Maybe you ask “Filip, Twitter marketing?! That is alive?” It is more alive than ever. With over 330 million active users it is an extremely powerful platform to leverage.
In fact, Pew Research shows 24 percent of U.S. adults use Twitter. The highest concentration is 18- to 29-year-olds, at 40 percent. This is a demographic every marketer wants to reach.
The number one reason people use Twitter is to discover something new, according to the company’s own research.
With this information in mind, you can always use Twitter for marketing – to drive traffic to your website, announce new products, make a ton of money, etc.
But it is as social as other platforms. That means you have to be social. You have to share valuable content, be personal, and become the nicest guy at the party. That is the way how social media marketing works.
But a lot has changed since the humble beginning of Twitter in 2006. This Twitter marketing guide will explain to you everything you need to know to be successful on Twitter…
So are you ready? Let’s jump in…
Creating A Twitter Marketing Profile
There is a lot of there going on in the Twitter profile. The profile pic, the bio, the pinned tweet, the banner, and more.
Everything is extremely important so that you can maximize your conversion rate. When somebody visits your profile, it should slap him in the ass and make him say, “Heck yeah, I wanna follow this buddy!”
That is how you take your Twitter marketing to another level.
So, how do you optimize each part of the profile? That is what we are going to take a look at…
1. Username
This is the username people will type to mention you in a tweet or respond to you. For the sake of simplicity, it’s best to use your name or business name, although a nickname can be used here.
2. Name
This is the thing that will show in the search. A smart thing is to use your nickname for your username. That is your opportunity to clarify who you are.
3. Bio
You have only 160 characters to explain as much as possible. In the bio, you should show them the reason why they should follow you, establish authority, and include a very short call to action (CTA) to convert the visitors and followers into traffic.
Also, any links, @usernames, or #hashtags used in your bio will appear as live links, making this a great place to promote branded hashtags, other business accounts, or your website.
If you are doing marketing on Instagram, this bio will look very similar…so you can use IG as a template.
4. Location
Don’t forget to add your location. It’s great for localized SEO and will make you more searchable for customers looking for local businesses in their area.
But, you can type whatever you want into the location, so it can be also useful as a headline for the bio link.
5. Website
You can include a website link in your bio. Pay attention to what landing page it’s pointing to and make sure you are redirecting them to the right marketing funnel.
That way you will be able to increase your sales.
6. Profile Pic
Your Twitter profile pic displays at 200×200 pixels, but the site recommends a 400×400 image. When clicking a profile pic, the larger image is displayed. Twitter profile pics are automatically cropped to be circular. Also, file sizes are limited to 100 KB.
Keep this in mind when selecting a photo.
Your profile pic should ideally be a headshot for your personal page and your company’s logo for a business page…
7. Header Image
Be sure to choose an image that represents your branding and doesn’t have important information in the profile pic blacked-out section.
Now, you have your profile ready to go, so let’s take a closer look at what you are going to tweet…
What To Tweet And How To Get Maximum Click Through Rate (CTR)
In November 2017, Twitter doubled the tweet character limit from 140 to 280. It’s also focused more on video content.
But, despite the longer character limit, Twitter is based on short, snappy messages. You can Tweet whatever you want. How you feel, some tips, news, quotes, etc.
The more personal or evergreen, the better. But where the real results come in is when you start sharing links and driving traffic to your marketing funnels.
The average Twitter CTR is 2.21% but it can be much higher if you will apply these techniques.
The majority of these marketing techniques should be used in every tweet you ever create, so pay attention and let’s go!
Use Clear Language
Your followers are likely quickly scanning through the news feed, and you need to grab their attention. You can do that by using clear, easy-to-understand language.
HubSpot did a study where they compared CTRs from two different tweet types: those with clear, to-the-point copy and those with a more ambiguous copy. They found that “clearly stated offers received 18% more clicks and 29.8% more retweets than the tweets with a more ambiguous copy.”
That is a massive increase. So, do not forget to make your tweets as clear as possible.
Use The Article Title Or Headline
If you are a copywriter, you know that the headline is the holy grail of everything. And increasing your tweets CTR is no exception.
Headlines are key.
One Twitter researcher was able to gain an 18% clickthrough rate simply by using compelling headlines. Hubspot’s research showed that their average tweet copy got an average of 98 clicks, while headline-based tweets got an average of 110 clicks.
So, how a good headline should look like?
Arouse curiosity. Cliffhangers are extremely effective here since you want them to discover the rest of what you have to share on your website.
Tease them at first about the content and then let them slide into your website. The headline can look like this…
“You won’t believe what scientists found on Sahara…”
It’s probably not something you would write about, but you get the point.
Ask a question.
Questions trigger the reader’s mind, and they also arouse curiosity, which leads to more clicks.
Use exclamation points. Data shows that three exclamation points will improve the CTR more than twice as much as any other form of punctuation (source).
Use at least one superlative. Superlatives are words like “hardest,” “most,” “strongest.” Headlines with one superlative outperformed all other variations of superlatives (or none at all).
Use a fun tone. Titles that are lighthearted and humorous have a higher CTR than their serious counterparts (source).
Include a number. Headlines that include numbers have a 15% higher CTR than those that don’t…
Use Verbs
Verbs are much more cognitively interesting than nouns. In fact, studies show that simply seeing or listening to a verb can signal the body’s motor system. It’s no surprise, then, that using more verbs in your tweets is can be a powerful way to increase clickthrough rate.
