Everything Content Marketing (2026)

23/08/2018

💡 Tips & Tools for Detecting Fake Followers on Instagram by Caroline Forsey:

In 2017, businesses acquired an average $7.65 ROI for every dollar spent on influencer marketing. Nowadays, influencer marketing is an indisputably viable marketing method.

However, it can be tricky to know who to trust when you're choosing an Instagram influencer for your next marketing campaign. You don't want to use an influencer who doesn't have real followers or a fully engaged audience. This would be a detriment to your marketing budget, but even worse, it could put your brand's integrity at risk.

Fortunately, there are some quick and easy methods to determine whether an account has fake followers on Instagram. Once you've collected a list of potential influencers for your next Instagram marketing campaign, take a look at some of our tips and tools for detecting fake followers or bots, so you can ensure you're only working with the best.

Instagram Bot

In the last few years, it has become popular practice for some people to buy bots to increase their followers on social media accounts -- in January 2018, The New York Times published "The Follower Factory," to highlight this shady tactic. Essentially, someone will buy a bot, and the bot will like and comment on posts with a specific hashtag, or follow people with the hope that those people will then follow them back.

You don't want to pay an influencer if she uses a bot to collect followers. A bot might increase her follower count, but her audience probably isn't truly engaged or authentic. Plus, using an insincere influencer could throw your business's integrity into question.

To figure out if an Instagram account uses a bot, consider these five tips:

Take a look at the account's comments on other people's posts. If the comments are repeatedly generic, i.e. "Pretty pic", its a sign there's a bot behind the profile.

Check if the account has tons of followers, but terrible content. Trust your judgment -- if your influencer has 10,000 followers but only uploads below-average posts, her followers might not be legitimate.

See if after you follow the account, they unfollow you. If you follow your influencer but then she unfollows you, it could be a bot, cleaning up her follow-to-follower ratio.

Be wary if they follow you again after you don't follow them back. A bot is programmed to repeatedly follow and unfollow you, until you return the favor.

Consider them a bot if they follow thousands of accounts, but only have a few followers in return. If the ratio seems way off, its likely a bot.

Ultimately, using your judgment is the best way to determine whether an account uses a bot. If the account takes actions you can't necessarily justify, its likely because it's not a human behind the screen.

Instagram Audit

There are a few different Instagram auditing tools out there to quickly scan your influencer's account, and provide statistics regarding their authenticity and engagement score (i.e. how often their audience actually comments or likes a post). Let's take a look at three now.

1. IG Audit

Price: Free

IG Audit has a nondescript user interface, but it does the trick -- for public accounts, that is. Most influencers already have a public account, in which case, you simply enter their username into IG Audit's search box and they'll provide you with an estimated real to fake follower ratio. Built by a former NASA Scientist, the tool randomly scans 200 followers -- based on those followers, it gives the Instagram account a score out of 100. For instance, I scanned Rebecca Kufrin, America's newest Bachelorette, and she received a real follower score of 93%.

2. FakeCheck.co

Price: $1 per credit to unlock information

FakeCheck.co analyzes Instagram accounts by collecting data regarding the account followers' engagement level. As they rationalize, "If the resulting ratio for likes and comments based on the number of follower is outside the industry standard, it is likely that the account has paid Instagram followers". The site is user-friendly, and offers additional information, such as the top ten Instagram social engagement accounts from the past 30 days. However, unlike IG Audit, you'll need to pay to unlock information. Fortunately, the cost is low, starting at only one dollar. For instance, I scanned Taylor Swift's Instagram account, but I'm unable to see average likes or comments without paying for it.

3. Social Audit Pro

Price: $5 for 5,000 followers, $20 for 20,000 followers

Social Audit Pro is a paid service, but you get your money's worth. They offer useful analytics about other public accounts on Instagram, and also provide a cleanup tool to remove any of your followers that might've been flagged as fake or dormant. The cost is reasonable, and you can use the tool to compare your Instagram influencers and fairly determine how many people they're truly reaching and engaging.

Remember, fake followers can't become real customers, so it's critical you find influencers who can connect your business with the right people. Take the time to collect data and thoroughly examine Instagram accounts before choosing an influencer, so you know you're not inadvertently getting involved in disreputable social media tactics.

Check out our tips and tools for detecting fake followers or bots, so you can ensure you're only working with the best Instagram influencers.

