14 Ways to Increase Your Clickthrough Rate on Twitter

Tweeting is easy. You can type up anything in three seconds and press "tweet." But sending a clickable tweet -- that, my friend, is a science.

Thankfully, making your tweets clickable doesn't "just happen" based on the whim of the Twitter gods. It happens when you intentionally apply a certain set of principles.

In this post, we'll talk about how to put the science of Twitter to work for you so more people click on your tweets.

Defining a "Click" on a Tweet

Before we dive in here, what does it mean for a person to "click on your tweet"? Think about it: There are nine different ways a user can click your tweet. They can ...

1. Retweet your tweet
2. Favorite your tweet
3. Click your hashtags
4. Click your @-mentions
5. Click your link
6. Click your picture
7. Click the white space to expand the tweet
8. Click your Twitter handle to view your profile
9. Click the "Follow" button to follow you

That's a lot of metrics to follow. But in most cases, the most important outcome is a click on the link that you've posted.

After all, link clicks account for 92% of all user interaction with tweets. Link clicks are the low-hanging fruit of Twitter, and they're your strongest chance of gaining views and shares for your content.

And I'm guessing you want more traffic and attention to your blog or the articles you share, right? When people click a link in a tweet, there tends to be a chain reaction: The more people clicking on your article via Twitter, the more exposure it gets. When more people read your article, more people are likely to share your article. Your social signals will likely rise, which improves your SEO. More activity on your site will also increase user engagement metrics. With all the extra traffic, you’ll also gain more conversions, more sales, and more revenue.

Wow -- all by improving the clickthrough rate (CTR) of your tweet? That's right. My goal here is to show you how to increase the number of link clicks on your tweets.

The Challenge: It Takes Work to Get Clicks on Twitter

Data shows the average Twitter CTR is 1.64%. According to SignUpTo, the more followers you have, the fewer clicks you're getting on your tweets:

• Users with 50 - 1,000 followers had a 6.16% CTR.
• Users with 1,000 - 5,000 followers had a 1.45% CTR.
• Users with 5,000 - 10,000 followers had a 0.55% CTR.
• Users with 10,000+ followers had a 0.45% CTR.

Plus, Twitter is a crowded place. With 271 million monthly active users and 500 million tweets sent out each day, you have a lot of competition to deal with. 

But Twitter is an important platform for driving traffing to your website, generating leads, and getting in touch with customers and prospects. And you can always do more to increase your engagement rate on Twitter. Challenges or none, there are ways to craft a tweet that compels more users to click through. Here are 14 ways to do it.

14 Ways to Increase Clickthrough Rate on Twitter

1) Use clear language.

Remember, your followers are likely scrolling through their feeds and scanning tweets very quickly. To catch their attention, be as clear as possible by choosing simple, easily scannable language.

HubSpot did a study where they compared CTRs from two different tweet types: those with clear, to-the-point copy and those with 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."

Here's an example they used of ambiguous tweet copy:

And here's an example of clear tweet copy:

The clearer you can be, the more likely you are to get clickthroughs to your URL. Sometimes, that means simply tweeting the title of the article or offer you're linking to. Which brings me to my next point ...

2) Use the article title or headline.

Good copywriters know that writing headlines is one of the most important steps to writing an article. Headlines are what make people click. So why wouldn't you use the copy from a great headline when tweeting out article?

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.

Twitter is a sales and advertising platform, and headlines really do matter -- and they're a great place to borrow copy for your tweets. In studies that I’ve conducted, a single headline word change produced a 46% improvement in clickthroughs. Advertising wizard David Ogilvy was so enamored of the importance of headlines that he wrote this: “Unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.”

As it turns out, the fundamental rule of clickable tweets is the same as the rule of clickable headlines. The headlines have to sizzle. Headlines with higher clickthrough rates tend to ...

1. Be short. You only have 140 characters, so you can’t afford a long title. Outbrain discovered that eight-word titles had a 21% higher CTR than the average title. Social Media Scientist Dan Zarrella analyzed 200,000 tweets with links and found that the 120-130-character range was the sweet spot for high CTR.
2. Ask a question. Why does this work? Questions prompt curiosity, which leads to people wanting to satisfy that curiosity (source).
3. 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).
4. Use at least one superlative. Superlatives are words like “best,” “most,” “smartest.” Headlines with one superlative outperformed all other variations of superlatives (or none at all).
5. Use a fun tone. Titles that are lighthearted and humorous have a higher CTR than their serious counterparts (source).
6. Not be in all caps. The online equivalent of shouting is a turnoff; 64% of readers prefer sentence case.
7. Include a number. Headlines that include numbers have a 15% higher CTR than those that don't. Use an odd number if you can, as headlines that contain odd numbers have a 20% higher CTR than those containing even numbers.
8. Be a two-sided title with a colon or hyphen. For example, “SEO: 7 Reasons Why It Still Matters” or “8 Ways to More Money — Warren Buffett's Secrets.” Titles that have two parts like these ones have a 9% higher CTR than those with one part.

