Twitter currently has 330+ million active users on its platform comprising people from all walks of life, nationality, religious beliefs, and interests. Learn the proper way to boost your brand recognition using Twitter.
Yet how much of this Twitter opportunity have you harnessed to grow your brand?
To make profits in business, you need to be able to spot opportunities and take advantage of them.
To remain profitable over time, never let a good opportunity pass you by.
The above assertion sums it all – Always take advantage of opportunities no matter how small they seem.
Which is one of my motivational goals for crafting this post on Twitter Tactics?
Before you shrug off my question with a wave of the hand, you need to understand that Twitter could be the missing link between where your business is right now and where you want it to be.
Twitter can help you reach audiences beyond your imagination, get people talking about your brand, and direct traffic to your website.
How could a 280 character tweet possibly do all these?
I’ll unfold some successful strategies that you can deploy right away while you experience the increased engagement of Twitter users with your brand.
What is Twitter Engagement?
Twitter engagement refers to the interaction of Twitter users towards your content which, in this case, are your tweets.
These interactions could be mentioning you or your tweets, liking your tweets, retweeting, or clicking on links in your tweets, although some marketers do not categorize clicks as engagement but as CTR (Click through Rate).
The main objective of creating tweets is to get users to engage with them – meaning that the success of a particular tweet can be measured by user engagement with it.
So how can you tell the engagement rate of your tweets?
I’m glad you’re thinking in this direction, as it is vital you understand how to measure engagement.
According to the Online Advertising Guide, the average engagement rate ranges from 0.5% to 2% – which is a very poor figure going by social media standards.
However, you can still boost your engagement rate by following the tactics spelled out in this post.
One other thing though, most people jump into social media and immediately start focusing on growing the number of followers. They think; the larger the followers, the higher their social proof and prospects of success!
While building your follower base isn’t such a bad idea, it would serve you better to focus on driving engagement.
Twitter followers give an idea of the potential reach for every tweet you post while the engagement rate tells us about the quality of your content and its relevance to your followers.
If the engagement rate of your tweets is very poor, it most likely means you bought the followers or attracted the wrong followers. It could also mean that you are producing content that offers no value or have no relevance to your followers.
So let’s get things right from the beginning, by using these Twitter tactics.
1 – Engage With Content Posted By Others
I know this sounds counterintuitive, but you’ve got to engage with others’ content first.
It’s like the golden rule on Twitter – do unto your fellow members’ tweets what you want other members to do to your tweets.
So you’ve got to take the first step by liking, making comments and retweeting the content of others.
So how does this rule change anything about your tweet engagement?
When you interact with tweets from others, you are more likely to get their attention. Some users go as far as checking you out, wanting to know a little more about your brand. And if you have content that seems interesting, you get a return comment or retweet. Or even get a CTR on any of the links you provide.
Taking this route is also a great way to build business relationships with other Twitter users. Your response to their content shows that you have some kind of interest in their brand.
You can interact as often as possible, but be genuine about your responses. Do not comment for the sake of commenting, but show that their content has impacted you in some ways.
2 – Share Different but Valuable Links
Adding variety to the links you share can help spice up engagement. Don’t let it appear like you only post links to your blog posts or content on a particular site.
Remember that people come to Twitter to interact, learn new things, and obtain relevant information.
First of all, all the links that you include in your tweets must have valuable content. I’ll say this again; do not post links just for the sake of links. Let the links lead others to pieces of content that will add value to them.
You can share content from other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
While surfing the net, you may come across great content that you want to share with your network. You could also post these links in your tweets with a few words suggesting why it’s a great read.
Once your followers find that your links aren’t just pieces of content that you created but they are posts that you find valuable and you are willing to share, you build more trust with followers – leading them to interact with some of the links you post in your tweets.
3 – Respond to All Tweets Posted to You
I know responding to all tweets may be impossible for the very big brands, especially the brands that have a multitude of Twitter followers or massive engagement.
But it is a tactic to keep in mind as you work towards boosting your engagement rate.
You know what? Your chances of growing into a brand with massive followers are very slim if you ignore this tip.
While followers engage with your brand by responding to your tweets, you engage your followers by your response to their individual tweets.
This shows that you have a listening and very responsive brand.
When you do this, don’t let your tweet sound automated. Your followers will find that out. Instead, let your response reflect the tone of your brand. Let your followers know that they matter and that they are not just some statistics, but actual people you are willing to relate with no matter how big your brand is.
