Posted: 10th July 2017
Many people tell me they feel that Twitter is overwhelming and yes, at times, I agree! Leave Twitter for a few hours and you’ve got 500 Tweets to scroll through – and I don’t even follow that many people….
Twitter is one of the most dynamic social media platforms but there are ways that you can take control and make it work for you.
Top 10 Twitter Tips
Hashtags are handy ways of shortening your tweets and are often used as a search term – not just on Twitter but on the worldwide web in general. You can also see what is trending and use topical news tags or those #MondayMotivation or #NationalCupcakeDay hashtags to engage with a wider audience.
Our brain processes images far faster than text and across all social media, posts with images and video get more engagement. Make sure you use good quality images of the right size to make the most of this feature which now no longer uses up valuable characters!
A personal pet hate of mine, it’s all too easy to auto link on Twitter but Twitter and Facebook are two completely different platforms. So on Facebook you’re tweet will appear as just get a few characters and FB me…. I have no idea if this is an image, an article or what your post is about. Will your audience really be bothered to click through? Better not to do anything in my opinion.
You really need to keep on top of any Retweets, comments or replies or direct messages you get via your notifications tab (it’s the one with the little bell….) so you can respond and build up some rapport with your followers. Likewise it is good to Retweet other people’s tweets (including influencers in your locality or sector) as long as they are relevant to your audience, and maybe add a comment in.
You can tag people by using their twitter handle, but remember to put the @name in the middle or end of the tweet, if you put if first it only that person will see it.
Time is precious and although it’s good to look at your home feed it is a lot more time effective to separate your followers into different segments be that by locality, sector, business or pleasure. You do this by clicking on your image in the menu bar and selecting lists, where you can create, name and add followers to a list. Find out more here
To see what is happening to each of your segments simple click on Lists and then click on the relevant lists you can then quickly see relevant tweets and engage or Retweet.
You need to tweet original content more than once a day to catch your audience on line, so I would recommend 3 – 6 original tweets per day. Add to that you Retweets, likes and responses and you build up quite a presence. Having a good Content Marketing Plan and monthly Schedule helps you focus, but remember the life of a Tweet is very short – so you can use the same content more than once – just be sensible. You can build up a good volume of ‘Evergreen’ tweets that don’t date and use these every month.
You will get most from Twitter and avoid annoying people, or losing them through lack of content by posting consistently day to day. Again your Content Marketing Plan will help here. There are lots of free tools such as Tweetdeck, Buffer and Hootsuite as well as excellent low cost schemes such as Cinchshare. Think about when your audience are most active on Twitter.
Share content that your audience/potential customers will enjoy and that is relevant to them. Articles, events, blogs, links, images, quotes, advice, tips, case studies, testimonials etc. Try not to stick to just one topic but share a variety of original and other people’s content. Remember the 80/20 rule – promote yourself and your services only 1 in 5 (or less) of your tweets.
To make the most of your 140 characters, use short links which also look more appealing. There are plenty of free URL shorteners on the market such as Bitly or, if you use Hootsuite or Cinchshare, links are shortened automatically.
As well as giving away good content, links and contacts you can use Twitter to drive traffic to your website and any online marketing funnels you may have. This is usually more substantial free content in exchange for an email address. You can also create Twitter only competitions, offers or discount codes.
If you want help with making the most of Twitter or developing a Content Marketing Plan you can use and update each month get in touch, or follow me on Twitter or Facebook.
