Beginner’s Guide to Twitter: Maximise Your Engagement & Win Retweets, Favourites & Mentions

Originally published on Independent.ie

The average Twitter user follows 5 or more businesses, while over a third of users will buy from a brand they follow, according to a study by Search Engine People. Twitter is an effective platform to help keep your customers engaged with your brand’s content. It also makes the perfect vehicle for providing a powerful and speedy customer service channel. Discover my top tips for creating compelling tweets in 140 characters or less. You’ll also learn how tomaximize your reach and engagement through organic tweets and paid Promoted Tweets.

1. How to Create Organic Posts That Matter:

Businesses can send organic tweets for free. These tweets will appear in your followers’ timelines. You get 140 characters to write your message and convince your followers to take the action you desire them to take. That’s why it’s important to keep your message snappy, concise and to the point.

How to Use The 80/20 Rule for Twitter:

Organic tweets provide a great opportunity for brands to connect with and provide value for their followers. It’s the perfect platform to share your blog posts, valuable content and new product/service information, for example. However, it’s best to adhere to the 80/20 rule - share 80% valuable advice and content and 20% promotional offers or posts about your brand.

How to Use Twitter as a Customer Service Channel:

Some brands also use Twitter as a customer service channel. The reason it’s so effective is because it allows businesses to give a quick and real-time response to any comments, questions or complaints about your brand. To monitor what’s being said about your brand and respond in a timely manner you can use a social media management platform like Hootsuite.

Tips for Creating Engagement on Twitter:

• Add an image - Tweets with images get 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites and 150% more re-tweets than those without according to a study conducted by Buffer.
• Each tweet should contain one strong call to action - make it clear what action you would like your followers to take. For example, do you want them to click on a blog post link or download a whitepaper?
• Keep your tweets clear and concise and avoid any ambiguous terms that might confuse your followers and detract from your message.
• To make the most of your 140 characters consider including some of your text on your attached image. For example, your image could include the date of your upcoming event so you don’t have to write it in your tweet.
• Use relevant keywords in your tweets - Twitter has a search function that allows users to search for specific terms. When users search for a term you’ve included, your tweet will appear in their timeline.
• Use a scheduling tool like Buffer to schedule and publish your posts at the prime times your followers are most engaged.

2. How to Use Twitter’s Paid Promoted Tweets:

The benefit of Twitter’s Promoted Tweets is that they allow you to pay to place your tweets in front of a wider audience who are interested in your business’ products or services. Promoted Tweets appear on the top of relevant search results pages, drawing more attention to your tweets, your brand and your message. They also allow you to target your tweets to a highly relevant audience based on your specified target criteria.

You Can Target Your Promoted Tweets by:

• Followers of accounts that are similar to those of your company’s larger competitors.
• Keywords you believe people interested in your offering will search for.
• Users with interests similar to followers of specified user accounts.
• Locations and languages.
• Filtered interests, including Education, Business, Beauty, etc.

Twitter provides some very user friendly resources to learn more about how to get started with trialing Twitter Ads.

Stay tuned for next week where I’ll explain how to build a powerful presence on LinkedIn.

Develop a detailed understanding of key social media specialisms including content marketing, and platforms on which you can promote your content.