voice, images and content in your search and display ads.

(Marketing team image via Shutterstock)

5 Ways to Integrate Twitter Into Your Cross-Channel Marketing Campaigns