What Twitter Moments Means for Small Businesses

A little more than one year ago, Twitter announced a new feature: Moments. At that time, the new feature was to be curated by a team at Twitter, as well as some big-name partners such as Entertainment Weekly, Fox News, NASA and BuzzFeed.

Then, a little over two months ago, Twitter opened up the Moments feature to a broader group of creators including influencers, partners and brands. At the same time, they announced that Moments would soon be open to everyone.

On Sept. 28, Twitter made Moments available to everyone. But what exactly are Twitter Moments and how can they benefit small businesses like yours? This article will show you how to create your own Moments and use them to engage your customers.

What are Twitter Moments?

Moments are collections of tweets connected by a common subject matter. Let’s say, for example, that you create your own Moment about the vegan pizza you offer. The new feature then collects content from everyone tweeting about your vegan pizza. The tweets are then displayed like a story within the Moment you created.

Hundreds of millions of tweets are produced every day. It can be hard to keep up with all that information. Moments provides better discovery of tweets on any topic you create. Now you don’t have to go out and find everything, nor will you be overwhelmed by a stream of tweets that aren’t relevant to you. You can cut through all the extra stuff and get right to tweets that are most relevant.

Some of the best Moments may even be eligible to be featured on the Moments tab within Twitter’s main navigation. That means that your Moments have the possibility of gaining even more exposure.

How to create a Twitter Moment

Creating your own moment takes just four easy steps and can be done in a matter of minutes.

• Tap the Moments tab in your profile: Since its release to all Twitter users, the Moments tab appears in the horizontal list of information (Tweets, Following, Followers, Likes, etc.) next to your profile picture. When you tap the Moments tab, a Create a Moment option will appear on the right side of your screen under the Edit Profile button.

• Tap Create new Moment: Tapping the “Create new Moment” button will open the Moment creator tool, where you will have the option to further customize your Moment. You’ll be prompted to add a title, description and even a cover image for your Moment.

• Create a title and description: Keep your title short. And when writing a description, make sure it gives readers enough information so that they know what to expect from your Moment. Your cover art can be uploaded from your own images or taken directly from Twitter photos, videos or tweets themselves.

• Add your favorite tweets: Content for your Moment can be pulled from a variety of sources:

1. You can pick tweets from specific users.
2. You can locate tweets using the Twitter search function.
3. You can add tweets you’ve liked.
4. You can add tweets using the tweet’s link.

When you’ve added all the content you want, just tap Publish and your Moment will go live.

How small business can use Twitter Moments

Twitter Moments are a great way to engage customers on social media. Among the many things it does, Twitter Moments allows you to tell a story about your brand and focus on topics that are relevant to your target market.

Allure recently created its own Twitter Moment to show readers what it’s like to be editor in chief of its magazine.

Product Hunt also created its own Moment highlighting Snapchat’s new Spectacles and its cool circular video.

Here are three more ways to put Twitter Moments to use.

• Show off your menu for the day: Twitter Moments are a great way to highlight your menu. You can include short videos of the dishes being prepared, along with images of the finished product. Couple that with a short video tour of your restaurant and you’ve got an engaging Moment. You can also use Twitter Moments to announce your daily specials. You can talk about the ingredients, show pictures and videos of the dish and even include customer feedback after they’ve tried it.
• Highlight your awesome staff: Twitter Moments are a great way to highlight your staff individually or as a group. Have an employee of the month? Profile them in a Twitter Moment. Did an employee recently go above and beyond in the service to one of your customers? Tell the story using Twitter Moments. That gets your name and your exceptional service out into the world for all to see. It also is a great way to keep your employees engaged and excited about the work they are doing.
• Curate news that is relevant to your customers: Creating a Twitter Moment that incorporates news about your business and your customer’s interests is a great way to stay at the top of mind. First think about the topics that are important to your customers. Then create a Moment about those topics, find the best tweets about that topic and include them in your Moment.

Using Twitter Moments for your business

Twitter is an easy way to reach and engage your customers. Twitter Moments makes it even easier by offering you the ability to collect all relevant information on a subject in one place. Using Twitter Moments is also much easier than creating the content from scratch. So get creative with your marketing and use Twitter Moments to engage your customers like never before.

Helgi Hermannsson is the CEO of software company Gangverk and shift-scheduling software platform Sling.

from SocialTimes http://ift.tt/2eOIVZl
via IFTTT