The popularity of Twitter cannot be denied. With 271 million monthly active users and an estimated 500 million tweets sent per day, the microblogging platform has been firmly established as a bedrock in the social-media world.
Which begs the question: How can you best use it to advance your own goals?
To answer that, let’s first address some Twitter basics:
- Everyone’s handle is preceded by the “at” (@) sign. If you start a tweet with someone’s handle, the only people who see that tweet are those who follow both you and them. If you include the handle in the middle of your tweet, it’s open to the public.
- A private Twitter message is known as a Direct Message, or DM.
- A hashtag (preceded by a “#”) is a clickable link within a tweet.
- By re-tweeting, you’re taking an existing tweet and sharing it with your followers.
Now, let’s look at five must-dos to rock your Twitter strategy:
- Tweet with images in order to increase engagement. Tweets with images received 18 percent more click-throughs, 89 percent more favorites and 150 percent more re-tweets (source).
Tweet with images to increase engagement.
- Repeat tweets. You can repeat any type of content that you’ve created, including blog posts and video. Remember, Twitter moves fast so tweeting the same content over the course of days/weeks is a great way to drive traffic back to your site. Make sure to mix up these tweets with other content.
- Tweet links to other articles with some commentary. Link clicks account for an astounding 92 percent of all user interaction with tweets.
Tweets with links, commentary and photos are key!
- Make sure your tweets look great on mobile. 78 percent of Twitter users are active on mobile devices (source).
- Want a free hack? Go to http://ads.Twitter.com for free analytics and insights into your top tweets and followers. It’s crucial to keep an eye on how your tweets are performing.
Get insights into your top performing tweets!
Moving on, let’s look at how to connect, what to say, how to source content and how to get organized:
- Create lists (twitter.com/lists.) to get intentional and organized with who you want to connect with. Ideas for lists include: Clients, News, Authors, Photographers, College Friends, etc.
Lists are a great way to get intentional with Twitter.
- Use lists to curate content. Lists are a great way to curate content or look for relevant content for your business. For example, if you are a real estate professional, you may create a list of local business owners as a way to connect with them and curate great local content.
- Find local content. Searching your market area and following key media outlets. Use http://search.twitter.com to search specific cities and keywords.
Find your target audience based on keywords, hashtags or location.
- Be a good finder! Look for opportunities to highlight people doing good things in your community and re-tweet them!
Be a good finder!
- Show what it feels like to live in your community. Re-tweeting local groups and news channels, showcasing photos and putting text over your photos.
Show what your community feels like!
Here are my top three tools for managing Twitter and scheduling tweets as needed:
- Buffer
- HootSuite
- SproutSocial
Finally, here are the top five ways that you can fail at Twitter (don’t take this as a to-do list!):
- Spamming people over and over again with your promotion, sale, real estate listing, etc.
- Constant self-promotion. It’s less about you and more about the value you can bring the people you follow you.
- Auto-messages. If you have an auto-DM every time someone follows you – turn that off – it’s very spam-like!
- Not responding to messages. Make sure when people tweet you or mention you – you respond with either a quick tweet back or even just ‘favoriting’ the tweeting. #NoTweetLeftBehind! This is especially important if you are scheduling some tweets – make sure you go back and respond and engage!
- Connecting your Facebook to Twitter. When you connect your Facebook to Twitter, some of the message gets lost on Twitter. If all you are doing is pushing content from Facebook to Twitter – it sends the message that “the lights are on, but no one is really home.”
For more resources, check out Twitter 101: 10 Steps to Getting Started on Twitter, Twitter Tips to Turn Into a Twitter Pro and 6 Types of Twitter Conversations. Also, if you haven’t already signed up to receive my Content Strategy Grid, you can do so by clicking here!
Questions about Twitter? Send me a tweet @katielance!
