Using Twitter when catering to tots

While Twitter has arguably declined in popularity in the public mindset in recent years, it remains a strong digital platform. Twitter boasts 288 million monthly active users and 500 million tweets sent per day. In 2014, the percentage of online adults using Twitter increased by a statistically significant amount. Also in 2014, female internet users on Twitter increased to 21%, and users aged 18-49 represented an overwhelming majority of Twitter users. Clearly, adults, particularly females in parenting stages of life, are still using Twitter. How can child product companies utilize the platform to reach their customers?

Twitter offers several content marketing suggestions for brands. Key principles include:

• Use the 80/20 principle. Only 20% of your tweets should be sales messages like promotions. Focus on interacting with followers. It's about what they want to talk about - not what you want to sell. 
• Be personable. An overly formal tone, even for a corporate account, isn't fitting for Twitter. Be sure to use a unique voice and always consider entertainment value. 
• Establish a regular cadence.

Twitter also offers a sample Tweet calendar which should be altered to the size and needs of each company.

• Monday: Promotions
• Tuesday: Behind the scenes
• Wednesday: Helpful tips
• Thursday: Customer spotlight
• Friday: Feature industry experts or news
• Saturday: Community or industry spotlights
• Sunday: Employee spotlight

These general tips are easily applied to a child product company. Following several industry leaders on Twitter, I've complied a few specific tips. 

• Image centric posts are best. I am much more motivated to look at a post with an in-feed image than click on a tiny url.

Toys 'R' Us does a great job providing engaging, visually appealing content.

• If using Twitter for customer service, be sure to disperse entertaining posts amidst your string of answers (apologetic and kind, of course) to customer complaints or questions. You don't want consumers to only associate your brand with negative complaints. 

After considerable scrolling through Fisher-Price complaints, I finally reached a piece of content, published 3 days ago.

• Cadence, cadence, cadence. 

Bright Starts' last tweet was more than a month ago, and there is similar cadence between January and February. However, the company tweeted almost daily during the December holiday season. Yes, the holidays are a time for increased advertising, but Twitter is about regular engagement with followers, not just during a time of increased spending on toys.