What Patrick Stewart Can Teach You About Twitter

With 1.6 million Twitter followers, Patrick Stewart, best known for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard on the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, is definitely doing something right on social media. Marketers stand to learn a lot from Sir Patrick when it comes to using social media as a marketing tool. By ensuring that your brand is present, active and engaging in the online sphere you’ll attract more people to your brand.

Patrick Stewart is a hugely popular personality on Twitter, with 1.6 million followers. What social media lessons can marketers learn from him?

1. Start the Conversation
Sir Patrick saved an injured baby bird from his garden. By asking his followers how he could help it, he generated 539 tweets and thousands of responses.

Lesson: Engaging your customers in conversations about your brand shows you really care. Starting conversations will also help you to attract and nurture prospects into customers.

2. Interact with your Industry
Patrick Stewart joined other celebrities in mocking David Cameron’s ‘dialed in’ tweet. Arguably, Sir Patrick outdid his famous friends with his humorous choice of Wet Ones.

Lesson: Whether you’re interacting with others in your industry or standing out against your competitors, interacting across social media will help to increase the presence of your brand.

3. Be Approachable
Everybody loves Patrick’s tweets as they reflect his good natured personality. He even offers free hugs to his fellow celebrity friends – how could he not attract thousands of Twitter followers?

Lesson: Customers want to know that they’re talking to a human, not a machine. It’s important that your tweets reflect that you care about your followers – not just your brand.

4. Don’t be afraid to make fun of yourself
Brits appreciate sarcasm and dry wit. Patrick gave his audience just that by offering them a glimpse of his Boxing Day. 1,721 people ‘favourited’ the tweet.

Lesson: By speaking the right language across social media, your customers will feel like you truly understand them. They will appreciate your efforts and remain loyal to your brand.

5. Always be Available
Even though seasonal festivities must be a busy time for a celebrity, Patrick Stewart took time out to join in with Halloween via his social media account.

Lesson: Social media never sleeps. As a marketer, you need to be switched on and prepared because you never know when your customers will want to contact you.

6. Expand your Brand
Patrick Stewart always makes time to promote the projects he’s working on and the people he’s working with.

Lesson: It’s important that you are seen to be making and nurturing relationships with people in your industry and customers. Good online etiquette is essential to successful marketing.

Marketers stand to learn a lot from Sir Patrick when it comes to using social media as a marketing tool. By ensuring that your brand is present, active and engaging in the online sphere, you’ll attract more people to your brand and win their loyalty.

Discover more essential tips about effective social media marketing by downloading: Modern Marketing Essentials Guide to Social Marketing.

This post first appeared on the Oracle Marketing Cloud blog