What ratio of offers should I provide on Twitter compared with general content?

What ratio of offers/sales should I offer on Twitter compared with general content I put out there? I want to engage users on Twitter but I also want to get the message about my business out there.

This is a great question – out of all the queries our clients have when we first help them come up with social media strategies, this is one that concerns them the most.

The issue is that business owners want to capture attention without negating their brand – no one wants to look like they have to give things away.

However, as we all know, consumers like offers and sales. Without doubt, this is the easiest way to gain a following – although if you do it too much, you will tarnish yourself with the “cheap” tag.

So what should you do? Firstly, don’t expect the ideal ratio to jump out at you on day one. It will take time to see exactly what your customers respond to and it will depend on your target market and key demographics.

Within the first couple of weeks test the water with one key offer. If you can, make this an offer based on “sharing” socially – therefore in this instance, those that retweet will automatically be entered into the draw.

This should hopefully help you gain more of a mass following in the early days. After this, promote the success of the competition and try to get feedback from the winner.

This is great content as it makes your campaign look successful and promotes your customers as being satisfied. At this stage mix in company news and generate awareness of your brand in general.

Also, be aware that tweeting is designed to be instant and will only really be seen in the feeds of those online at a similar time.

On top of this, try not to think of it as a ratio – more an effort to tie your online promotion into your general marketing campaigns.

The actual figures depend more on how frequently you envision yourself tweeting rather than your budget for competitions.

For example – you may tweet 10 times a day, run a promotion across one month and mention it once every day.

This would be a ratio of 10%. Another person may run the same promotion, tweet twice a day and mention the promotion once also.

Their ration would be 50/50. However, because you tweet more frequently, you will get a higher interest rate even though the ratio is less.

In the instance of Twitter, it’s more a case of using your content to your advantage, which means saying the right thing, to the right people, at the right time.

Remember that engagement isn’t all about offers, it can be about having conversations with your customers or simply sharing news and creating discussions around subjects that would interest them.

In summary, you must establish an idea of your target market, align your Twitter offers with your overall marketing campaign, try to run offers over extended periods of time with other information mixed in too, run competitions on a “share” basis in the early days, post-competition content to generate interest and remember that sometimes speaking about upcoming “offers” can generate just as much interest as the offer itself.

And don’t think of it as a ration game, more a game of unique engaging and targeted content, offer or non-offer.