Scan the list of the most followed accounts on Twitter and you’ll see a lot of famous musicians, politicians, and athletes. People love to be entertained, and in fact, 42% of Twitter users value the platform primarily for entertainment. But if you’ve written off Twitter as a useful channel for your marketing strategy, you might be making a big mistake. Twitter is for everyone, and brands play an important role in the Twitter experience. Several brands have accumulated over 10 million followers. Some smart and creative brands have adapted their strategy to be a provider of that entertainment that Twitter fans so enjoy. On top of that, Twitter is a great way for people to stay connected with the business brands they love. 

In fact, the vast size of social media platforms like Twitter makes them arguably the best opportunity for business growth available in today’s marketplace. Twitter has value for virtually any objective in your marketing plan, including increasing reach and awareness, nudging prospects further along the buying journey, converting leads into sales, building loyalty through customer support, and establishing thought leadership. 

Engagement is the key to a winning strategy

Too many marketers opt for a broadcast-style marketing approach with Twitter and other social media platforms. Create a clever content post, push it out to several social media channels, then head to the pub. The fundamental mistake here is treating highly interactive social media channels as if your brand is giving a speech from a podium rather than participating in a cocktail party. Get in there and mingle! The most valuable aspect of the tweets you share is the engagement and interaction they provoke from your audience. 

The best way to stimulate a good conversation is by being an active participant. The brands we’ve highlighted post great content AND readily engage with the Twitter community. They have shaped their Twitter marketing strategy around actively working to encourage Twitter engagement from their audiences.

Taking inspiration from the best brands on Twitter

The challenge with looking at powerhouse social media brands is how to make their success relevant to your marketing role and the success of your company. What can a marketer working for, say, a plastics distributor, learn and apply from a company like Skittles? Lots! While you may not have a longstanding, highly popular B2C brand to work with, we have extracted valuable Twitter practices that can be applied by any type of business. As Steve Jobs famously once said, “Creativity is just connecting things.”

We’ve compiled five Twitter case studies featuring the best Twitter accounts across multiple business sectors. Each offers some good branding practices that can be applied to your Twitter marketing strategy.

The top 5 brands on Twitter that every marketer can learn from

Our top 5 is made up of what we believe are the best Twitter accounts to follow in order to see marketing excellence put into action. A quick skim of these Twitter profiles might not dazzle you, but if you follow them over time you’ll see some consistent characteristics:

• Positivity: These brands leave an impression that is upbeat, positive, friendly, and fun
• Consistency: Each tweet and comment is reflective of an unwavering and unique brand voice
• Community: A we’re-in-this-together sense of people connecting with people, rather than employees of a corporation fulfilling their job duties
• Creativity: Approaching things differently in a way that captures people’s interest
• Recency: Being on the scene quickly when in relevant Twitter conversations

Best brands on Twitter #1: XBOX

Number of followers: 20.8 million

While your company’s Twitter audience might not have the enthusiasm of @Xbox’s community of gamers, there’s plenty that can be learned from their approach. Some companies make the mistake of only posting tweets related to their products, but Xbox shares a wide variety of content. Of course you will find product information and trailers for upcoming releases, but mixed among those are:

• Quick, community-focused quips, such as “how you play < that you play”
• Support for causes, such as Earth Day
• Behind-the-scenes interviews with game developers.

The Xbox Twitter community eats it up. As an example, a picture of a new gaming keyboard generated 1,033 comments, 645 retweets, 7,281 likes, and 1.8 million impressions. Without question, one of the factors in Xbox’s success on Twitter is the team’s active approach to engagement. They are quick to acknowledge fans and followers when the Xbox brand is mentioned on Twitter, adding their own words of thanks or encouragement.

Best brands on Twitter #2: Skittles

Number of followers: 658,300

Our second best-brand on Twitter, @Skittles, takes fun to a new level. Humour is embedded in every tweet and reply from the beloved candy brand. The team is highly active on Twitter, retweeting and replying to messages from their fans, all with a whimsical approach that is a welcome escape. Their tweets include clever memes that are highly shareable. By instilling a sense of fun into a brand that’s been in the market since 1974, Skittles keeps their brand relevant with generations old and new. 

The company’s power of community-building was evident in Twitter’s Best of Tweets challenge when they used the hashtag #RallyForTheRainbow to enlist voting support from all of their fans.

Best brands on Twitter #3: adidas Originals 

Number of followers: 4.2 million

adidas Originals first hit the market in 1972, and is another example of a company that leverages social media with mastery as it continues to redefine itself. @adidasoriginals is devoted to sneakerheads. The company enlists contributions from the creative community to help Adidas constantly reimagine adidas’ products and brand. They promote unique collectibles created by trending artists from around the world. They use contests to encourage their followers to participate. The adidas Originals Twitter feed mingles professional photographs of celebrities endorsing their products with amateur selfies from fans showing off their new kicks. 

The adidas Originals team tracks brand mentions and seems to reply to every tweet. Virtually everything the adidas Originals team does on Twitter feels participative and welcomes contributions from others. When you build this type of loyalty you can rely on product sales to follow naturally without any need for overly promotional sales campaigns.

Best brands on Twitter #4: Delta 

Number of followers: 1.6 million

You might think we chose @Delta for their popular customer support service on Twitter. The company has an active team of employees devoted to helping customers resolve travel-related issues. But the real reason Delta made our list is for how they use simple, text-based questions to ignite their Twitter fans’ wanderlust. They consistently engage and inspire their audience to dream about their next travel destination. Most often it’s done with a simple question, like “What’s your favorite souvenir from your travels?”. Other tweets are enhanced through images – when the airline added new destinations they tweeted photos and asked their Twitter followers to guess the locations. They expand reach through clever requests like asking followers to tag their favourite travel companion.

It’s social proof that a simple, low-budget approach can generate massive engagement on Twitter if the targeting is precise. You don’t need a huge creative budget for slick videos; you need to understand what your audience cares about and come up with clever ways to get them talking.

Best brands on Twitter #5: American Express

Number of followers: 858,900

As the stewards of the company’s social media channels, Marketers are often put in the tough position of trying to meet the demands of multiple stakeholders. Everyone – sales, product, philanthropy, investor relations, etc. – wants their story told on social media. If you can relate to this challenge, you might find inspiration from @American Express. The social media team clearly has a lot of stakeholder needs to address, and they balance these nicely on Twitter. The team tweets information on service alerts and outages, and directs Twitter users when they need support. American Express’ Twitter profile also has information on sponsorships, awards, fashion, travel trends, company history, and special events. Among all of these items the team also manages to tell the story of the company’s history, and promote employees. The content is consistent and well-curated, which creates an impression of order rather than a chaotic clutter of different goals and objectives.  

Lead your business to success on Twitter with SentiOne

The best brands on social media have one thing in common. They actively listen to their fans and followers and participate in conversations. With SentiOne you can automate the time-consuming task of monitoring activity on Twitter and other social media platforms. SentiOne Listen can scan for phrases related to your brand, product category, and competitors. SentiOne also provides a powerful layer of artificial intelligence to support your data-driven marketing strategy. For more information or to book a demo, visit SentiOne.