Practical Twitter Tips That Work
Some people like Facebook over Twitter, while others like Twitter over Facebook. Others like Google+ or Tumblr. With the huge audience on Twitter, your business can’t afford to miss out on the potential traffic and leads you can generate from the social media giant. It’s tough to know how to connect with your audience, or even know where to start. With these no-nonsense Twitter tips, you can connect with the right people and build a following of potential customers.
Pin a Post to the Top of Your Page
If you want to promote a certain article or page on your website, once you Tweet a link to it, you can pin it to the top of your Twitter page. Why would you want to do this? Because every new person who browses your feed is likely to see the top tweet. If that’s your best content, or it leads to a special offer and a landing page that converts well, you’re going to drive more traffic to your business website.
If you’re going to share content or you have certain content you want everyone to see, this is the way to do it.
Create a Twitter List
When you add someone to a Twitter list, they get a notification. That’s a surprising way to get people to notice you. They’re likely to see the notification and come check out your profile.
Add a GIF, a Quick Video, or an Image
It all comes down to content. People love animated GIFs that are interesting or funny. If you can share a quick video, that’s great, too. Video is a great way to connect personally to your audience and put a face with the logo. Images are still great, too. If you write a new blog post and add a killer blog graphic to go with it, it will get people’s attention.
Hashtags
This is kind of where a lot of people go wrong. This isn’t Instagram. You don’t put 15-20 hashtags in a Tweet. Keep it to 2, maybe 3 at the most. It’s good if you break things up, too. There’s actually a pretty useful formula for structuring your Tweets. For example, start with a text message, then add the link after that. Then add a little bit more text, followed by a couple of relevant hashtags.
Starting a tweet with a username is a reply
Don’t get me wrong, replying to your audience is great! However, if you want everyone to see it, you want to avoid replying this way. Put their username in the middle. In other words, don’t start a Tweet with a username. If you put it in the middle, it is a mention, and everyone can see it publicly. You never want to hide interactions with your audience, unless the conversation should be private in the 1st place.
Spy on Competitors
Remember Twitter Lists? Create a Twitter list and mark it as private so they don’t know you’re following their activity. You can keep track of your competitors and what they are doing, saying, and promoting, without ever knowing if you are seeing it or not.
Mix Curation into your Twitter Strategy
Here’s how this works. If you promote your stuff all the time, and you never curate anyone else’s, no one else is really getting anything out of it. It’s like being at a party and screaming “Look at me! Look at me! Over here, I want to talk about me for an hour!” That’s not cool. Don’t be that guy or gal. You know what sounds much better? “Hey! Listen to what Sarah did. Isn’t that cool?” Not only will Sarah be extremely happy with you, but she’ll likely mention you with a thanks. Other people will want to listen, because it expands their horizons. They start looking at you like someone who listens to others and is willing to grow and contribute, and not as a leach.
Important: If you share someone else’s content, comment on it! This is much more natural than just blasting other people’s links randomly. It might take a little more time, but the engagement that follows will be worth it.
Spruce up Your Profile
This is the place to mention who you are and what you do. Do not cram hashtags here. That is a no-no. Twitter profiles are searchable already, so this isn’t necessary, and it looks spammy. Focus on good info, say something interesting. Post your best profile photo and cover photos. Think of Twitter like a dating profile for business. You want your profile page to look polished and put together.
[bctt tweet=”Don’t cram hashtags into your Twitter Profile, because they are already searchable.” username=”@creativebeacon”]
Automate the right way
Don’t send or respond to people with auto Direct Messages (called DMs). This is terrible and it basically says, I’m just here for traffic to my blog or business website. You can, however, schedule tweets with a tool like Hootsuite or Buffer all at once. You can schedule curated content and your own content. Then pick once a day to go on and interact personally with conversations, replies and retweets.
[bctt tweet=”Automated DMs are like being on a date and never looking up from your phone. You won’t get a 2nd date!” username=”@creativebeacon”]
Try Tweeting at different times
Certain audience members may only come on at specific times. If you don’t post at this time, they won’t likely see your tweet. It will get lost in the sea of other tweets. Schedule tweets even during when you sleep. You may reach people you wouldn’t normally.
Click to Tweet
This one is for your blog. Add Click to Tweet to your website. It’s available as a free plugin, and you can take an important tip or sentence from your blog post and but a button that users can click. When they click it, it opens their Twitter account page in a new tab and automatically places the text you’ve chosen in a well crafted tweet. Sometimes, people just don’t know what to say. If you go ahead and word it for them, this makes it quick and easy for them to promote your quote and your blog post in one tweet!
Conclusion
Twitter is a great place to build a following and drive a ton of traffic to your website and blog posts. Use the Twitter tactics above to make the experience much easier for yourself and your visitors. You can’t beat a win-win! Do you have any useful Twitter tips you’d like to share? Post them in the comments section below! Also, if this was useful, would you share this post on Twitter? Here’s an easy way to do it:
[bctt tweet=”11 Twitter Tips that actually work. Great tips for better engagement & visibility.” username=”@creativebeacon”]
