Try today for FREE TweetJumbo and boost your twitter! 
Most of the time, marketers follow an approach of targeting a mass audience through a single message. This one-to-many model is used by businesses and individuals to connect with their entire audience at the same time. Social media is no exception, including Twitter. Twitter is a platform where people come to share their fleeting opinions and learn about the events happening around them. However, Twitter has also proven to be one of the best places to market and promote businesses. In order to build a personal relationship with followers, the one-to-many approach will not work. Thus, using direct messages (DM) should be a part of your Twitter marketing strategy.
A tweet has an average lifespan of 18 minutes! Depending only upon tweeting about your products and services is not going to yield maximum results as your tweets will get lost in the stream in a very short period of time. Also, in order to build trust and create a connection between you and your followers, it is necessary to go the extra mile. When you use direct messages (DM), it makes your followers seen and noticed on a one-to-one level on Twitter.
What is a Twitter DM?
Typically, when you log in to Twitter, the first purpose is to start scrolling. Although behind the scenes, discussions take place away from the public eye. You, too, need to start doing the same! A DM can be used to start a one-on-one conversation with anyone who follows you on twitter. A DM can also be sent to people who don’t follow you, only if they have opted to receive direct messages from anyone on Twitter, or if you have messaged them previously.
Initially, just like the tweets, Twitter dm also had a character limit of 140 characters, (which are now 280 characters for tweets), but Twitter expanded this limit to 10,000 characters in 2015. Apart from text; images, videos, GIFs, and emojis can be sent through dm on Twitter.
How to use Twitter DM effectively as a brand?
While using Twitter for business, there are several times when it makes sense for brands and companies to send a DM. Sending DMs is a good way to establish stronger personal relations with followers. Also, sometimes, giving a public response to a tweet might not be an appropriate action. It can be used simply when you want to welcome a new follower or to take a follow up on some customer queries. Let’s see some of the ways in which you can use DM to boost your Twitter engagement.
1. Take conversations from public to private
Make sure that your Twitter message settings allow anyone to message you, whether they follow you or not. Go to the section of ‘Settings and Privacy’, and under the ‘Privacy and Safety’ tab, scroll down to the area of direct messages. Check the box saying ‘Recieve messages from anyone’. Now, when people want to approach you directly, they can do that anytime. They would not have to start a conversation below your tweet itself.
2. Provide customer support
Customers reach out to businesses on social mainly because of 3 reasons – to share their experience with the product/service, to ask a question related to product/service, or talk about their bad experience with a product/service. Many times, a customer will tag or mention your Twitter handle addressing an issue or message you directly about it.
When any user mentions your brand in a public tweet, it is advisable that you respond to it quickly and ask them to send a DM for further discussion. When other people see this, they’ll have an idea that you don’t let your customer’s issues go unresolved. Also, if a user is asking any question that you think might concern others too, you can directly answer it in the reply section.
3. Send targeted welcome DM on Twitter
The era of standardized and non-substance welcome messages ended years ago. In order to welcome your new Twitter followers and get your Dm well-received, you need to provide something valuable in the message. Beyond a simple ‘hello’ or ‘thank you for following’, find out what you can offer to your new followers. You can talk about any offers or welcome discounts, or let them know about how they can contact you in case of any queries.
4. Inform about new product launches
When your new product arrives in the market, you’d want to get the best out of your special moment. Utilize DM campaigns to focus on the relationship with influencers and ambassadors. Once you have identified your main Twitter influencers, start a discussion about their involvement with the product launch.
You can interact more in a DM as compared to a Tweet, plus with good flexibility and segmentation, you will regularly see response rates that beat emails. Recognize followers who are part of your core target audience and create a DM campaign to provide coupon codes for the product you are launching.
5. Competition and contests
Planning to run a contest on Twitter? DM is a fantastic way to get in contact with your followers and keep them updated about the progress of your Twitter competition. You can send messages to – inform them about their registration success, announce different levels of the contest, send deadlines, reveal the final result, and most importantly, thank them for participating in the contest!
Whenever you organize the next contest, you can invite all the previous participants again through direct messages. This is a great way of increasing the followers’ retention rate.
6. Use Twitter DM for lead generation
When a person follows you on Twitter, it is ideal to presume that they are interested in your brand and the products that you have to offer. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are ready to buy your product. Some brands warm-up future Twitter leads by inviting their followers to subscribe to their email list in order to access exclusive content. Twitter DM can be a special way to hit warm leads personally.
You may see people talking about products in your sector on Twitter, for instance. If you do, contact the person directly by sending a message. Providing them a solution would differentiate your brand from the other responses they get on their tweet or timeline.
7. Publishing news
Quick responses and welcome messages from Twitter give brands a whole universe of opportunities to connect with followers directly. You can let people know about the updates related to your industry that can be valuable for them. Provide them exclusive insights into what has not been covered by social media in general. This is a good way to hook them to your account.
8. Connect with influencers
If you wish to make your brand reach to new audiences, influencer marketing is a great tactic. On Instagram, it is quite easy to associate with influencers. However, it can be a convincing way to start a conversation with industry influencers on Twitter. Find out the influencers that belong to your niche. Then send them an eye-catching proposal to promote your brand on Twitter. They get hundreds of DMs every day, so don’t just approach them with a generic message.
When you send a message to an influencer, show them the mutual benefit associate with the potential partnership. Describe how your company blends into their realm of influence and why they should promote your brand in front of their audience.
9. Discuss about events
When people are on the move, Twitter is typically much more helpful when it comes to sharing information about events. This is because of the vast number of people interested in the conversation happening around it. Create an audience list of all the people that registered for your event and communicate with them on Twitter before and during the event through dm.
You can send important updates related to the event including reminders of registration deadlines, agenda, opportunities, changes, and information related to other participants. After the event is over, you can send a summary of the event flow, or an invitation or a discount to attend the next event! The possibilities are endless.
10. Use chatbots to enhance Twitter DM
Twitter users who come to your brand with a question or complaint about customer service may not always know what to expect while starting a DM. You can help guide discussions in a friendly way and make the experience more welcoming by using a Twitter bot. Automated messages make a superb first impression and also raise brand awareness. When your followers feel like they’re not just another face in the bunch, they’re more likely to connect with your brand and start a meaningful relationship.
To sum up,
There are many DM tactics that you can use on Twitter. You just need to find out the ones that fit your brand and implement them to produce astounding results. However, along with using DM to improve your social media marketing, you also need to work on increasing the engagement levels on your account. A lot of free twitter automation tools are available for this purpose. One such amazing tool is TweetJumbo.com, which will help you in boosting your Twitter engagement. Click here to check it out now for free!