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2014 should be the year you begin to use Twitter for your business, if you aren’t already. You can speak to potential clients, spread awareness of your brand and generate some fantastic online PR. We’ve brainstormed a few top Twitter tips to get you more followers in no time…
1. Post something unique
Retweeting news that’s already been all over the BBC isn’t interesting. Users on Twitter like to share new and unusual content that they haven’t seen anywhere before. If they want breaking news, they will follow news publishers. Where you can be useful is by sharing articles from smaller blogs and websites that your followers may not have already seen. If you must tweet some big news from BBC, add your own opinion to the tweet at the beginning.
2. Shorten your URLs
Let’s be honest – shortened URLs look tidier in tweets and are much more credible than a long link that trails off before the end of a message. You’ll have probably seen loads of URL shortening clients including Bit.ly and Owl.ly. You can also choose to purchase your own customised shortened URL, as the BBC, Google, LinkedIn and the New York Times do.
As a cost effective option we would recommend using Owl.ly, which is the custom in-built shortener in the Twitter management tool Hootsuite. It also allows you to track who has clicked on your links so you can begin to work out what works.
3. Keep your messages punchy
Shorter tweets tend to get more engagement as they are easier to read and easier to retweet also. If you use up all of the characters (140) then your followers will need to edit your message if they wanted to retweet it and add their own opinion. Best practice suggests messages between 70-100 characters.
4. Strategic tagging
One of the most effective ways of growing your Twitter account is to tag other users in your tweets. This means they will be sent the message and will hopefully reply or begin to follow you. You could do this by retweeting other users, replying to other users, or simply adding their @username in your messages. If you are sharing a news article, we’d recommend tagging the journalist or blogger rather than the larger publication as they are more likely to respond. So for example, instead of sharing a Telegraph article and tagging @Telegraph, look at the journalist’s by-line in the article which usually includes their Twitter @username and tag them instead.
5. Hashtags
Nothing frustrates us more than mis-used hashtags. They were first created as a tool to help categorise tweets and now they are just used in ridiculous ways. We’d recommend to just stick to using them in two instances; firstly at events. If you are attending an event or conference with a hashtag dedicated to tweets about that event, then use it. It might help you to understand who else is at the event and is good for PR and networking. Also if you are talking about a trending topic on Twitter then don’t be afraid to use the hashtag. We’d only recommend using a maximum of one per tweet.
If you are thinking about taking your Twitter account to the next level then do get in touch. We offer bespoke social media consultancy and training and would be happy to chat.
Categories: Social Media, On-line Marketing