23/08/2018

💡 5 Tools to Help Your Content Marketing Team Be Better by Ann Smarty:

Almost all B2C and 96% of B2B brands rely on internal resources to execute their content marketing program. These in-house providers range from small or centralized teams serving the entire organization to individuals leading department efforts.

No matter the configuration, a well-trained in-house content marketing team is a competitive advantage. But what makes a team exceptional? It is all in how you grow it. Here are five tools and a few tips to help in those efforts.

Encourage self-education

Training is a critical part of having a well-performing content marketing team. But I am not talking about how to interpret analytics on social platforms or even how to write in general.

Training should be done on what qualifies as really good content and what is mediocre. My favorite tool for this at the moment is Zest.is. It is a content moderation platform that uses a community-based system (called a “tribe”) to w**d the content that isn’t going to get the level of attention you want.
uses a tribe system to w**d content that isn’t getting the attention desired, says .
Click To Tweet

By using this tool, your team will learn how to recognize content that is more likely to get shared, liked, and enjoyed. They can apply this knowledge to generate more content ideas that get more reach.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Road Map to Success: Monitoring and Measuring Your Content’s Performance

Share and curate knowledge

Everyone knows a good content marketing team shares content with its audience; it also shares content among the members. Are you providing critical knowledge to your team and do your people know where to find it?

Smarp is a knowledge-sharing and content-curation app. It includes employee-driven content curation and development, a news feed that makes it easy to see what is being shared within your company, and a custom company directory of content.

Use for employee-driven content curation, which includes an internal reading only feature.
Click To Tweet

Whenever you want your team to read and/or share a resource, add it to your company’s dashboard. You can mark any resource as private (for internal reading only), organize your curated content into channels, and encourage your managers and team members to add content to the dashboard too.

This is one of the most intuitive apps I have found for team communication and curation.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 11 Content Curation and Collaboration Tools to Save You Time

Encourage them to play

Content marketing is integrated into lots of marketing areas, including search engine optimization and social media marketing. Your content team needs to be aware of what keyword research is, how to put together optimized content and target search queries, and how to create content that gets shared on social media.

Hence, training your content team in basic SEO and social media is important. You don’t need to train them in the technical SEO tasks, but ensure that they learn important terminology and concepts, such as:

Thin content

Discovery of keywords that have higher potential to rank

Optimization of content for chosen keywords

Featured snippets

Give your in-house writers access to your SEO tools so they can learn in action too. As one who learned SEO by playing with tools for a few years, I am a big advocate of learning SEO by doing versus just reading.

Give in-house writers access to your tools so they can learn by playing with them, says .
Click To Tweet

A few tools that can help your content team to better understand SEO include:

Google Analytics

Build a separate content marketing dashboard using Google Analytics to allow your team to quickly see how articles perform and learn from their success and failures.

Here’s a nice collection of Google Analytics dashboards, including a blogging dashboard and conversion tracking dashboard.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 4 Google Analytics Reports Every Content Marketer Should Use

Serpstat

The most essential tool for your content marketing team is a keyword research tool. There are a few solid options out there, but Serpstat is the one I use. It:

Offers a “question research” feature showing the most popular questions based on your keyword. It’s one of the most effective ways to brainstorm content ideas.

Labels queries triggering special search elements, including featured snippets, image and video results, etc. It’s a great way to brainstorm non-traditional content types for inclusion in blended result rankings.

Includes a handy clustering/grouping feature that allows you to find closely related topics, as well as help brainstorm content series and structure each individual content asset. Here’s a handy guide on how to use Serpstat’s clustering feature for grouping keywords by intent.
’s question research feature is an effective way to brainstorm ideas.
Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

The Secrets of High-Performing Online Content

6 Free Tools to Help Keyword Research

Stop, collaborate, and listen

Collaboration is important with content marketing teams. But a certain amount of access and incorporation into the content process should be done for all the departments in your organization. Why? Because a strong team works together and marketing is a collaborative effort.

There are many tools for this, but CoSchedule is the perfect app for this purpose. Not only does it allow you to plan your editorial calendar and schedule social media, it is also an easy way to keep your team on the same page.

Use to keep your team on the same page, says .
Click To Tweet

One of the best features of CoSchedule is a to-do list you can add for each task. Any team member can check off things and the progress bar shows how much is left to be done:

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 5 Brands Share Their Content Marketing Process

Additional tips for a powerful team

Now that you know a few tools you can use to strengthen your content marketing team, here are a couple actionable tips you need to have if your team is to fully benefit from their learning opportunities.

