With over 300 million monthly active users, Twitter has been growing since the day it was launched. As the digital world is continuously evolving, brands are putting a lot of effort into building a good rapport with consumers using social media. Twitter usage across the world is tremendous. Therefore, as a brand, one cannot just sideline it. Ignoring this vast platform is not wise at all.

  • 500 million tweets sent out daily.
  • 75 percent of B2B businesses market their product and services on Twitter.
  • 40 percent of Twitter users carried out a purchase after seeing it on Twitter.

These are some of the facts that can be an eye-opener for you if you have been ignoring Twitter for marketing. If you are still not convinced, we have some more stats for you.

  • Twitter ads can reach 5.8% of the world’s population over age 13
  • 28.9% of Twitter’s audience is 25- to 34-years old.
  • Twitter has an advertising audience of 353 million.

There is no doubt that Twitter usage is increasing all over the world. It means that the platform is getting more and more valuable for both marketers and consumers. Therefore, it is very important to have a dedicated marketing strategy for Twitter as well, just like you have for Facebook and Instagram.

When it comes to Twitter, having defined goals is very important. That is what Twitter suggests! Also, no matter what your objective is, the foremost thing everyone (even the brands) wants on social media is engagement.

Most of the people focus on Instagram and Facebook for business growth. Twitter is ignored by many. Therefore, they do not understand what they need to do on the platform to increase engagement. Putting efforts without proper guidance may show no results and that can be very distressing. In fact, good results always matter.

In this article, we will share some basic yet effective tips and techniques to improve engagements on Twitter. We will help you find the loopholes in your Twitter marketing approach. If you don’t use Twitter for business growth, this article will surely convince you and help you strengthen your brand’s reach on Twitter.

Audit is important

If you have been actively using Twitter, be it for your personal interest or brand building, auditing your account is very important. It will surely help you understand your past engagement and loopholes in it.

Make note of which type of content has gathered maximum engagement and consider continuing posting the similar type of content. However, it does not mean that the content should contain violence, hatred or anything harmful to your business image.

Always remember! If you succeed to portray some emotion in your content, be it any platform, it will grow. Be it laughter, grief, excitement, anger, surprise or anything, it will engage the audience. However, you need to decide what emotion you want to portray that benefits your brand.

Also, keep a look at your competitors and see how they are using Twitter for their brand. It will help you generate content ideas, help you understand what is working for them and what is not.

Know what improves engagement

On Twitter, there are several ways the audience can interact with your content. It includes

  • Replying
  • Retweeting
  • Clicking on the links you share
  • Following
  • Liking
  • Viewing your profile
  • Viewing embedded media
  • Expanding your tweet

The more the merrier! The more your post gets retweets, the more your engagement rate increases. The same goes for everything mentioned in the above list.

Interact with audience

Be it a brand or a personal account, engaging with more and more people is very important. That is how you gain your audience. If you are new to the platform, you need to make a community. Find like-minded people, like and share their content, make a good rapport with them.
You can do things like:

  • Sharing others content
  • Following your followers
  • Retweeting their content
  • Finding similar accounts like yours
  • Promoting

Other than this, you should give a timely reply when someone tweets you, or messages you. Consider it as query handling. If someone initiates a conversation, you should respond quickly. This surely helps you build strong relationships and improves your brand image.
Always give priority to the complaints and criticisms. Swift responses can help you save your image.

Use different online tools

Different online tools help you keep a track of your performance and understand the shortcomings. Consider using these tools suggested by Neil Patel.

The one out of this list I suggest is Twitter Analytics. This is the official analytic tool of Twitter and it is great to initiate with. Surely, it will give you a better understanding of your audience, what they like from your content and what they don’t.

No matter how many tools you use, when it comes to making decisions for Twitter, this tool should be given foremost priority. There are two major reasons for that. One is efficiency and the second is accuracy.

