Tips for Twitter Success

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Lorna Sixsmith — No Comments ↓

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Why do some people accumulate so many followers on twitter? What makes their 140 characters so interesting? How do they manage to achieve so many retweets? Is being a good tweeter something that one is born to do or can it be learnt? Are you wondering how you can use twitter effectively for your business?

In this blog post, I’m going to explore some tips for twitter success on , success in terms of gaining followers, gaining retweets and achieving significant leads and sales due to twitter.

How To Gain More Followers?

Be Interesting – Chat about any issues that are relevant to your business and your passions. Your interest will display your personality and hence, people will decide whether they like you or not. People buy from people so once they follow you because they like you and find you interesting, you are half way there.
Be Conversational – Don’t just tweet out links toyour own blog posts. Link to other articles your followers may find interesting and write something chatty about it in your tweet. It is good to have an opinion but do be objective and consider the views of others. Having a healthy sense of humour is also a plus.
Fill out your Bio – Most potential followers will check out your bio when deciding to follow you. It should describe what you do and sound professional but a little bit of quirky personality is good too. It is a good idea to include your location too.
Avatar – Your logo or a good photography should feature as your avatar.
Latest Tweets – Bear in mind that potential followers will judge your last 3 or 4 tweets in their decision to follow you – so don’t schedule too many ‘sales’ tweets together or too many retweets. Sales tweets need to be mixed with chatty and informative tweets.
Consider Your Followers – Don’t just tweet what is interesting to you, tweet about material they would find of interest too.
Follow Back – Unless you are famous and have hundreds of thousands of followers and really can’t follow them all back, don’t be precious about returning the follow. People are more inclined to follow you if they believe you will follow them back. You may only be interested in certain sectors and wish your followees to reflect your interest and that is fine but don’t limit it to a fraction of your followers. You can always use lists to filter so you ensure you see the tweets of those you are really interested in.

Greenside Up Veg ‘s twitter account is primed for getting more followers – good avatar, clear bio which demonstrates her passion, clear header image, following back many of her followers and active on twitter (as you can see by the number of tweets).

How To Gain More ReTweets

When I was running the crowdfunding campaign, I experimented with asking for a retweet within the tweet to see if it generated an improved response. It isn’t something I’m overly comfortable with doing so I have to admit the results aren’t that scientific. The retweet rate was slightly higher but not significantly. When I see a ‘Pls RT’ at the end of a tweet from someone I know and respect, I’m likely to retweet it but I believe it only holds value if the ‘Pls RT’ is removed by the retweeter. Retweets of tweets asking for a RT (such as in addressing a celebrity) don’t hold any weight in my opinion.

RT @thereluctantsc: Speakers – On why even your best jokes may waste your audience’s time and your own: http://t.co/cJaI3miVx6

— Marie Ennis-O’Connor (@JBBC) September 26, 2013

This tweet is good as it addresses its audience in the first word with ‘Speakers’ and it gets to the meat of the blog post ie on why you need to rethink your jokes in your speeches so we know it will contain lots of tips about public speaking. It was retweeted as it is focused, short and the retweeter knows she can endorse the quality.

Quality – Writing an informative or humourous, well written tweet is more likely to achieve success. Make the tweet about that blog post stand out by stimulating laughter or curiousity.
Length of Tweet – Ensure your tweets are 120 characters or less (so your username has space to fit in the retweet).
Position of Link – positioning the shortlink in the middle of the tweet is supposed to generate more retweets. Plus, it won’t be cut off the end if the tweet is too long.
Hashtags – incorporating a relevant hashtag within the tweet means it should be picked up by more potential followers (thus increasing your follower base too) and retweeted. Never overdo the hashtags though, one or two is plenty in a single tweet. Sometimes a tweet might be aimed at a specific audience, for example #smecommunity is aimed at business owners.

How To Achieve More Sales/ Leads

Twitter was, by far, the most successful social media platform for my crowdfunding campaign. Why was this? How can you achieve more sales via twitter?

Scheduling – Use a tool such as Followerwonk to determine the best time to tweet. If you aren’t online to tweet during those times, use the scheduling facility on hootsuite or tweetdeck.
Influential Followers – Followerwonk will also tell you who your most influential followers are – target them with conversational tweets.
Shortened Links – Ensure the link is shortened and use a tool such as bit.ly to monitor the click throughs.
Cross Pollinate – Use other social media platforms too e.g. Pinterest and twitter work really well together to spread awareness as in this example by a tweet pinned by Hunters Lodge.
Call to Action – Ensure your update has a chatty call to action to entice readers to click through.
Passion – Be passionate about your industry and it will inspire enthusiasm in others.

Food From An Irish Garden now available to pre-order on Amazon and available from October 26th 2013. http://t.co/3zzuc3eHgX

— Fiona Dillon (@Hunterslodge1) September 27, 2013

If you are wondering what lists are all about or how to improve your own twitter strategy, check out our upcoming twitter courses at We Teach Social. All are delivered online so you can become proficient in only three weeks and all from the comfort of your own armchair.