On our journey as a Twitter Monitoring tool we’ve tested everything from Promoted Tweets, to Twitter competitions, to Influencer Outreach and all of the bits in-between.
We love sharing our findings with you and this week we’ve collated 7 of our top Twitter hacks which can help to attract more followers and increase engagement for your brand.
Here’s how…
Twitter Hacks
1. Newsjack
How to do it: To find occurrences worth newsjacking, you need to constantly monitor what’s going on. The easiest way to do this is to use Twitter Monitoring to feed all of the latest stories into one alert which is sent directly to your inbox. Once a story breaks, it’s time to get creative and find a spin you can use to grab attention.
The most famous example is Oreo’s timely ‘you can still dunk in the dark’ tweet which went viral after a power outage caused a blackout at the Superbowl, but newsjacking doesn’t always mean thinking of something on the spot. Add a section to your editorial calendar for seasonal or big industry events and plan how to involve your brand.
Why it works: Popular new stories often become ‘trends’ on twitter which leads a large, global audience to look at them. The larger the audience following that trend, the better your chance to attract people to your profile and gain more followers.
2. Answer questions, be helpful
How to do it: Twitter is full of people asking questions and looking for advice; all you have to do is find them. Think about what sort of questions your audience may be asking and pick out keywords to use in Twitter Search.
For example, if you are a Vintage Clothing Brand, your search could look a little something like this:
‘vintage’ ‘clothes’ ‘where’ ?
The results just for these simple terms, are plentiful and by answering questions or providing suggestions in response, you can build your online reputation and gain more followers as you become known as a reputable source of information.
Why it works: Helping people on Twitter is one of the most underestimated hacks out there. If someone helped answer a question or problem you had, how would you feel about them? At minimum, you’d check out their profile and at best you’d thank and follow them too.
Top tip: Use Twilert to setup this search and you will receive the results to your inbox everyday, reminding you to connect with users and regularly gain more followers
3. Use automatic favouriting to your advantage
How to do it: If you hadn’t noticed already, there are many companies currently using automatic favouriting as a tactic to gain new followers. This means that when your tweet contains a certain word, phrase or hashtag, it is automatically favourited, prompting you to look at the accounts it was favourited by and potentially, start following them. This is something you could try yourself, or you could just use these tactics to help you to get to the top of the Twitter search pages. Find common hashtags used in your industry and you will soon start to see your tweets favourited at a higher rate. Some popular ones that we’ve noticed in marketing include: #growthhacking #socialmedia #contentmarketing
Why it works: A few additional favourites can be the difference between your tweet falling into the ‘Top’ or the ‘All’ tab when someone searches for that keyword. The more you are in the ‘Top’ category, the more people will see your tweet and the more followers you are likely to gain.
4. Use short, sticky tweets
How to do it: The best way to gain more followers is to provide relevant content that is likely to be shared. Unfortunately, Blogposts and website links can be very hit or miss on Twitter, as someone skimming through may not always have time to read a full 10-minute article. This is why short, sticky tweets are perfect for grabbing attention within a few seconds. One that works particularly well for us is the ‘tip’ format:
Why it works: The more retweets you get, the larger the audience you will reach. This seems simple but will help you to gain additional followers very easily. Quick tips and quotes have a high chance of being retweeted, hence why we call them ‘sticky’ content.
5. Promote yourself offline
How to do it: You shouldn’t just look online for ways to gain more followers. Ensure that your Twitter handle is on your business cards and when you meet someone new, point out that they can follow you to stay updated with your news. You’ll be surprised at how often they do.
Why it works: This is a casual way to add another thread between you and a potential client and due to the nature of Twitter, it isn’t too presumptuous to suggest at a first meeting. Once they follow you, they’re perfectly positioned to see all of your great content and promotions.
6. Optimise your bio for search results
How to do it: Use popular keywords and industry terms in your Twitter bio (the main sentence of your profile which tells people about you). This helps optimise your profile to show up in Twitter search results when users are looking for new accounts to follow. You can also create a mutual agreement with a sister or partner company, to add each other’s handles in the bio to increase discoverability. Try not to spam your bio with multiple consecutive hashtags – a short outline of what you do is much better at converting passers-by into followers. A good example of an optimised Twitter bio is this one from Social Media London:
Why it works: The suggested ‘people you could follow’ bar in Twitter, search results and advertising can all be optimised by the keywords that you add to your Twitter bio. This is why it’s extremely important to add words that are relevant to your business and will help you to be discovered and potentially gain more followers.
7. Join a Twitter chat
How to do it: A great way to gain more followers and increase interaction is to join in with ‘Twitter Chats’; usually an hour session where like-minded individuals talk across a range of subjects related to their industry. A good old fashioned Google Search can help you find chats related to your interests, or ask around in your industry to find out which ones are best.
Why it works: Twitter Chats pair up individuals who have similar interests; the perfect recipe for a high level of engagement between users. Not only will this help you to gain more followers but it also helps your company to become synonymous with the service or product, marking you out as an industry leader in your field.
What techniques have you found effective for attracting new followers? Tweet us your best tips to @twilert
