Everybody know what Twitter is. Thanks to the 16 million increase in active monthly users during the second quarter of this year, in comparison to the first, the social networking site is soaring.
While the ever-growing user base continuously holds Twitter as the most popular social network, helping advertise businesses and expanding their audiences on the platform, as well as representing new opportunities for brands, the secret behind a successful, popular account still remains a mystery. Although, not for long.
Naturally, obtaining a large audience on Twitter will take a lot of time and dedication, regardless if you’re an existing member with experience on social networking sites or if you’re a beginner. The most direct way of increasing followers and establishing a strong presence on your page is by tweeting everyday. Continue reading to see the top six twitter tips that will help your business account and personal account build more followers and receive a better return from the social network.
#1 First Impressions
A majority of the time, potential followers will review a profile before they choose to follow someone, which is why is vital to optimise this page in order to make a good first impression.
Both brand and personal accounts should contain a profile picture that is suitable and meticulously represents them. Typically, this would be a company logo for a brand, while a personal account would maybe have a head shot or a picture of themselves. Additionally, the bio should be catchy and informal, without containing unnecessary information and an appropriate background image should be used.
Consider The Marketer. Using the magazine as the profile picture, enables viewers to recognise the magazine, whenever they tweet and a background that advertises the magazine’s app, helps promote their publicity. Moreover, the publisher outlines what the account has been created in its bio section.
#2 Trends
Before the introduction of the ‘Tending’ section on Facebook, Twitter assisted its users to stay on trend via the ‘Trends’ section, which is customisable. It displays tailored trends based on the user’s location and the people the follow.
The simple act of participating in conversations regarding these trends, your profile’s visibility will escalate.
The common tool that will help you stay on trend, is the use of the hashtag. However, divulging in trending hashtags by overflowing your tweet with them, is not something that will be appreciated. Instead, using a trending hashtag along with a niche hashtag will add more leverage and could help your profile become recognisable for the content you share.
#3 Engage with your audience
As Twitter is a fast-paced social network, with tweets that can be lost within an hour on a feed, it is essential for users to stand out by tweeting engaging content.
Although, finding out the correct type of content to engage with your niche audience can be difficult.
Experimenting with different types of content may be the better way to find which content gains the most reach and performs the highest with your audience, but something to keep in mind is that visual content generally performs best on social networking sites.
In fact, a study developed by Twitter showed that tweets including images, averages a 35% boost in retweets, while tweets than include videos average a 28% boost. Where as a tweets that just includes hashtags averaged a 16% boost in retweets. The data from the study proved that visual content is a massive factor in engagement, and retweets result in an increase in visibility.
#4 Interact with influencers
When it comes to increasing visibility, you should interact with influencers or thought leaders, as these accounts tend to have a strong following of their own and can boost visibility and followers for those they interact with.
For instance, an entrepreneur wishing to grow their followers could spend time interacting with other successful entrepreneurs or businesses/companies they specialise in. This will increase both visibility and authority on the website.
An example of a national brand that does this is DiGiorna. The pizza company’s page is stocked with witty tweets and hashtags that stay on trend with the day’s hottest topics, and of course, revolves around pizza. DiGiorna is a brilliant example of #4, as they use the Twitter handle of celebrities and brands to get a response and enhance its visibility. In July alone, DiGiorna replied/sent tweets to Leonardo DiCaprio, Adrianne Curry, Urban Outfitters and NASA.
Tip; When mentioning someone on Twitter using the ‘@’ symbol, avoid starting the tweet with the user’s handle. Dong so will only allow people who follow both handles to view the tweet. To prevent this, many brands will inset a ‘.’ before their mention (see above image).
#5 Timing
As previously mentioned, Twitter is a fast-paced environment, so you shouldn’t expect all of your followers to see all of your tweets, which is why testing you timing to see when tweets perform the best is important for your profile to obtain maximum visibility.
As an example, if tweets posted between 12 noon and 4pm average more retweets and replies than tweets sent out at other times of the day, users will want to focus on posting their better content within that specific time frame.
Scheduling posts in advance, offers leverage for users who don’t have enough time to test the best posting times. Social media management tools such as, Sprout Social or Buffer can assist users with scheduling posts. Not only do these apps ease the posting process, but Buffer can also be used to automatically schedule posts at the best time – this is because the platform will automatically posts at the best times when followers are most active, taking the guesswork out of determining optimal posting times.
Another thing to consider is that the occasional reposting of content on Twitter is a good idea. That being said, users should premise reposted content with a phrase similar to, “From earlier today.” By doing that, followers who have already seen the content will know to not click again, as this could lead to frustrated followers.
#6 Promote yourself!
The last concept is the simplest of them all – promote yourself anywhere and everywhere you have the opportunist to, so as to gain more followers.
This means including Follow buttons/options on a websites, email campaigns and even business cards and existing social networking sites you may already have.
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