How to Step Up Your Twitter Engagement
Twitter, everyone’s got one and many still don’t know how to use it! Since its’ inception in 2006, Twitter has grown into a hub of over 330 million active users. It is now one of the largest live chatrooms we’ve seen. Twitter began with basic statuses and has now evolved into a space where people post news, opinions, memes, motivation, and so much more. So, how do you get involved without getting lost in the millions of messages and people? We’ll give you 4 simple ways to step up your Twitter engagement, whether personally or professionally.
1. Post (And Reply)
The first step to engagement on Twitter is being present. Be sure to make your page reflect your brand, both visually and through your bio information. Follow people and brands that align with yours, along with liking and replying to their posts. This will increase your page’s visibility and allow others to know you are active. Posting great content is extremely important. Photos and videos receive more engagement than posts that solely contain words. Hubspot states, “Tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than tweets without images.” You also have the option to utilize gifs within the application to enhance your posts and replies. If your brand is focused on humor or sarcasm, then gifs are perfect for you. They’re easily accessible and add personality to your posts. Lastly, use hashtags!
2. Twitter Moments
According to Medium, Twitter moments is “Twitter’s in-house news service, and because of recent feature changes, it’s become one of the most visited news outlets in the world.” Being one of Twitter’s newest features (and recently moved to the explore page), it showcases some of the most recently talked about moments on the platform. If any of the moments align with your brand, be sure to chime in and post about it or reply to any trending posts regarding it. Replying allows you to be seen by anyone else who replies to the same tweet.
The key to being prepared for these moments ahead of time is looking up holidays, food holidays, and any other trending topic that gains traction. You can create tweets around them in advance and schedule them for the day of through platforms like Hootsuite or Buffer or create your own moment in real time. Be sure to go into your account each day to engage with others manually in real time. Follow the pages you come across that peak your interest or are like branded. This way you can also enjoy scrolling through your feed and naturally engaging with accounts out of habit.
3. Advanced Search
Who you follow on Twitter is extremely important. Your feed will reflect tweets from everyone you follow, and the algorithm in place will suggest accounts you may be interested in based off of that as well. Luckily, Twitter has their very own Advanced Search feature in place. You can thoroughly search through words in tweets, hashtags, accounts, places, dates and more to find exactly what you’re looking for. If you’re a blogger who’s searching for holiday giveaways to feature, you can type in “holiday giveaways” (as pictured above) in the phrase box and all of the tweets with that specific phrase in them will appear.
If your goal is to follow people who fit in line with your brand/interests, type in words, hashtags, or phrases you have in mind that associate with them. You may also type in an account you follow and love in the “mentioning these accounts” box and find other people who interact with that account that you can follow.
This helps when trying to reach an account that has a huge following. If you’d like to collaborate with a specific account, yet can’t find their email address in their bio/info, you can sift through their mentions for someone who works closely with them (publicist, assistant, etc.) to build rapport with.
4. Timing
Using Twitter Analytics to track the times your tweets get the most engagement is extremely important. It varies between brands, interests, and time zones. Wix states, “Not posting at the right time on this social platform can make all the difference between your brand’s Tweet going viral and one that performs just so-so.” According to Sprout Social, these are the best times to tweet!
Once you solidify your brand, topics you’d like to discuss, topics you’re interested in, and research the times like brands tweet/engage you’ll be well on your way to growing your Twitter platform. Times are essential. Most large brands engage throughout office hours (9am-5pm), while most personal accounts engage in the late afternoon/evening. Depending on who your target followers are, you will need to keep track of the times they are most active and test out what engagement tactics work best for you. The tactics can range from replying to tweets, retweeting their posts, posting content that is relevant to them and tagging them, featuring them in a post and tagging them, and the list goes on and on. Finding creative ways to reach out to brands you’re interested in partnering with without seeming like a pest is tricky, yet proven to be possible.
