Twitter is the uncontested fastest moving social media service in the world. Because of this, the strength for brands isn't so much in their target market, but finding moments that are relevant to their target market.

This concept was introduced to me by Stephen McIntyre, the Managing Director of Twitter Europe, during the Dublin Web Summit of 2013. His quote from that conference cut right to the chase:

"Brands don't have target markets, they have target moments."

What exactly is 'Marketing to the Moment' on Twitter?

There are two main ways that people post on Twitter:

• Completely at random, whenever the mood strikes them.
• During key events that they have planned for...and at random when the mood strikes them.

The first method is the most common. It rarely reaches people beyond their sphere of followers, anything noteworthy is hardly ever said, and it's easily ignored because it's what everyone else is doing.

Those who plan ahead for key moments will prepare text, images, and GIFs that they know their core followers will respond to and spread. These are the people who see results from their Twitter marketing campaigns.

To give a current example, the FIFA World Cup 2014 is perhaps the largest sporting event and online marketing moment of them all. It is on its way to being the biggest event on social media of all time, and keen online marketers have already taken note and have their marketing in place.

But what about those who can't tie their product into a sporting event? Don't worry, there are plenty of other examples that we'll look at later.

Why is it dangerous to not be prepared for key Twitter marketing moments?

Many new business use Twitter as a reactive marketing platform. They see some event happen and send out their 140 characters worth of opinion. All too often they're late to the party, or worse they're uninteresting. You have to be prepared in advance if you want to succeed during your brand's key marketing moments.

Consider this: What does your Twitter feed look like right now? At best, it contains messages from the last hour or so. These are things that have already happened. Do you have time to call a marketing meeting, hash out ideas for what's on Twitter right now, produce the content and then get it out? Nope!

What can you actually plan ahead for?

Twitter is the home of small yet strong reactions to large events. It's where people go to hear about what's going on, get the latest gossip, and share a few funny pictures. If you want to engage with your followers on Twitter, you have to speak their language.

Here are some examples of what businesses can do to stay relevant to key moments on Twitter:

• A museum won't have much success blandly churning out ‘this day in history' facts - there's no current moment to capitalize on. Preparing a history lesson that centers around the Game of Thrones season finale, however, can get people talking about the show and the history that your museum can offer. They can plan for it because they know it will happen. 
• Wedding and event planning companies can engage in talk about celebrity weddings. Having a hashtag that you can follow, getting images and suggestions ready ahead of time, can make you the content provider that is shared all over the world. Show the world what you think Beyonce should have worn to her wedding. Plan for content around the Kimye wedding. These are easy retweets to get if the right content.
• Are you a law firm and a big trial is coming to a head? Why not chime in with some well reasoned thoughts in a blog article and send that out over Twitter? You can seriously start a discussion once the verdict is in!
• The possibilities with the major holidays are obvious. You can easily borrow from your other marketing images for the season and give them a Twitter twist with hashtags, promotions that are exclusive to those who find it on Twitter, and planning who is getting a @mention surprise.
• The actions don't always have to be that big. A flower company can deliver flowers to a local politician on their birthday and document the whole thing. A guitar store can plan to take photos at local shows and connect them all with a hashtag that gives a quick review.

Your final step when marketing to the moment on Twitter is to look at how effective you were with certain moments. Figure out what your audience responded to, what was uninteresting, and learn for the next year of events, or those key moments that are on their way.

Author Bio
Matthew is the writer over on the Devumi social media marketing blog. You can find him there giving practical, and occasionally very in depth, advice on Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud, Pinterest and Google marketing techniques.