Have a solid content marketing strategy

If you don’t know what you are doing, your team won’t know what it is supposed to do. A documented content marketing strategy keeps you all on board with the same vision. It’s an important first step (even before you have a team).

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Road Map to Success: Content Marketing Strategy Essentials

Have a clear style guide

Your brand must have a unified voice, tone, and consistent formatting. To ensure that your content lifts that voice in a consistent manner, craft a brand style guide and share it with the content marketing team and anyone who communicates on behalf of your brand.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Style Guide: How to Write One for Your Brand

Ask for ideas

Your team members are your greatest asset. You hired them because they are bright, bold, and creative. Ask your team to come forward with their ideas. Have occasional meetings for brainstorming. Ask for input on current tactics.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Best Content: How to Brainstorm Ideas

Do you have a tip for the list? Let me know in the comments.

Please note: All tools included in our blog posts are suggested by authors, not the CMI editorial team. No one post can provide all relevant tools in the space. Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).

Help your team members expand their knowledge by attending Content Marketing World Sept. 4-7 in Cleveland, Ohio. Register today using code BLOG100 to save $100.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post 5 Tools to Help Your Content Marketing Team Be Better appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Use these five tools and a few more tips to help make your content marketing team exceptional – Content Marketing Institute

23/08/2018

💡 March it down the road by Seth Godin:

Sometimes, our work is in opposition. Something is broken, and we need to fix it.

But often, we’re working with something that’s fine. All it needs is our care and effort and it will get even better.

March it down the road. Not because you’re pushing anyone, or because anyone is pushing you.

Simply because it matters.

Sometimes, our work is in opposition. Something is broken, and we need to fix it. But often, we’re working with something that’s fine. All it needs is our care and effort and it will ge…

23/08/2018

🔆 TuneMoji integrates its MusicGIF images into Snap by Dean Takahashi:

TuneMoji has built an audience of 20 million people who use its MusicGIFs, or music-inspired looping images that make people laugh. And today the company is integrating its MusicGIFs into Snap to make it easier to create GIFs with licensed music. TuneMoji, formerly Emoticast, said the integration shows it is committed to building its Generation Z u…Read More

TuneMoji has built an audience of 20 million people who use its MusicGIFs, or music-inspired looping images that make people laugh. And today the company is integrating its MusicGIFs into Snap to m…

💡 Scheduling Instagram Posts: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know by afrost@hubspot.com (Aja Frost):Although the exac...

23/08/2018

💡 Scheduling Instagram Posts: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know by [email protected] (Aja Frost):

Although the exact day and time you post content to Instagram matters less than it used to -- your followers’ newsfeeds are organized by relevance and engagement, rather than post age -- it’s still very important.

And now, you can schedule Instagram posts to make it even easier.

Let’s say 10% of your audience is online on Tuesday at 3 p.m. You post a creative GIF showcasing your latest product. Because not many people are scrolling through Instagram, it gets fewer likes and comments than your average post. Instagram’s algorithm interprets this as the post is less appealing than your typical content, so it’s displayed to a smaller percentage of your network.

For this reason, it’s a good idea to figure out when your followers are most active and post on those days and times. (Need a tool for this? Try Iconosquare or Squarelovin.)

While having this information is useful, you do have to wait -- poised over your phone or computer -- for the specific hour to strike. I don’t know about you, but I prefer the “set it and forget it” approach.

Luckily, Instagram's API that lets users of marketing tools like HubSpot schedule Instagram posts in advance. In other words, if you use social media scheduling software, you can upload your content and choose when it will go live on Instagram.

To start, you'll need a third-party scheduling tool to do the scheduling. Below are a few handy options, most of which offer mobile apps for both iOS and Android devices.

Tools for Scheduling Instagram Posts

Later

Tailwind

Buffer

Schedugram

Sprout Social

Autogrammer

HubSpot

1. Later

Price: Free for individuals, business plans start at $19/month

Later is a social media post scheduler, dedicated to Instagram. The platform includes a full social content calendar, drag-and-drop post planning, and the ability to publish automatically to your Instagram Business profile. In addition, the service's Linkin.bio feature allows you to link certain posts to specific product pages.

