In 2012 Twitter changed its platform by allowing expanded tweets to companies who would partner with them. Prior to this everyone and all businesses were restricted to 140 characters. This forced you to be more succinct with your posts and it kept things short. This also made it difficult to gain interest in your business. You could post a link, but without people knowing where it led, they were reluctant to click on it, out of fear it may lead to a virus or a site they didn’t want to go to. Before this, it was hard to use Twitter as an effective marketing tool for your business just because of the restrictions of the site.
At this time in 2012, Twitter partnered with a few websites initially, such as Breaking News, The Wall Street Journal, and TIME as well as 2,000 plus others in order to give them this added benefit of being better able to use Twitter for their business. They had additional tools that not everyone could have and it did a great deal for businesses by being able to have expanded tweets.
When a tweet has the capability of being expanded, this means that it will show a link preview, and images or allow you to play videos. This makes for a more interactive and quicker way to reach customers. This can be great for your business and your marketing strategy.
Why You Should Partner with Twitter:
- There are more than 320 million users of Twitter as of March 2016. Twitter has a great reach. 79 percent of these users are living outside of the U.S. and it is supported by 35 languages. If your business is looking to expand into other countries, getting on Twitter is imperative and a great marketing tool for your business.
- When someone sees your tweet, you can reel them in with additional content. By adding a video or preview, it’s more likely that someone will become interested in your business.
- You can reach people faster. Since the user doesn’t even have to click anything to learn more about you, they will be able to see your extra content immediately.
- Expanded tweets also have mobile support. Many people use their smartphones or iPhones for browsing the web and social media. Users are able to preview this content the same as if they were viewing it on a laptop or desktop.
- It will preview a link. If there is a story or a blog post about your company that you really want people to read, an expanded tweet will help gain interest. Your followers will be able to see part of the article, which will entice them to click on it to visit your site. They will already be invested as they will have read the beginning of the article. This will work much better than just having a link in your tweet. If people don’t know what it’s about or where the link leads, they won’t click on it. Getting people to your website is really what it’s all about because they are more likely to look at other areas and buy services or products.
- It will show a video. This is the same principle as the link preview but adds even more for the viewer. The video is another great tool to gain interest in your website and products or services. If your video is interesting to followers, they will stop to watch it and be interested in learning more about your company. They will think there will be other things of interest to them on your website. These are the kinds of people that will be more likely to purchase and come back to your website in the future.
- It will show images. This is another great way to entice people to be interested in your company. You can show a new product picture so people will click through to learn more. You could use a picture of your team volunteering or something else to show your company’s interest in the community.
- It’s a great marketing tool. Having the ability to show images, videos, and link previews will increase traffic to your website.
Using expanded tweets is invaluable to you and your business. It allows you to go past the 140-character limit and spark interest in your business in a variety of ways. We are a very visual society and anything that can add to the user’s experience is important to invest it. Posting content of interest to the customers you want to attract will help you become more successful in your business.
If you’re thinking that you don’t have enough time for any of this, but you’re intrigued by what social media marketing can do for your business, contact us today. We’d love to discuss with you how we can assist you with your company’s social media efforts without you having to take the focus off of growing your brand. Reach out today to get a free consultation.