As a standalone entity, Twitter is a powerful tool which allows companies to listen to what people are saying about them and actively engage with their community. However, the advantages of using Twitter shouldn’t stop when you leave the Twitter website. By breaking out of the isolation of the Twitter website and extending your Twitter presence to an existing website or blog, you can begin to see some of the lesser acknowledged advantages of an active social media profile.
The real benefits of integrating Twitter onto your website don’t come from just having a link to your Twitter profile on your website. The link does show people that you do have a social media presence but unless they click on a link, it doesn’t show them what you are really about. Below are some of the reasons you should make your latest tweets visible on your website:
1) It shows that you are real
Seeing an active Twitter stream will help give visitors to your website the comfort that there are real people behind your website. Proving your legitimacy is often a make-or-break problem for online businesses. If a visitor is not 100% sure that they can pick up the phone and talk to a real person, then it is unlikely that they will convert from a visitor to a customer.
There are many ways in which you can try communicate to the user that there are real people behind a website – you can make the phone numbers clearly visible on the home page, you can use live chat features and you can write an extensive ‘Meet the team’ section. A live Twitter stream with real conversations between real people, is just another tool to help you immediately signal to the visitor that the website and company are real.
2) It will help keep your website updated
It is often very difficult for businesses to keep their website constantly updated with new content. Nowadays, a lot of websites incorporate blog functionality to allow companies to make sure that there is always something new on the home page. However, writing blog posts and news articles can be time consuming and tedious. Keeping new content flowing on a website is important as it shows a visitor to your site that you are still active and more importantly, that you are up-to-date with the latest industry news.
Twitter updates provide you with the ability to quickly and easily publish content to your website on a regular basis. However, it is important to note that tweets are not a substitute for blogging – 140 characters is not enough space to adequately discuss a topic and provide in-depth analysis (proving your expertise).
3) You’ll get good quality followers
Showing your latest tweets on your website makes it easy for visitors to evaluate the quality of your tweets and decide whether they would like to follow you or not. It is often the case that the people who follow you via your website will be your most engaging followers because they have an interest in your business or industry. These followers are therefore more likely to read your tweets, engage with you and syndicate your content for you. Followers who are interested in what you have to say will prove to be much more useful to you and your community than those who follow you because of things like ‘follow our CEO to win’ competitions.
4) People can see that you are knowledgeable
If you tweet about your opinions on the latest industry happening or you tweet back to your followers with advice relating to your business then visitors to your website will begin to see that you are knowledgeable about topics surrounding your business and industry.
5) Visitors will see that you engage with your community
Finally, people visiting your website will see that you have a community or that you are trying to build a community around your brand. They will be able to see that you take care of them by answering their questions, listening to their complaints and thanking them for their compliments. Companies often assume that their Twitter profile is only there to accommodate people who are already on Twitter but the truth is that the tweets on your website can bring new users to Twitter itself. As the Twitter network grows, your community will grow with it.
A professional Twitter profile can be used as a powerful tool when it is integrated into your website – your tweets accentuate the existing content on your website and it will show visitors that you are knowledgeable, community-focused and real.
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Great article Sachin. I think we’re only beginning to see the power of tools like twitter. For me, twitter is a great way to connect with those that may have previously been “untouchable”/”unreachable”. As understanding, communities and social media evolves we’ll be using these tools more effectively.
Hey Clint – I couldn’t agree more. There is huge potential for using social media to make a brand more human. I also look forward to seeing how companies find new ways of incorporating their communities into their business processes – whether it is to boost their credibility or to tap into their community’s knowledge.
Comment
Social media tools are very handy to establish yourself as a knowledge leader or expert, and posting items that are genuinely useful and valuable to your target audience will help establish and then build credibility, and loyalty, as people return again and again.
Great insights and ‘motivations’ in this posting – thanks Sachin.
If this is so valuable, and I think it is, where is the Twitter follow button on HeavyChef? I want to point people to your site and the great work/insights that are cooked up but I can’t click a share on Twitter icon.
Just to clarify…I get the Share button on the bottom of postings, but is there a reason in your thinking that there isn’t the obvious ‘t’ button on the site?
I am in the process of creating my website, This article definitely made me realize how important it is to include the Social media tools to create awareness of your website’s online presence.
Thanks Sachin for the Valuable Information
Hey Gary,
The reason we went for the share button instead of the Twitter button is because the functionality it gives us. Not only can posts be shared on Twitter but also Facebook, StumbleUpon and whole lot of other social networks. It’s important to remember that although Twitter is the focus of this article, there are a number of other tools people like to use.
It might be an interesting experiment for us to try out though – do you think the number of people sharing our articles on Twitter and Facebook would increase if we had stand-alone buttons for each?
Hi Sachin
Thanks for the response. I’m certainly no expert on this issue. The share button option is definitely a great option because of the different social media sites people utilise. My thought was that people may want the option of receiving tweets from the site generally as well as having the option to share specific articles with their own followers. I.e. The Heavy Chef site itself has a Twitter follow button, say next to the RSS one on the homepage making it easier for people to sign up to notifications.
Happy experimenting.
@Gary – I see what you mean and I agree. We’ll look into getting a ‘Follow us on Twitter’ button put on the site