Following are some of the key features of Twitter Analytics

  • Gives a complete overview of your Twitter account
  • You can not doubt the accuracy
  • Easily to operate
  • Easy to understand
  • The “Top-Follower” feature is great

Follow the KISS Rule

For those who don’t know about it, here KISS stands for “Keep it Simple, Stupid”. When it comes to Twitter, we are already bound to keep everything crisp and short because of the character limit on the platform.

However, one should always write the most important information you want to give when you tweet. This gives your messages much more clarity and your audience directly understands what you want to convey.

Also, if you are adding short tweets, then do not forget to add any media, a link etc. Because that is what grabs the attention of the user. It all depends upon your wit and writing skills, how you manage to engage the audience with less than 280 characters including hashtags and spaces.

Share variety of links on Twitter

Link sharing is the best way to improve engagement on Twitter. Just bring out the best of the content from your website and share the link in your tweet. This is a direct method to improve the traffic on your website.

I prefer you should not only share the content you have generated but share the content that you find valuable and worth sharing. No matter if it is not yours. The motive here is to improve the engagement of your Twitter account first. Once that is accomplished, you will start getting a loyal audience and that is what your eventual goal should be.

Never forget the hashtags

Just like in social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, hashtags are important on Twitter also. Never ever post a tweet without relatable hashtags.

The major reason behind adding hashtags is that it helps the relevant audience find your content. It has a direct positive impact on your Twitter account’s engagement and reach.

You post a tweet without hashtags, only your followers will be able to see it (unless they further retweet or share). However, if you use relevant hashtags, it will allow users across the world to find you through the hashtags you’ve used.

A tweet with hashtags can reach 1,065% more people than the one without hashtags. The difference is huge!

However, you should be very careful while choosing the hashtags. They should be relevant to your brand, your audience. There is no benefit in pitching a Physical Education teacher if you want a Maths scholar. Therefore, be clear of what you want and apply your brain accordingly.

Power Words are important

When it comes to content marketing, power words play a vital role. Power words are a great tool for content strategists. If used in the right way, these can increase the number of clicks on your Tweets which eventually improves engagement.

Many content writers use power words in their articles’ and blogs’ headlines. The major motive is to generate curiosity and make the user click on it to further know more. The same can be implicated with your Tweets as well. Power words can work well with tweets having article links, blogs, videos etc.

Here is a list of power words that can help you.

Don’t stick to a single media type

If you are sharing photos on Twitter, do not just stick to photos only. There should be versatility when it comes to the media you share on Twitter. The media you share on Twitter plays a vital role. The major reason behind that is the limit of 280 characters.

You must have heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. Use this phrase wisely for Twitter. Even Twitter says that pictures improve the engagement of a tweet.

If a picture can be so impactful, think about a video. We all know that video marketing is rapidly increasing with the advent of social media. Tweets with video attract 10x more engagements than Tweets without video. On all the social media platforms, the audience wants engaging content.

Other than this, you can add polls to the tweets. Ask questions to your audience and get their opinions. You should always aim to make your Twitter account content-rich and not stick to a single media type.

Ask your audience to retweet

If you want something, you simply ask for it. The same applies here as well. The engagement of the tweets significantly increases if you ask for retweets in your post itself.

Many brands are direct in their approach and they simply ask the audience to share the content as much as they can. However, some use a different approach and offer an incentive for the retweet. It can be anything like a giveaway, a prize, a scratch card, a discount coupon.

The latter approach generally works well because the audience always likes free stuff and discounts, even if you offer them a notebook.

Some brands initiate campaigns for help and then ask the audience to share and retweet their content. They ask people to tweet with a unique hashtag and that is how hashtags trend. When the brands work for the benefit of society, they look really good and it benefits their image. CSR activities always help the brands get shareable content that improves engagement.

Conclusion

The strategies and tips mentioned above need no money but a little more time and effort. You need to make consistent efforts and changes in your content strategy in order to improve engagement. Consistency is the key here. Also, you need to understand your audience and that understanding comes with time.

Other than this, you always have the option to get help from experts like Tabscap who always make easy to follow and effective strategies for different social media platforms.