Twitter is still the fastest growing social media platform in the world. Despite being around since March 2006, many businesses are making avoidable mistakes on Twitter every day. In light of this fact, I have compiled a list of the basics any B2B marketer needs to master in order to succeed with their social media marketing strategy on Twitter.
How to write a tweet
Twitter is a microblogging site that limits users to 140 characters per tweet. Attaching an image to a tweet will take up 23 characters and adding a link will use a further 22. This leaves you with only 95 characters to write your message. Therefore with every tweet, it is important to utilise every character wisely and present your message clearly.
People often try and fit too much into the limited space. They resort to abbreviations and poor grammar which can negatively impact tweet engagement.
Links are vital for driving traffic and engagement whereas images are often an over utilised luxury. Therefore if you are short on space, prioritise what you need to say over what you would like to add. This will help you to create clear and concise tweets that say everything you need to.
How to Hashtag
If used correctly, a hashtag can make a tweet go viral almost instantly. However, with so many people fighting for the next viral tweet, it is difficult to make your message stand out.
Just keep it simple. Use hashtags when you are promoting a product or a tweet about your industry. It is also worth using hashtags when you are contributing to a Twitter trend hashtag. It is best to avoid using too many hashtags throughout the copy of your text as this can make a tweet difficult to read.
Hashtags are definitely worth using and can be very effective – but moderation and relevance are key. Including keywords for SEO purposes is also a great way to increase rankings.
How often should you post?
There is a fine balance between posting too much and not posting enough. If you post too often, your audience can become frustrated and unfollow you. If you don’t tweet enough, you won’t gain traction and will lose committed Twitter followers.
Best practice tells us to tweet 5 times a day, Monday to Friday. This allows your audience to see your content throughout the day, without being overloaded.
When to post
As well as posting the correct amount of times throughout the day, it is important you are tweeting at the right times. If you can discover when your audience is checking their Twitter feed, your content will gain a huge advantage and benefit from the increased impressions.
Your audience’s daily activity will vary depending on your industry. Here’s a useful example of how you could target an office based sector:
A morning post between 8-9am will help you catch commuters checking their phones on the way to work. A lunch and post lunch tweet from 12-2pm will engage users on their break. A tweet between 5-7pm will reach commuters heading home, followed by one final tweet from 10-11pm engaging people checking their phone before bed.
How to Build your Audience
Many Twitter users want to have thousands of active and targeted followers, yet seem unable to achieve this. The formula for building your audience on Twitter not only exists, it is actually rather simple to use and is very consistent.
By manually following relevant accounts every week, you will find that 15-30% of them will follow you back. The next week, simply find a tool that lets you unfollow those who aren’t following you back and repeat the process. If you dedicate an hour each week to solely building your audience on Twitter with this strategy, you will see massive benefits.
I hope these basic tips help shed light on the ever-evolving industry of social media. One day, you might just share the right message at the right time and find yourself trending on Twitter. For more information, check out this recent blog on “How to get 1,000 Genuine Twitter Followers in 8 weeks”.