2. Tailwind

Price: $9.99/month for bloggers & small businesses

Tailwind is a social media scheduling toolkit specifically for Instagram and Pinterest. Using smart features like bulk image uploading and a built-in Hashtag Finder, the tool allows small businesses to quickly personalize their Instagram profiles to their audience.

3. Buffer

Price: Free with limited scheduling, business plans start at $15/month

Buffer schedules social media posts across six social networks: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+. The tool allows users to manage their social posts from one dashboard and schedule content as they discover it online. In addition to a mobile app for iOS and Android, Buffer also offers an extension for your internet browser.

4. Schedugram

Price: $20/month for one social account

Schedugram is an Instagram post scheduler that includes a photo editor. The tool allows you to plan out a long-term posting calendar while modifying the aesthetics of an image prior to publishing. With features like Product Tagging, a user's potential customers can also make purchases from Instagram posts.

5. Sprout Social

Price: Plans start at $99/month per user

Sprout Social, compatible with six major social networks, is a social media content calendar that allows you to schedule posts and measure multiple aspects of their engagement once they go live. The platform's "social listening" abilities help users identify unique trends across their social content and apply these trends to the rest of their marketing strategy.

6. Autogrammer

Price: Plans start at $9.99/month

Autogrammer is a social media post scheduler for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Users can bulk-upload images and automatically schedule posts for multiple social media accounts on the same calendar. Like Schedulgram, Autogrammer also includes a photo editor where you can crop, rotate, recolor, and apply filters to photos before they're scheduled.

7. HubSpot

HubSpot is our growth platform, bringing together numerous sales, marketing, and customer service tools -- one of which is a social media publishing calendar. You can learn exactly how our scheduling tool works in the step-by-step instructions below.

Now, let's dive into how to schedule Instagram posts for an Instagram Business page -- which you'll need -- using HubSpot:

How to Schedule Instagram Posts

Ensure you have admin access to your Facebook Business Page.

Switch to your Business profile on the Instagram mobile app and connect this account to Facebook.

Open HubSpot and use the "Social" tool to integrate your Instagram profile.

Create your first social post for your Instagram account.

Compose a message with your desired visual assets, captions, and hashtags.

Set the date and time of your Instagram post.

Preview your post to make sure it looks right.

Click "Schedule message."

1. Ensure you have admin access to your Facebook Business Page.

Instagram and Facebook might be separate accounts to you personally, but businesses that want to automate their Instagram posting schedule will need to tether both accounts together. So, you'll need the username and password of your business's Facebook account to do this.

2. Switch to your Business profile on the Instagram mobile app and connect this account to Facebook.

If you have a personal Instagram account, you probably know you can manage more than one profile from the app -- and the other profile is your business account (keep in mind you'll need an Instagram Business account to schedule Instagram posts in HubSpot).

To switch to your Instagram Business page from your personal page, navigate to your profile on your mobile device and tap the thee dots in the upper-right corner of your screen. Then, in the next screen, select "Switch to Business Profile," as shown below:

Under "Settings," select "Linked Accounts." Here's where you can select Facebook and link your two accounts together. You might be asked to "Log in With Facebook," at which point you'll enter your business account's username and password. Otherwise, select "Continue as [yourself]."

3. Open HubSpot and use the "Social" tool to integrate your Instagram profile.

Now that your Instagram profile is anchored to Facebook, you're ready to integrate it with your post scheduler. For our purposes, we'll be using HubSpot's Social tool.

Open HubSpot, select the "Marketing" dropdown, and click "Social," as shown below.

On your first time opening HubSpot's Social tool, you'll see an orange button to "Connect accounts." Click it, and it will bring you to the following progress screen:

Click the first option, "Facebook & Instagram," and follow the prompts to complete this integration. For more details, see the full connection instructions by HubSpot Academy.

4. Create your first social post for your Instagram account.

Once your Instagram account is integrated into HubSpot, you'll see an option to "Create social post" in the top-righthand corner of your HubSpot dashboard. Click it, and you'll see icons for which social network you want to start with. Select the Instagram icon to compose your first post for your Instagram account.

5. Compose a message with your desired visual assets, captions, and hashtags.

Upload your image using the landscape icons on the bottom-lefthand corner of the white text field that appears, as shown below:

Then, caption your image with the text, hashtags, and user mentions you'd like to post your photo with, as they should appear on Instagram.

