The newly introduced Twitter Dashboard aims to provide helpful tools and improved analytics for business users, all for free. While Twitter ads and analytics have been around for a while, the Dashboard offers new features that assist with audience engagement and monitor key metrics.
Dashboard's objective is to help businesses broaden brand awareness and increase follower engagement. Through its three primary features, small businesses are able to segment their audience, provide top-notch customer service, and tailor content for their target audience.
Here's an overview of Dashboard's key elements and benefits
1. Social Listening
Understanding what's being said about your business - be it your product, customer service, or overall customer experience - is key to continual improvement. With the Twitter Dashboard, you can create a customized list of mentions and other Tweets that reference your business. With this streamlined feed, you can view all of your interactions in one place, and respond to your customers in a timely manner - no longer do you need to toggle between "All" and "Mentions" in your Notifications bar. This heightens the level of customer service and provides a simple way to engage your followers in a friendly way. It also enables you to keep a finger on the pulse of current social conversations and chime in when the time is right.
Additionally, you can set up keywords in your "About You" filter to monitor broader social conversations than those which include a direct mention of your business. This provides greater insight into trending topics and mentions of your business that may not have been tagged correctly. This filter gives you the chance to engage with potential customers, partake in an industry conversation, or reply to an inquiry that didn't make it to your direct feed.
Image courtesy of the Twitter blog
Both of these listening tools give small businesses a better understanding of their audiences as well as insights into industry conversation. They also afford small business managers more opportunities to respond and converse with their consumers and followers.
We all know customer experience is quickly overshadowing customer service, so prompt, human responses to comments and questions are highly valued in the social world.
2. Schedule Your Tweets
No longer do you have to tweet in the moment, as you can schedule your tweets within the Dashboard.
The scheduling function is a welcome addition to the platform, especially for solopreneurs. You can save an incredible amount of time by queueing up tweets for a day, or even a week.
Image courtesy of the Twitter blog
If your business is only on Twitter, this is a welcome change to its previous format. However, if you post content to multiple accounts each day, you may want to stick with a tool that lets you schedule social media posts across platforms.
3. Suggested Content and Enhanced Analytics
Last, but certainly not least, the Twitter Dashboard includes an in-depth performance review of your Twitter account, as well as suggestions for relevant conversations and inspirational content when you're feeling stuck. There are actual recommendations to encourage specific types of posts, which is amazing.
Image courtesy of the Twitter blog
Beyond the fun, but engaging suggestions, the new analytics feature adds dimension to a business's Twitter presence and provides insight into how to best participate on this social platform. The Dashboard still includes the traditional Twitter Analytics data, such as the number of times you've tweeted, your media tweets, and replies. However, the critical difference in the Dashboard is that it shows the number of mentions and profile visits that are generated through Twitter. These data points indicate how healthy your social media presence is and how your social endeavors are impacting brand awareness and reach.
The improved analytics also show tweet-specific metrics. It reveals a comprehensive view of each tweet, showcasing the number of impressions, replies, retweets, and likes for every post. This data should be used to inform what types and kinds of content resonate best with your followers. It offers detailed audience insights and demographics in an easily understandable way.
Image courtesy of Social Media Examiner
With this data, you can craft an editorial calendar that's tailored for your specific audience. Reviewing individual tweet metrics saves countless hours of brainstorming content ideas because it's informed by actual data. Deliver the most valuable and useful posts to your followers by digging into your metrics.
Interested in setting up your Twitter Dashboard today? Go to dashboard.twitter.com and in a few minutes, your Dashboard will be up and running. Make sure you set up terms, keywords, and hashtags so the Dashboard captures all pertinent tweets about your business. Once the Dashboard is activated, you can dive into your analytics and build out relevant content for your tweets. From there, start scheduling your tweets, so you can move on to other facets of your business.
Social media is an ever-expanding component of small business marketing strategy. Understanding how each platform impacts your small business is important for making the most of your time and efforts.