Post Fewer Statistics
Statistics are great, but to improve the click-through rate, you might want to choose something else.
HubSpot found that their tweets with statistics had 32% fewer clicks per tweet than non-stat-based tweets. But always test, test, and test to see the real results.
Use Images In Tweets
Using images improves CTR by as much as 18%. It is definitely a thing that you want to leverage.
Images also incredibly improve engagement rates and help you stand out in the news feed. That gets more eyes on your tweets and in general that will generate you more traffic.
Space Out Your Tweets
If you’re tweeting in spurts, your followers might think you’re spamming them.
Instead of tweeting all at once, space out your tweets. Tweets that are spaced appropriately get higher CTRs, according to Zarrella’s research. Buffer recommends putting a space of 30 minutes before and after the tweets for which you want high engagement.
Use Hashtags
Hashtags are a great way to increase engagement, exposure, and click-through rates. But you should be careful to not overdo it with hashtags.
Buddy Media found that tweets with hashtags get double the engagement metrics that no hashtags get — but tweets with one or two hashtags have a 21% higher engagement than tweets with three or more.
Include A CTA
That is the most important and most overlooked point. How can you get somebody to click on the link if you don’t ask them?
Keep the call to action simple and short. Also, you should have a clearly defined goal of what kind of action you want your reader to take…
- Is it signing up for a newsletter?
- Reading a new blog post?
- Buying your product?
Whatever it is, you must be sure that you tell them what you want them to do in the CTA. That is necessary.
Now you know how to increase the CTR.
But what about the engagement on your Tweets? I talked about this even in the Instagram guide. ENGAGEMENT MATTERS more than the follower count. It is essential for marketing no matter what social media platform you are on…
How To Increase Twitter Engagement
When most people jump into social media marketing and Twitter marketing, the first thing that many are focused on is their follower count.
They want to look popular, important, established, and respected, and how can you possibly do that if you don’t have a mega-impressive Twitter follower count, right?
Of course, follower count matters. But no matter how many followers you have, if your engagement rate is low, your results from Twitter marketing will look like a big pile of sh*t!
You can have 100,000 followers. But if only 10 of them frequently react to your tweets…well you know what I mean.
So, how do you increase your Twitter engagement rate?
That is exactly what I am going to break down for you here…
Engage With Others Content
Give the kind of attention you would like to receive. Commenting and engaging with others’ content is one of the most effective ways to build engagement and grow your follower count.
Gary Vee build his whole following based on this approach in the beginning. It is an extremely powerful strategy and it works almost on every social media platform.
It works on Instagram.
It works on Facebook.
It works on Twitter.
And so on. It is a really powerful tactic and you should stick to it. Just give them short feedback and a compliment if the tweet is good, and then go to another one.
Engagement is built and marketing can move further. But that is not the only engagement strategy at all…
Retweet Other Users’ Tweets
You want to do this early and often. I’m singling out retweeting as engagement because this is what most users value the most; not only are you liking their content enough to validate it, but you value it enough to share it.
Reciprocity is an important part of why people choose to follow and engage with you, psychologically speaking. And retweeting their content is perfectly triggering it.
Respond When Someone Tweets To You
This can be challenging for large brands or brands that have a large amount of engagement (even if it’s just when major content goes live) but doing your best to respond in some way when a user tweets to you can go a long way.
When criticism or upset customers are involved, make sure to respond to them as soon as possible— this should always take priority.
Always Provide Value
While non-brand users can get away with letting the world know that they can’t decide if they want a coke or lemonade, brands definitely cannot.
Brands can offer value in different ways; posts can seek to provide value by entertaining, informing, inspiring, or persuading users.
That is the thing that keeps them reading your tweets again, again, and again. When you start offering value something magical will happen.
You can provide value by sharing quick tips, or linking to a new article. All of this works.
Do Not Forget To Use Hashtags
I have talked about this before in this Twitter marketing guide, but let’s break it down one more time.
Hashtags are an essential part of Twitter usage; just like with Instagram, you pretty much expect a Tweet to come with at least one hashtag attached to it.
Hashtags help the audience find relevant tweets, increase exposure, and can easily double your engagement.
But be careful to don’t overdo it with them. Include a maximum of 2 hashtags per tweet.
Share Images
Images are an important part of social media; this is particularly true when we’re limited to only 280 characters.
If you’re not posting images on at least some of your tweets, you should be; some case studies have shown that tweets with images get 313% more engagement.
Also, images increase CTR as well. So, don’t neglect them. Now that you know how to increase engagement, you may want to know how to increase your follower count.
Well, all of these tactics I have shown you are getting you, new followers, as well. They work, and if I would create a separate section on growing your Twitter following, I would only waste your valuable time.
Now there is only one last thing that you have to do.
And that is to take the damn action. Without it, your marketing will stay in the same place as before.
I know that 95% of all the marketers, entrepreneurs, and all the people in here will read this article, say “Hmm, that is good!” and then do nothing.
Well, that is not how life and marketing works. You have to stay consistent and apply these tactics every damn day. No matter the cost.
So, are you ready to declare war on procrastination? If you are, GET AFTER IT NOW!
Filip Konecny 