HOW TO INCREASE YOUR TWITTER ENGAGEMENT Flashcards
Timing, Timing, Timing!
This goes without saying, but you should tweet when you think most of your followers are online. Unfortunately, this isn’t always easy, especially when your audience lives across several time zones. However, I’ve found that the best thing to do is to experiment with tweeting at different hour intervals on a regular basis and examine your Twitter analytics to get a feel as to when the best time to post for your audience is. In addition, you can consider sending out Tweets throughout the day to catch more people online.
CONS OF SENDING OUT TO MANY TWEETS, OR POSTING CONTENT TOO OFTEN ON SOCIAL MEDIA SITES) IS YOU CAN BECOME OVERSATURATED TO YOUR FOLLOWERS AND THEY MOST LIKELY WILL UNFOLLOW YOU BECAUSE THE NOTIFICATIONS ARE BLOWING UP THEIR PHONE CONSTANTLY THROUGHOUT THE DAY(USE TFATK POSTING SHORTS CONSTANTLY MAKES YOU ANNOYED AND HARD TO FIND THE VIDEO WHICH IS WHAT YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT, THERE MAY BE A WAY TO SEPERATE THESE SHORTS POST FROM EPISODE POST)
Use More (and More!) Visual Content
Like any other social media platform, photos and videos tend to do well and/or get more visibility in the newsfeed. Especially on Twitter, the sea of words can get blurry as people scroll through their feed. In the meantime, viewers are much less apt to contribute to Twitter engagement.
Visual posts are also interactive and take up more space in the timeline, beckoning you to engage with them. If nothing else, viewers are more likely to stop and enjoy a picture or video. In turn, this helps reinforce your brand message. The fact that this works is borne out by studies. Twitter themselves analyzed tweets and determined that photos get 35% more engagement than non-visual content.
Let’s look at this another way. Wonder why you see so many GIFs on Twitter? Because they work! A study by Twitter found that GIFs received 55% more engagement than regular, “word-based” Tweets. Want even better results? Tweets with videos garner 10x the engagement! In other words, people love visual Tweets in general, and videos in particular. How’s that for a formerly boring-looking social network?
Proactively Engage with Others
You follow people for a reason, right? Engaging with their content by Retweeting or commenting on it will often lead to them checking out and engaging with your content. After all, curiosity will draw them in if nothing else. In addition, should the other user respond to your engagement, chances are that the algorithm will see this as a signal and might allow your future tweets to be more discoverable in their feed. Over time, this can build Twitter engagement even further.
Keep in mind, being proactive also means to be proactively following and engaging with relevant people outside of your followers as well. This helps you discover new people, but it also introduces you to others who haven’t heard from you yet. Start with followers of your followers, or look at who reacts to other people’s Tweets with relevant hashtags. Remember, hashtags are very useful.
Reactively Respond
It goes without saying that engagement builds engagement so make sure you respond when others engage with you to keep the engagement – and conversation – going! Or, viewed another way, people like it when you reciprocate their Twitter engagement. By responding further, you’ll show reciprocity that helps build relationships and, in turn, invites other people to check out your content because someone they follow is engaging with you.
(USE DAN HARDY TWEET EXAMPLE, YOU REPLIED TO HIS TWEET RIGHT WHEN HE TWEETED IT, HE WAS STILL ON TWITTER SO HE SAW YOUR COMMENT AND REPLIED, NOTICE HOW ANYTIME AN INFLUENCER POST SOMETHING THEY REPLIED TO THE IMMEDIATE COMMENTS BECAUSE THEY ARE STILL ONLINE AND THEN STOP REPLYING WHEN THEY GET OFF THEIR PHONE)
ALSO USE BLUE CHECK MARK UPDATE EXAMPLE FOR THE COMPANY
Share Your Source
Giving other people credit where it is due always pays dividends. I go out of my way to try to share the source of my tweets if I share them from another source. This gives your tweet more credibility, shows respect to the content creator, and actually gives you a chance to garner engagement from someone who just might be an influencer.
This is why I always say, when done right, content curation in this manner is the best way to get started with influencer marketing. Influencers gain that position on Twitter because they are thought leaders on some level. And in the process of earning that designation, they need to interact with their followers. If you attract their interest, then that Twitter engagement can bring you to the attention of the influencer’s followers.
Use Hashtags
While hashtags are not as critical as Instagram, even Twitter has said using hashtags will increase engagement by 16% on average. One reason for this is that the hashtags will sort your tweets and make them easier to find by the right people. Especially if you look at engagement per Tweet, the results can add up fast.
Other companies on the social media scene have found more impressive numbers. For instance, Hubspot found that using hashtags correlated with a whopping 1,065% increase in engagement! In addition, a different survey found that tweets with hashtags are 33% more likely to be retweeted. Considering that a Retweet exposes your content to wider audiences, this is an especially valuable type of Twitter engagement.
Participate in Trending Conversations
This is an often-overlooked way to try and boost engagement. However, Twitter shows trending hashtags for a reason. Leverage them and join the conversation when it makes sense to do so. As a general rule, it makes sense to join the discussion when the trending topic is relevant to your niche or touches on an issue your company is passionate about.
Launch a Poll
Finally, you might try to launch a pol. While not as viral as polls on LinkedIn, chances are that Twitter polls can gain more engagement for you than an average tweet, but like with everything else, your mileage might vary. With that said, polls are often useful if your company is looking to make some changes in their product line or wants feedback for some other reason. In a few instances, if brand-appropriate you can try a “just for fun” poll. Some people love to feel that they have a voice.
Boosting your Twitter engagement may feel like a daunting task. After all, Twitter isn’t as “cool” as it once was. Nonetheless, Twitter remains a powerful force in some sectors, so it’s still a place to see and be seen. With careful planning, and the tips I’ve given in the article, most brands and individuals can boost their engagement rate.
