Twitter can help you grow your business if you use it properly. It can help you generate leads, build relationships with your prospects and strengthen your brand. All of this is possible if you build a large base of followers and engage on a regular basis. People are much more likely to hire a company that they follow on twitter which is how we have gained some our new clients recently. For years we had about 300 followers, dismal engagement and did very little with our account. However, we recently doubled our following in two short months and generated some leads by executing some of the simple tips below.
Follow your Competitors’ Followers
Chances are people who follow your competitors could be good prospects so if you follow them, they might follow you in return.
Use Hashtags
Using a hashtag before a keyword allows you to categorize a tweet to help them more easily show up in Twitter search. This allows you to show your tweet to other people who may not follow you. Twitter says that tweets with hashtags receive twice as much engagement than those without hashtags but using more than two hashtags will cause a 17% drop in engagement. You can use Hashtagify to research the best ones to use.
Tweet 3-7 Times per Day
The average tweet only lasts about 24 minutes so tweeting 3-7 times per day is crucial to engaging your followers and building your social media presence. We use Hootsuite to research the best times to schedule tweets and maintain a steady stream of tweets throughout the day. Most people unfollow people who have not tweeted in one month so it is crucial to be active to grow your following.
Tweet when your Followers are Active
If you use Hootsuite, you can check your Twitter Engagement Summary to see when your followers are most likely to engage so you can schedule tweets when they are likely to get the most views.
Tweet with Animated GIFs or Images
Animated GIFs and images can significantly increase social media engagement. MakeaGif is a free website that helps you create animated GIFs using photos and videos. You can also use it to modify an existing GIF. The best image size is 440px by 220px.
Be Helpful
You can search for keyword questions in your industry and jump into the conversation. If you are offering a product or service, you can quickly reach out to a lot of people. If you answer the right questions and help people out, they would likely end up following you to see what else you are doing. If you connect with them enough times, they may eventually purchase your product or service.
Optimize your Twitter Bio
No pressure or anything but you only get 160 characters to summarize how awesome you are. Include some hashtagged keywords about what you do and make it sound creative and exciting. Include one achievement and invite people to connect. Finally, be sure to change your profile picture so that you are not showing the default egg avatar.
In Conclusion
Building a strong following is about tweeting targeted high quality content daily and engaging your followers. If this seems daunting, please contact us if you need help with social media marketing. Follow us on Twitter to see what we are up to.