With over 8000 tweets sent in just 1 second and the first couple of hours determining the potential “virality” of tweets, the real-time, fast-paced platform that is Twitter requires an entirely different treatment to Facebook and Instagram. What makes Twitter different from its spiritual social siblings is that it thrives on interactions. This means that you’ve got to do a lot more with your content than simply posting it and hoping for the best.
Thankfully, we’ve got you covered! Read on to discover a few handy tools and strategies to help you maximise your reach and engagement on the world’s leading conversational social platform. Let’s get started:
1. Get a ‘handle’ on the basics
First off, your Twitter handle needs to be easy to remember and short enough so that people have no trouble tagging you. Because character counts play a huge role on Twitter, savvy users are more likely to tag short handles than longer ones (to stay within the limit). In addition, make sure your profile pic and header are easily recognisable, uncluttered, and consistent across your social media platforms — this thread of cohesiveness lends itself to higher levels of engagement and follower counts.
Lastly, when wordsmithing your Twitter bio, don’t be afraid to have fun or get creative. Business doesn’t have to be dour and boring — you’ve got 160 characters to nail your brand personality and get people interested!
2. Tweet when the traffic is highest
This may seem obvious, but tweeting during peak hours will net you more impressions and engagement, not to mention increased click-through rates. The jury, however, is still out on exactly when those times actually are. A case in point:
- Buffer has published that tweets sent out on Friday, Saturday and Sunday have higher click-through rates than tweets deployed on other days of the week.
- AdWeek, however, considers 12pm to 6pm as the golden time to send out a tweet.
- HubSpot has a differing opinion, too — they believe that 12pm to 3pm from Monday to Friday delivers the best bang for your tweet.
Determining the peak times for your business depends entirely on the audience you’re targeting, so play close attention to when your content performs best and tailor your messaging accordingly.
3. Join the ‘Twitter Chats’ conversation
We consider Twitter Chats to be an untapped goldmine for gaining new followers and getting your message out into the Twitterverse. But what exactly is this form of online conversation? Raven Tools defines it as:
‘A Tweetchat or Twitter chat is a scheduled, organized topical conversation on Twitter centralized around a specific hashtag. It’s best to think of a MeetUp or panel discussion around a specific topic. Now bring that conversation into the digital world of Twitter, a platform designed for high engagement through bite-sized content in the form of tweetings containing 280 characters or less.’
So instead of jumping onto existing conversations that may or may not be relevant to your brand’s products, services or industry, Twitter chats nurtures interactions between like-minded individuals who are there to engage and share knowledge. To get started, be on the lookout for upcoming Twitter Chats that are related to your industry. Chloe Social has created an incredibly handy calendar with all of the upcoming Twitter chats, so have a look and see if there are any conversations you think you could add value to.
4. Get involved in the conversation and always be available
Earlier we mentioned that Twitter is an interaction-based platform. This gives you the chance to have real conversations with your users, while adding your own unique flair and personality to your content, as opposed to simply broadcasting stale product promotions, and the like. Being responsive and available is a great way to open conversations with your followers and will go a long way towards building brand credibility and trust. Sprout Social has a few insightful tips for getting your conversations just right:
- Tweet questions to generate interest and open the door for conversation.
- 30-40% of your tweets should be replies to other people.
- When tweeting links, add a line of your own insight to spark conversation.
- Remember to tweet directly to your audience (they’re real people, after all). For example, instead of “Blog Post Title, [link]”, consider something along the lines of “What do you all think of this new post? Thumbs up, thumbs down, or something in-between? Blog Post Title, [link]”
5. Take advantage of social media listening to gauge sentiment
To get the most out of Twitter, you need to know what your audience is talking about, whether you’re being mentioned, as well as what content and profiles they prefer to engage with. Social listening is an effective means of gathering this crucial feedback and information.
Hootsuite’s CEO Ryan Holmes defines the importance of social listening quite succinctly: ‘For businesses that pursue social listening seriously, the benefits can be significant: real-time intelligence on competitors; instant feedback on how your own brand is being perceived; and actionable data for designing or tweaking marketing campaigns.’
By monitoring brand mentions and industry talk, you’re able to jump onto burgeoning trends and reply to users who may not follow your brand, providing them with almost real-time feedback and information. There are a number of tools you can use to gauge opinion and to spot trends on Twitter, some automated and some manual:
- Twitter Advanced Search allows you to search by relevant hashtags, hone your search results by positive or negative feedback, and find brand and industry mentions with the click of a button.
- Hootsuite Insights empowers you with conversational and keyword monitoring to see which content is generating meaningful impact for your audience.
- By mining over 100 different sources, Social Mention “allows you to easily track and mention what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real-time.”
6. WordPress and Twitter make powerful allies
In this day and age, a business needs to be online to be seen. With social media, a business has at its disposal the most powerful growth tool of all time. Not only does it educate customers about your products and services, it also funnels prospects to your website and increases the chances of conversion and ROI. WordPress websites are developed to seamlessly integrate with Twitter, allowing you to keep track of traffic, while analysing analytics and user sentiment accurately. Essentially, a WordPress site is the hub of your digital ecosystem and its extensions (sort of like your business’s online home).
At Kaira, we devote our years of experience to crafting WordPress themes that fully integrate with social media. If you’re looking for guidance or advice, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. If you’d like to experience a WordPress website for yourself, download the free version of our latest theme, Overlay.