Even when your brand becomes so big that it becomes difficult to respond to everyone, make sure the early birds get responded to.
Ensure that questions are fully attended to. Criticisms, also, form part of the feedback that your brand needs to help it become better.
4 – Make Your Posts during Peak Hours
Everything in life has got its time and season, including the best times to tweet.
The demographics of your target audience also determine the peak time to tweet. Twitter users in Africa and those in the United States would not share similar peak hours.
So you’ve got to find out the peak hours of those you intend to reach with your tweets. If you tweet at any other time, you may not obtain the much-needed engagement.
There are different studies aimed at different kinds of Twitter users. You got that right; they all got different results. So, you need to find out the peak posting times for your audience.
If you cannot be online at peak hours, a scheduling tool like Hootsuite would be helpful. You can use it to distribute content on Twitter and many other social media networks.
Whatever peak times you discover, do not settle on them. But keep testing the times and days until you discover the optimum peak hours.
Then you can start reaping the full benefits of tweeting at the right time.
5 – Promote Your Tweets
There are times when you need a wider reach for your tweets. And the current followers that you have cannot give you the much-needed traction.
Or you may just need to engage others quickly probably because your tweet is timely.
At such times, it is best to go the way of Twitter Ads.
This is especially useful for brands that do not yet enjoy a large following. Or you have lots of followers but the engagement rate is quite poor.
To use Twitter Ads, you must run on a budget because it does cost money, though not the kind of amount that would lead to you robbing a bank. There’s one thing for sure; Facebook ads are quite cheaper than Twitter ads. So you have an idea of what you are up against when using Twitter ads.
To ensure that you get the best engagement, you should opt for Promoted tweets.
Despite the cost, Twitter ads could give you some impressive click-through rates, especially when you want to drive traffic from the social platform to your website or online store.
To create your ads, locate the tab on the same drop-down menu as to where Twitter Analytics is.
6 – Make Use of Hashtags in Your Tweets
Hashtags have become the butter on the bread for every tweet made. Without hashtags, your tweet can only be found by a much lesser crowd.
Hashtags are very important to Twitter the same way they are to Instagram.
Every Twitter user expects at least one hashtag per tweet.
Hashtags offer the benefits of letting relevant audiences find your content by searching for particular hashtags. This gives you a wider reach with your audience and a higher engagement rate.
A tweet that contains a minimum of one hashtag can expect a 1,065% increase in engagement over a tweet that doesn’t. Also, the likelihood of getting a retweet is 33% higher than a similar tweet without hashtags.
The simple logic behind this result is hashtag = more audience = more views = more engagement.
While using hashtags, you’ve got to be smart about it because too much can cripple your tweet.
Trending or popular hashtags are great sources of ideas for hashtags to use.
7 – Include Visuals
I’ve heard it said countless times that a picture is worth a thousand words. Using pictures can be of great help if you are using a platform that limits your communication to just 280 characters.
Besides pictures speaking louder than words, images receive better engagement than texts. Studies show that tweets containing images receive 313% more engagement than the tweets that don’t.
What does that tell you about using pictures for your engagement?
You will naturally record higher responses for tweets that contain images.
What sort of images are the best to use for your tweets?
Let’s start with high-quality graphic pictures or infographics. The idea of using images is to help project the message in your tweet.
You could engage a professional graphic artist or source from a free image site like Pixabay.
8 – Post with Videos Also
If a picture can speak a thousand words, imagine how many words a video can speak.
That’s right, I’m talking about including videos in your tweets and for good reasons.
Twitter has support for videos that allows you to record on your device and post. Or you could simply upload an existing video and post in your tweets. Just that this works fine for iPhone, hopefully, we will get it for other platforms soon. The time limit on the videos is 30 seconds which is enough to pass any message across.
Videos are great for breaking news stories and projecting behind the scenes activities.
Conclusion
Twitter is a great social media platform for driving brand awareness, engaging followers, and attracting traffic to your website. The platform currently has 330+ million active users that you can reach and engage in.
So what are you doing at the moment to take advantage of this vast Twitter opportunity?
For one, improving Twitter engagement with followers is a good tactic for building your brand and increasing profits.
The 8 ideas shared in this post will help you increase the number of people who interact with your brand.
Be smart with your tweets as you apply the tips, and remember to monitor the increase using Twitter Analytics.
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