Growing your network using Twitter is necessary to widen your audience and position yourself as an expert on a subject. Earlier this year, we showed you how to use Twitter widgets to curate content. We now take a deep dive into the Twitter widgets feature and show you 14 innovative ways to use this simple widget to build your network and meet your marketing and business goals.
Why should you check this out? Customizing Twitter widgets lets you showcase your fans, highlight testimonials or praise people are heaping on your brand, portray what industry experts are saying, follow what your competition is up to, entertain users with the latest trending tweets, educate visitors about a certain topic, broadcast what’s hot in your city and so on and so forth. Only your imagination is the limit here!
Try out these 14 innovative ways to use the Twitter widgets feature on your website. And let us know which one works best for you.
1. Display your Twitter timeline
Perhaps the simplest application of this widget, embedding your Twitter timeline on your website shows your Twitter activity and invites visitors to follow you on Twitter.
2. Display an Influencer’s Twitter timeline
Displaying an influencer’s timeline provides extra value to your visitors and gives them quality information on a certain topic. For example, I would choose @jeffbullas for great content on Blogging and @marismith for the best Facebook advice.
3. Display a Company, Product or Breaking News
You provide a lot of value on your blog to educate customers. Why not mix in some entertainment or other interests? Add a news stream from your favorite news service, could be CNN, Fox or AP. Or @mashable. Or you can add the tweet stream of any product your typical visitor will find useful, for example, WordPress.
4. Share Curated Content in terms of posts you like
The Favorites widget highlights tweets Favorited by any user. You will need to have a strategy in place here and use it for a specific purpose. You can Favorite high quality posts on various topics that will be valuable to your customers and display them via this widget.
5. Highlight any praise you get
Favorite all praise, thanks and love you receive on Twitter and display this on your website. This is just like having Testimonials. This will also act as social proof for your brand and let any new visitors know how valued you are as a person or brand.
6. Bookmark to read later
You come across many eye catching tweets and interesting posts while skimming through your Tweet stream. But you don’t always have time to actually read through all of them or respond to them. Just favorite them and read them later. This is one way to use Twitter widgets for yourself and will act like a ‘Follow Up’ flag or browser bookmark.
7. Share the love – Highlight new fans
Favorite one tweet from every new follower, and create a widget of these favorites. This will have manifold advantages. You get to know something about every new follower. Your follower is happy because you have taken time to read what they say. And the widget highlights their profile, making it visible to your site’s visitors – a fabulous networking opportunity for everyone involved. Any Twitter user will want to be featured in this way, and they will scramble to join your network.
8. Follow who the leaders follow
You already follow a bunch of well known influencers. But who do they follow? I am sure everyone wants to know what makes the bigwigs tick. Create a widget of tweets favorited by Mark Zuckerberg. You will find out whose content he likes, what he likes etc. This might be some fun trivia for your visitors, but will also provide you with great suggestions for increasing your network.
9. Shadow your competition
Want to know what your staunch business rival is up to? Who doesn’t? Creating a widget from their favorites can provide some insight into what brands they are following or engaging with. Some valuable intel for your business, don’t you think. Of course, you can keep this widget private. You don’t have to display this on your website.
10. Follow a particular industry, subject or area of interest
Twitter widgets allow you to select any of your lists as input for your widget. This is where your Lists strategy will pay off. Choose a topic related list you have, say social media, or top Twitterati. All of their updates will be seen in your widget. This will provide your customers with a one stop source to learn about a particular topic.
Create separate widgets for separate topics and display them on respective pages, so that your visitors get relevant information. They will thank you for this, believe me.
11. Showcase your customers
Create a list of your customers, and then create a widget for this list. This will display tweets from all your customers, just a small way you can say continuing thanks for their business. You earn some brownie points when people find them via your website. Or tell them you recommended them. Just one way to pay it forward, or give back something to your customers.
12. Add local flavor
Are you a local business? Or maybe you’re just a blogger writing about anything that interests you. Be a mascot for your city or country. Include tweets that contain #yourcity and display these in a widget. Local visitors will relate to you, and others will learn something more about your city. Treat it as just an additional element to keep visitors engaged on your website, or provide conversation topics to break the ice.
13. Follow the Trends
Pick any trending hashtags and create a widget from it. Since trending hashtags indicate the current hot topic of interest, chances are people will like to read something about them. The recent #RoyalBaby was a good example. The Olympics, Wimbeldon or elections might be another.
14. Answer your customer’s questions
What is the number one concern of your customers? Or their typical doubts or questions. You can create complex queries for the search feature and create a Twitter widget. For example, if your target is small businesses or solopreneurs, show them how to get SBA backed loans. You can create multiple such widgets and display them on relevant pages.
I think you have a general idea of how you can use the various options in the Twitter Widgets feature to your advantage. Pick a few of the above, or come up with your own unique idea. Whatever it is, let us know what you came up with and share where you have used it on your website.