6. Set the date and time of your Instagram post.

Just above the photo you're posting, you'll see a field labeled "When:". Use this field to set the exact date and time you want your post to automatically go live on your Instagram profile.

Pro tip: Social media content posted a few minutes before or after a round hour often gets better engagement than content that's posted at, say, exactly 9:00 a.m. This makes your post seem more human to your followers, increasing the chances of them clicking on it (ex: 9:03, 10:58, 2:31, etc).

7. Preview your post to make sure it looks right.

Any grammatical errors? Are all your intended hashtags included? Is the image successfully uploaded? Check to make sure, and you'll be ready to schedule.

8. Click "Schedule message."

As you might be able to tell from the screenshot in Step 5, you can schedule your social posts in bulk. Got any more Instagram posts planned? Draft them now and schedule all of them at the same time. Once every post you want to schedule has been loaded into HubSpot, you can hit the orange "Schedule message" button on the bottom lefthand corner of your compose window.

Post automating isn’t available for Ads, nor will you be able to use it within Instagram itself. This means unless you’ve got a tool hooked up to your account, you’ll still have to time that picture from brunch strategically.

Like most social networks, Instagram now allows you to schedule posts in advance through third-party tools. Here's what you'll need and how to do it.

23/08/2018

💡 Investing in the best Twitter experience for you by : The best Twitter experience we can provide today is through our Twitter for iOS and Android apps, as well as twitter.com. As part of this, we’ve chosen to stop supporting some other experiences.

The best Twitter experience we can provide today is through our Twitter for iOS and Android apps, as well as twitter.com. As part of this, we’ve chosen to stop supporting some other experiences.

23/08/2018

🔆 Even Nvidia uses third-party computer vision technology by Tess Townsend:

Gamers like to post photos of their souped up gaming PCs on social media, which is great for the companies who build the technology they use in their rigs. Or, it would be great, if those gamers also mentioned the brands. Most of the time, they don’t. That’s a problem Nvidia experiences when users of its powerful graphics cards post abo…Read More

Gamers like to post photos of their souped up gaming PCs on social media, which is great for the companies who build the technology they use in their rigs. Or, it would be great, if those gamers al…

22/08/2018

🌱 10 Tips for Providing Top-Tier Twitter Customer Service by Brent Barnhart:

Customer service isn’t what it used to be thanks to social media.

And for consumers, that’s a good thing.

Think about it.

Nobody has time to sit on hold for an hour or spend days stuck in an endless email chain to get their questions answered anymore.

Fast forward to present day where time is of the essence. According to Sprout’s 2018 Social Index, nearly half of all consumers have taken to social media to raise questions and concerns to brands.

And a bulk of that back-and-forth happens in the Twitterverse.

That’s why having a concrete Twitter customer service strategy is a must-have for brands who want to keep their customers happy.

Why Twitter Customer Service Matters

Although Instagram and Facebook may be the most pressing networks for marketers right now, Twitter remains one of the top avenues for customer service.

In fact, our data shows that 21% of consumers prefer Twitter to traditional customer service channels.

We ship internationally!

— Hot Topic () August 20, 2018

Consider for starters that customer service on Twitter is short and to the point. The platform’s character limit keeps people from mincing words. In short, Twitter encourages you to immediately get to the root of any potential issue.

Additionally, anything that happens on Twitter is in the open for the world to see. This means that there’s a microscope on brands as how they treat inquiries is totally front-facing.

To help your business maintain a smiling face and keep customers from bouncing to competitors, we’ve highlighted the must-haves for an effective Twitter customer service strategy below.

1. Set Up a Customer Service Dashboard

Reality check: if you’re haphazardly replying to mentions and interactions with customers, you’re going to have a tough time.

Let’s say that a couple of customers totally put your brand on blast.

Who’s going to respond to them? Who have you already spoken to? How do you know who you’ve @’d back and who you haven’t?

This is why having a dedicated Twitter dashboard is a total lifesaver.

Don’t lose customers due to lack of organization. With a Twitter dashboard, you can track individual interactions with customers in real-time. This means that not only does no mention go unnoticed, but you also have a bird’s-eye view of your Twitter customer service in one place.

Features such as Sprout’s Smart Inbox track conversations on Twitter in addition to your other social channels. This ensures that you effectively “close” any customer concerns, all the while holding you or your team accountable for doing so.

