It is extremely imperative that every company that uses Twitter to promote their brand knows how it will help their brand to succeed and what will cause their brand to obtain a negative persona on the platform. It is important to remember that everything that you tweet, retweet, and comment on will remain on the internet forever, even if it is deleted. That being said, use Twitter wisely!
Here are 5 things that you should do and 5 things that you should not do when using Twitter to endorse your brand.
What you should be doing on Twitter to improve social engagement.
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Optimize your Profile
The main purpose of your Twitter profile is to provide a viewer with an impeccable first impression of your company. Make sure that what you are using your twitter to promote is clearly understood and known by anyone that clicks on your Twitter profile.
Make sure that your Twitter profile contains a high definition and professional profile image and header image. Your Twitter bio should give everyone that comes across it key details about the type of content your Twitter will consist of.
Add essential keywords and links to promote your company in your bio as well. Make sure to stay up to date with your bio. If your company releases a new product then put the link to that product in your bio. Always clearly label your links within your bio as well!
It is always a good idea to add the location of your company in the bio of your Twitter profile. If your company consists of numerous locations, use the location of your company’s headquarters. It can also be productive to include hashtags within your bio to draw in more possible connections. However, it is imperative that you do not overkill your bio with hashtags; I will explain why that is later on.
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Plan and post a lot of content constantly
It is never a bad idea to plan your content ahead. Saving tweets in your drafts to post later, is a great way to stay consistent on twitter even on your busiest days. This also allows for you to be more strategic with your posts by planning out exactly which tweets to send in a particular order and time period.
Save images and videos on your phone and computer that you would like to send in your tweets as well. Audiences are more like to engage with a tweet that contains visual content.
To optimize your business to its fullest is it recommended that you tweet about 15 times a day. If this seems like too much for you, start with about 3 posts a day and increase from there. These do not have to be only your original tweets. Throughout the day retweet other tweets from similar industry leaders, customers, and/or resources.
If you want to know what the best and worst times for you to tweet are, start off by tweeting throughout the day for about a week. Then, at the end of the week, reflect back and see what tweets received the most engagement from your followers and others. Record the times that these tweets were tweeted at and try to always tweet during these times to be seen by as many people as possible. You could be tweeting the best tweets on twitter but if they are not seen by anyone then they are useless.
Be creative with your tweets. Ask your followers and audience questions about products to make them feel more involved. An example of this would be to ask what colors they would like the new product to come in. Twitter polls are also a great way to make your audience feel a deeper connection with your brand.
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Visuals
As previously stated it is proven that tweets containing visual content attract more viewers than tweets without it. Use photographs, videos, and gif within your tweets and reflect on them later to see which visual context strategies recruited the most engagements.
According to a study conducted by “Hootsuite”, tweets that contain images receive 150% more engagement then tweets with only text. Videos draws 10 times more viewers and gifs attract 55% more viewers than tweets without visual appeals.
It is essential that these visuals are as high definition as possible. It is also a good idea to put the same filter over all of the photographs to maintain a sense of continuity and make your Twitter look more professional. About 500 million tweets are posted a day so make sure you are doing all that you possibly can to get your tweets noticed as much as possible.
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Pinned tweets
Pinned tweets are very important and relevant when providing your audience with a good first impression of what your Twitter is about. Pinned tweets remain at the top of all of your tweets on your profile page, so it is the first tweet that viewers see when they click on your Twitter.
Pin your most important and relevant tweet. Examples of this would be blogposts, articles, promotions, and new product release information. Because tweets have a life span of only about one hour, pinned tweets allow for anyone that click onto your profile to see that particular tweet before any other tweet.
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Engage with others and give them credit
Take time to reply to and engage with you followers’ and audience’s tweets. Answer their questions, like and retweet their tweets, and follow back potential customers. It is also good branding to assist other accounts that reach out to you for help. Establishing these relationships allows a trustworthy bond to grow between the two of you.
When sharing a tweet make sure that you give the originator of the information credit. Do not make it look like you took that account’s information and tried to pass it off as your own.
What you should not be doing on Twitter to improve social engagement.
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Do not use auto comments and direct messaging
Using platforms to generate comments and direct messages to your follows is seen as extremely annoying by those that receive them. This is the fastest thing that will lead to your account losing followers.
If you do want to comment on a post or directly message an account, do it naturally and manually. Make these tweets and messages personal and personalized to the account you are sending it too. This does the opposite of auto comments and direct messages by showing the other account that you took the time to create a well thought out and original response. As a result, this may even make the owner of that account feel more comfortable with your company.
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Do not always think about selling
Yes, selling your products is most likely one of your main goals while promoting your business on Twitter, however, do not over sell! This makes the account less genuine to those following and coming across it. It is a big turn off for customers.
Make sure to balance your twitter by not only tweeting about sales and products but also tweet questions and visuals for you audience to make them feel involved in the business’s decision process. By no mean should all of your daily tweets be about selling a particular product.
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Do not engage with only followers
These accounts are already following you; your tweets have successful convinced them to do so. Do not just limit yourself to speak to only them. If you do this, you will not gain any new followers.
Research relevant hashtags and keywords that are trending on Twitter and incorporate those within your tweets. This allows for other accounts researching the same information to be exposed to your account, which they may have never stumbled upon without these hashtags and keywords.
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Do not overuse hashtags
Too many hashtags can discredit the information within your tweet. Most people that run twitter accounts believe that the more hashtags used, the greater the size of the audience that will see it. In fact, it is the opposite, using too many hashtags is a large turn off for many Twitter users.
If you are going to use hashtags use only 3 at most! Also, make sure that you are using hashtags that are relevant to the information within your tweet. Do not including trending hashtags because they are popular if they do not correlate with the information you are providing. This will confuse your followers and bring in followers that want nothing to do with your business opposed to a target audience.
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Do not tweet a lot at one time
It is realistic to think that your audience resides in different parts of the country, maybe even the world. By tweeting all of your daily tweets at one time, you are not giving those in different time zones the opportunity to see your tweets depending on the time of day they are posted.
Posting all your tweets at one time will also lower your engagement rate with other accounts. People that follow you will most likely only read, like, or retweet a select few of your tweet because they do not want to go through every tweet at one time. This is why it is very important to space your tweets out, otherwise you will lose your following.
