Technology Twitter Agencies

How agencies can improve their Twitter presence

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By Alison Ralph, Senior account manager

The Future Factory

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The Drum Network article

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May 17, 2018 | 17 min read

Let's be honest, the average agency Twitter page is pale and stale. More often than not, the timelines lack colour and creativity and the copy just doesn’t hit the right note, leaving a lot to be desired.

90% of twitter users don't call out fake news

Are agencies getting the most out of their Twitter presence?

With ever-increasing competition in the agency market, it’s important that you utilise all touchpoints to build your brand and create an outstanding impression.

We’ve trawled through many an agency Twitter, noting what we love and admire from the best of the best, to bring you a set of simple steps to up your Twitter game. Here are our top tips to help elevate your agency Twitter to success. You can thank us later.

Find your voice

Tone of voice is important. Why? Because every agency is the same! Same services, similar work, similar clients – your tone-of-voice is a chance to stand out from the crowd.

We had a hoot going through R/GA and Lucky Generals' Twitter. These agencies are a prime example of how to master your Twitter by creating an engaging and witty tone-of-voice which remains consistent and true. They’re witty with their insight. Entertaining in their observations. Honest but funny in their opinions. Twitter is only bland if you are.

We recommend checking out their timeline for some inspiration and a kick in the right direction. It’s a barrel of laughs which shows their creativity and leaves a great lasting impression.

A consistent aesthethic

When we say aesthetic, we’re sure your mind goes straight to Instagram, not Twitter. Don’t fret, we’re not saying you have to pick out a complex colour scheme that your lunch, dog, mother and postman fit with. It can be as simple as ensuring your bio, cover photo and profile photo are all in line with each other and, crucially, represent you.

Mother are a great example of creating an aesthetic and sticking to it. Keeping their profile and cover photo in line with the Mother branding alongside keeping their timeline neat, organised and aesthetically pleasing. Nearly all tweets have an instantly recognisable image, gif or crafted infographic tagged helping break up each tweet and implement the all important tone of voice connected to the agency.

Let's talk about me

Repeat after me: Twitter is free. So when it comes to shouting about yourself, Twitter is the place to be. Twitter is your agency’s mouth piece and should work as a rolling news stream of everything good going on in your business.

If you’ve recently won an account, taken on some new employees, won an award, released some new work - Twitter is the place to broadcast this. Don’t rely on recent press releases to get you the coverage you need. Plus, from a new business perspective, nothing looks better than an active agency with a lot going on.

Social Chain and UsTwo are brilliant examples of utilising Twitter to showcase and promote what’s happening in their agency. Don’t shy away from talking about yourself and being proud of what you’re creating for the world.

We’ve also included another sneaky tweet by Lucky Generals (gosh they’re good). Purely for the comic use of #WorldSleepDay to promote their work with client Nytol.

Create campaigns

You might find yourself posting a bunch of tweets that have a common theme or purpose… and BAM! Congrats, you've created a campaign!

Campaigns are great because they are instantly recognisable for your followers and the perfect way to showcase your creativity. It doesn’t matter what your agency specialises in – everyone appreciates creativity.

It’s important to have a strategic plan in place to ensure maximum impact. A good place to start is to plan 3-4 campaigns a year at most, and run them for at least 2-3 weeks.

A couple of examples that caught our attention: let’s start with Digitas UK’s campaign to promote this year’s Digital Pride, an evening exploring the benefits (and drawbacks) of the online world for LGBT+ people. Tying their signature unicorn to the theme of the event, they came up with clearly recognisable branding and a hashtag (#DigitalPride). The result? The hashtag was used in almost 1k tweets!

Our fave Christmas campaign this year came from Taylor Herring and their #memebaubles. They decorated the office Christmas tree with their favourite media moments from 2017, including gems like:

and

Simple and effective. What’s not to like?

Interaction in action

You know what they say, people buy from people. Besides having a personable, human tone-of-voice, it's always a good shout to interact with other Twitter accounts; it'll give both current and prospective clients a good idea of your agency's personality and general vibes.

That definitely includes your members of staff, especially senior ones, if they're also active on Twitter. More interaction = more visibility. Speaking of visibility, we’re all about that #pluglife. So hit us up with a tweet or two (no more thanks, we’ve got jobs to do).

The only caveat to this is to not overdo it; you don't want to be that annoying Twitter account clogging everyone’s feed with irrelevant ramblings and pointless retweets.

Staying relevant

Tying in from our last point, if you've got some brilliant minds in your agency (which you definitely will) with a unique opinion or point of view about a certain topic, why not take advantage of it?

Regardless of what Michael Gove says, people do want to listen to experts – otherwise they wouldn't be looking to work with an agency in the first place.

Just be mindful of not giving away all your deepest darkest secrets to the point where the client wouldn't need you at all – but let’s be honest, that’s quite hard to do with a 250 character limit.

SocialChain do this very well, not only on Twitter but across all their social channels, including dark social. The result? People engage with their content organically, boosting the agency’s reach and engagement rates.

Spotlight on culture

On average we spend a stunning 1,920 hours at work each year, which means the environment that you work in is hugely important. Fortunately the agency environment is (usually) creative by nature, and so most agencies have a great culture already in place. Unfortunately this isn’t being showcased. Sad!

Beside clients, culture is the main differentiator between agencies and can be a key factor in attracting new talent and retaining current staff. If you’re looking for inspiration on how to do this, TunaFish Media is a great example of utilising Twitter to showcase their unique culture.

Hopefully these top tips will help you take your Twitter game from Ed Balls (back in the day) to Kanye West (circa 5 weeks ago). We hope you enjoyed this six pack of truth.

Special thanks to Isabel Medrano, senior account manager, for her help in authoring this article.

Alison Ralph is a senior account manager at The Future Factory

The Future Factory will be running a workshop on How Agencies Can Utilise Social Media on Wednesday 23 May. You can find out more here.

Technology Twitter Agencies

Content by The Drum Network member:

The Future Factory

With a mix of lead generation, board level consultancy and coaching, we help to make the future more predictable for agency Owners, Founder and Directors. www.thefuturefactory.co.uk

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