Speaking of accountability, consider also how you can measure the effectiveness of your Twitter customer service efforts. Metrics like sentiment analysis let you know how people feel about your brand at large whether that sentiment is positive, negative or neutral.

This sort of infrastructure helps ensure timely, thoughtful responses rather than customer service chaos.

2. Don’t Ignore Negative Feedback

Although some customers might show you some love via Twitter, expect to spend more time addressing questions and concerns.

And yes, doing so might require dealing with criticism.

Responding with grace is the difference-maker between winning over a customer or losing them for good.

And while there might be some trolls out there, brands should give negative feedback their full attention. Your responses both reflect on your company and determine whether or not your customer sticks around, after all.

For example, check out how Slack was forward with their followers during a recent service outage.

Our apologies for the interruption to your day. We're seeing connectivity issues affecting workspaces, and our team is working on sorting this out as quickly as possible. https://t.co/qk1GLHi2KI

— Slack () August 16, 2018

Their openness and ability to follow through actually won them some brownie points with their customers.

The takeaway here is that brands shouldn’t shy away from calls-outs or negative feedback when it happens. Timely responses and empathy are your best bet for keeping people around despite their frustrations.

3. Know When to Stay on Twitter or Go Off-Platform

Again, the beauty of Twitter customer service is that it’s short and to the point.

Yet sometimes it may be the best place to start a customer service inquiry rather than have a full-blown conversation.

On one hand, brands should strive to keep answers simple and remain on Twitter for the sake of convenience. On the flip side, some issues might just get a bit too complex and 280 characters just won’t cut it.

Taking the conversation to your Direct Messages is a smart move, giving you up to 10,000 characters to respond privately to issues.

However, you might need to go in even more depth or pass off the concern to someone else. In this case, asking for someone’s email via Tweet or DM is fair game.

Please try creating a new account with your same email. This should work! Reach out to [email protected] for further assistance.

— Soylent () August 13, 2018

Just make sure whatever you’re passing off via email is prioritized and not left sitting. Taking people off Twitter is fine, but not when their customer service journey feels like a wild goose chase. As long as you’re keeping their concerns moving and getting to the root of the problem, you’re golden.

4. Mind Your Customers’ Privacy

Even if your tweets are only meant for your customers’ eyes, they’re still out there for the world to see.

This is good news for customers who want to hold brands accountable. That said, this removes the sense of privacy afforded by phone or email support.

Much like the last tip, it’s important to know when to go beyond tweets, and dealing with private information is exactly the sort of situation we’re talking about.

Here are some pieces of information you should only ask for via DM:

Email address

Phone number

Username

Password

Address

Billing information

Specific items they’ve purchased from you

Thank you for reaching out! Angie's List still offers paid memberships, which offer more benefits than the free membership. If you still have a paid membership, I am happy to help you get set up with the free membership. Please DM us for more info. Thanks, -Jesse M.

— Angie's List Customer Support () August 20, 2018

Always be sensitive to customers’ personal information and assure them you’re authorized to handle these types of details as early as possible.

5. Sign (or Initial) Your Tweets

If you have multiple employees handling your Twitter customer service, you need a way to track who is responding to each tweet.

The benefits of signing your tweets are two-fold. Doing so creates a sense of accountability and allows you to track interactions between your team and your customers. Additionally, it gives your Twitter customer service efforts a much more human vibe.

Whether it’s your employees’ names or initials, a simple signature serves as a personal touch.

Totally understand and I'll let the car hire know you're up for giving us a hand for testing 👏😊– Jen

— Skyscanner ✈️ () August 17, 2018

Sprout’s built-in social media CRM features make it a cinch to track your team members’ interactions with customers. When a user tweets your company with a question or concern, you can assign the tweet to a specific member of your team. This way you know who’s in charge of replying and resolving the issue without second-guessing.

6. Prioritize Speedy Responses

According to Twitter’s own data, 60% of users expect a response within an hour of reaching out to a business.

Compare that to the expected twelve-hour response time via email and it’s clear that social customers expect speedy service.

While you may not be able to respond to each and every question at a moment’s notice, speed counts. Quick responses signal that you’re a brand that listens to customers and likewise values them.

Here’s a recent example of GameStop personally responding to a positive mention within 10 minutes. How’s that for speed?

No problem! Enjoy that extra power and the great upcoming games you'll play on the Xbox One X!

