With more than 140 million users and over 340 million tweets a day, Twitter has established itself as a key player in the competitive social media space. It's hard to watch a television or even walk down the street these days without seeing prompts to tweet or use a certain hashtag. And although marketers are using both on and offline channels to increase interaction with their social media pages, many are still not seeing increases in engagement on the micro-blog network.
To help with this, here are a few basic tactics you can use to increase your Twitter engagement two-fold:
1. Use trending hashtags in your tweets
Unless you are a historian, nobody wants old news. We all want to know what is going on around us and in real-time. To increase your Twitter engagement, you should focus on utilizing trending hashtags. You can use tools like Twitter Trends, Quora and Google Trends to find out which hashtags are trending the most, however, a lot of what's trending may not suit your brand. Only tweet relevant content; not spam. Here is a great article by uhurunetwork.com on trending hashtags and how to find them.
In addition, here are top 30 most popular hashtags from Hashtagify for the period of May 28th to June 3rd 2015.
2. Include a link in your tweets
Links drive more Twitter engagement than just clicks. According to a report by Sales Force, 92% of all Twitter interaction happens when the readers click links. Tweets that contain links have an 86% higher re-tweet rate than those that without, therefore, in addition to driving more traffic to a desired destination, tweets that contain links improve Twitter engagement.
3. Use a Clear CTA in Your Tweets
Believe it or not, people want to be told what to do next (well at least in the digital world). For this reason, it's importan to include a call-to-action message your tweets. Some of the most effective call to actions according to Twitter Blog are:
- Ask for a download - This can increase twitter engagement by up to 13%. Give clear direction and incentive to click the download link
- Ask for a retweet - This helps convert your followers into advocates. Statistics show that asking users to retweet, increases retweets by an average of 317%
- Ask for a follow - This can increase followers by up to 258%
- Ask for a reply - This call-to-action can increase replies by an average of 307%
For best results with your CTA, you can promote your tweets in timelines and search.
4. Use Numbers and Statistics
Because statistics makes you look an expert....
It adds credibility to an argument or advice. Advertisers use statistics to influence the decisions of consumers - you can use this same strategy to increase engagement. All in all, you have to avoid misleading statistics and numbers as this could tarnish your reputation when disputed.
5. Use Photos, infographics and Videos
Studies have shown that the brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it processes plain text. With 90% of the information transmitted to the brain being visual, the use of photos and videos can have a significant impact on Twitter engagement and ROI.
A lot can be done to increase Twitter engagement. The important thing is to research every option before implementing it. You should also strive to understand your audience profoundly, and always keep them and their needs front of mind when crafting your tweets.
Main image via Shutterstock