Have you been using Twitter to boost engagement for your small business? If not, you should, as it is a very effective way to engage a market with over 200 million users.
Twitter is an effective marketing tool and is used by small business owners – do not be discouraged by its reputation that it is only used by celebrities and teenagers. At 180 characters, it’s easy to think that it is a breeze to use. BUT:
- Do your tweets get noticed?
- Do your tweets get retweeted?
- Do your tweets get engagement?
Unless you get engagement, Twitter is useless. This is why we are presenting you these Twitter tricks for better engagement.
Keep it short.
To be accurate, keep it at 110 characters. Although a tweet has a 140-character limit, it is advised that you don’t use the whole character allowance. With 110 characters, people who would wish to retweet (RT) can add their commentary, making this tweet RT-friendly.
Tweet in the day.
You have to be mindful of the time zone where you publish your tweets. Why? The Twitter world is most active during 12 hours of daytime in your audience’s time zone. Keep your audience in mind and adjust your tweeting schedule, especially if you don’t live in the same time zone.
Tweet on weekends.
Weekends are a time to rest, yes, but not on Twitter! According to a Salesforce research, Twitter engagement is higher on weekends with 17% engagement rate.
Share photos.
Because of Rich Tweets, Twitter delivers higher levels of engagement for images and videos (especially Vine videos). A research says that you can get a 150% increase in retweets just by including photos and videos.
Request Retweets.
If you are like me, you get elated when a tweet gets Retweeted, but I am too shy to ask for retweets. As a marketer, I realise that this is a missed opportunity. Why? People will retweet when you ask them to. This is a good way of reaching out to people. However, make your request clear: Spell out the word retweet fully, rather than just using RT.
Hashtag it.
Hashtags are special because they are their own call-to-action buttons. They double the engagement because of this, and they are also highly visible on Twitter, especially when the tweet uses a “trending topic”.
Link it.
Most of Twitter interaction happens when the readers click on the links in the Tweet. Tweets with links get more retweets because people like information. It is advised to include links 60-80% of your tweets.
Tweet in moderation.
Like everything in life, moderation is key. The common mistake in Twitter is the perception that the more you tweet, the more results you get. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen that way as tweeting too often can result in poor engagement, especially for starting brands. Start with 1 to 5 tweets per day.
Constrain tweeting BUT respond to Direct Messages (DMs) and @s (tags) – this will make you subtly visible on your followers timelines, without spewing tweets all day long.
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