— GameStop () August 17, 2018

Response time is one of the most pressing metrics for Twitter customer service. An oft-cited Twitter study on airline companies found that customers were willing to spend more with companies who responded fastest.

This again reinforces the need for a Twitter dashboard. For example, you can check how long it takes you to respond to tweets within the dashboard using Sprout’s engagement report. This shows both your response time and rate, helping you to further refine your Twitter customer service strategy.

7. Track Your Brand Mentions

If you don’t have a streamlined way to monitor your brand mentions, providing customer service becomes an uphill battle. The sooner you know that somebody has given you a shout-out, the quicker you can respond.

Looks great, congrats on the new site.

— Squarespace () August 14, 2018

For many businesses, monitoring brand mentions on Twitter begins and ends with checking their notifications. However, Twitter notifications only give you a partial picture of your Twitter presence.

Here’s a quick kitchen table explanation of how to track Twitter mentions in their various forms:

Track , and mentions of your company name

Search for common misspellings of your company name

Make sure you have Twitter notifications enabled for both the mobile and desktop apps

Save the top queries containing your brand in Sprout to get real-time updates of brand mentions

8. When in Doubt, Be Human

Companies today understand that you can’t put just customer service on autopilot.

And while you may be tempted to take a copy-and-paste approach to your Twitter customer service, think twice before doing so.

People might be willing to deal with automated systems on the phone but not on social media.

The appeal of turning to Twitter instead of traditional customer service avenues is that you can get a quicker response from a person.

You know, a real, flesh-and-blood person.

Feedback like this is like heaven to us! Thanks for the shoutout, Jason.

— Sprout Social () August 17, 2018

Twitter is the perfect platform to be more personable with your support. There’s no expectation to be formal, meanwhile the limited character count encourages you to be more conversational.

And while you want to maintain some sense of professionalism, don’t be afraid to let your sense of humor shine if it’s in line with your brand’s voice.

Tempted to disagree but you right Mallory! Free food is superior! *KittyG pic.twitter.com/bvDuG9a5CI

— T-Mobile () August 20, 2018

9. Get to Know Your Customers

Ever walked into a store and had an employee greet you by your first name?

Or maybe you’ve gone to a coffee shop and the barista asks if you want “the usual?”

It’s the sort of service that makes you feel like a VIP, all the while reinforcing that the business you support actually cares about you.

Why not provide your customers with that same sort of treatment on Twitter?

Sprout has a built-in feature that makes this process much easier. You can add notes to any Twitter user you interact with and share those notes among your entire team. Being able to quickly check your prior conversations or special preferences for a customer allows for yet another opportunity to provide more personal service.

10. Go Above and Beyond

Finally, remember that customer service is about more than just answering questions or dealing with problems.

We live in an era where customer expectations are sky-high and brand loyalty is fierce.

This interaction with Instant Pot is a prime example of going the extra mile. This customer probably didn’t expect a response from the brand themselves, but that’s exactly what they got. They also received a helpful, specific piece of content that gets to the heart of their question.

Make sure to check out our app with lots of Keto recipes! https://t.co/NXEvop1Hkm

— Instant Pot () August 16, 2018

Brands should strive to go above in beyond to help customers while also reminding them just how much they matter.

In other words, don’t be afraid to shout people out “just because.”

If someone posted a picture of your brand or product, why not show some love with a retweet?

And if someone left you a positive mention, let them know you’re listening.

You are so welcome! Hope to see you soon! 🌭

— Superdawg Chicago🌭 () August 1, 2018

These small touchpoints are critical for creating a stronger sense of brand loyalty. Being attentive and authentic with your customers can be strong marketing firepower if you’re consistent.

And with that, we wrap up our list!

What Does Your Twitter Customer Service Strategy Look Like?

Want to provide personalized, speedy service to your customers? Look no further than Twitter. Going beyond traditional avenues of customer service is a must-do for brands today. By offering up savvy social service backed up by a strategy, you can use your interactions on Twitter to retain current customers and drum up new ones.

We want to hear from you, though. Do you currently provide customer service via Twitter? Any stories you want to share? Let us hear ’em in the comments below!

This post 10 Tips for Providing Top-Tier Twitter Customer Service originally appeared on Sprout Social.

Twitter is one of today's most popular channels for juggling customer questions. In this guide, we break down the best practes of Twitter customer service

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