3) Use verbs.

Humans find verbs 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.

Zarrella found in his analysis that tweets that included more verbs and adverbs, rather than nouns and adjectives, received far higher CTR rates.

 

4) Post fewer statistics.

Statistics are awesome, but if you're looking to improve clickthrough rate for your tweets, it might be better for you to choose something else to pull from the content you're linking to.HubSpot found that their tweets with statistics had 32% fewer clicks per tweet than non-stat-based tweets. But you'll want to experiment to see what your audience responds to.

5) Tweet on the weekend.

This will depend on your audience, so you should do some experimentation. But Zarrella found from his analysis of hundreds of thousands of tweets that CTRs were highest on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.

6) Tweet in the afternoon.

The timing of your tweets on a given day makes a difference, too. Zarrella found that tweets posted at 2:00 P.M. have the highest CTR. (Remember to experiment to see when your target audience is most interactive, though, and to post at that time.)

7) Use images. 

If you use images in your tweet, you will receive higher clickthrough rates -- as much as 18%.

Image Credit: HubSpot

8) 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.

(Pro tip: Scheduling your tweets ahead of time will make your life a lot easier. Here's a social media publishing template if you don't have one already.)

9) Use hashtags. 

Hashtags are a great way to improve your online presence. Above all, using hashtags will help you get more engagement and visibility. More specifically, you’ll get more clicks on your tweets.

But don't overdo it by adding too many hashtags to your post. 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. (For more guidance on hashtag etiquette, check out this blog post.)

Image credit: Buffer

10) Ask for action.

The call to action (CTA) is an indispensable part of all marketing. The same holds true for clickable tweets. What kind of action do you want your followers to take? Ask them to dosomething on the page where you’re directing them. 

Here are some examples:

• Grab your 15% coupon before time runs out!! example.com/couponecode
• Sign up now to hear about our mind-blowing new product.example.com/mindblowingnewproduct
• It’s free! Download your copy today. example/downloadnow

Each of these sample tweets has a clear text CTA followed by a link. This structure makes it very obvious that you want the user to then click on that link.

11) Don't necessarily place the link at the end of the tweet.

Zarrella’s analysis of 200,000 link-containing tweets concluded that putting the link approximately 25% of the way through would achieve the highest CTR.

12) Talk about Twitter.

Twitter users want to hear more about Twitter. They're already using the platform -- it naturally follows that they will be interested in tweets that have to do with that platform.

HubSpot found that their tweets that included links to blog posts and offers about Twitter and other social media topics received 22.5% more clicks on average than the average clicks for a tweet during a set period of time.

How can you talk about Twitter if your subject has nothing to do with Twitter? Try one of these:

• Hey Twitter users….
• Best thing on Twitter all day…
• You needed this in your Twitter feed…
• Twitter is raving about…

13) Talk about and link to infographics.

Infographics are a hugely popular topic on Twitter. A lot of people search for infographics on Twitter, so simply using the word "infographic" will bring more visibility to your tweets.

Not only can infographics double your blog traffic, but they can multiply your clickthroughs on Twitter.  In one study, infographics received 832% more retweets than articles and 746% more clickthroughs.

Image Credit: Adweek

14) Make sure your links work.

Nothing is worse than posting a perfectly optimized tweet with a busted link. The most common form of link errors is not having a space before the link. So check, double-check and triple-check that you've added a space between your tweet copy and the link.

By following these guidelines, you can be confident that you’re doing exactly what you should do to get the most clicks out of your tweets. Now, for your homework: Pick up a link to share, head over to Twitter, and create a clickable tweet!

What techniques do you use to create clickable tweets? Share with us in the comments below!

Source

Read More

Facebook's New Ads Relevance Score Will Determine Your Ad Cost & Placement

Starting this week, Facebook advertisers will see a new Relevance Score metric, the equivalent of Google's AdWords Quality Score, in their ad reporting dashboard. This new score is an important ad quality signal that will affect both your ad delivery and the cost you pay for your campaigns.

Facebook will use feedback from ad viewers to determine this score on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest possible score.

HOW DOES FACEBOOK'S RELEVANCE SCORE WORK?

Both positive and negative ad feedback factor into the Relevance Score equation. Positive interactions might include video views, conversions and other factors, depending on the type of ad you're running. When people hide or report your ad, your Relevance Score will suffer.

Image source: Facebook

Facebook promises that the score is updated on a continual basis, as people view and interact with your ads.

Not all ads will have a Relevance Score, though – ads with guaranteed delivery will not be affected.

Everyone else will see this new metric appearing in their ads reporting tools and in third-party API tools beginning this week, as Facebook works through the global rollout.

WHAT DOES RELEVANCE SCORE ACTUALLY DO?

In their feature announcement, Facebook said the higher your Relevance Score, the lower your cost of ad delivery. They want to show users the most relevant ads possible, so they're giving you a reward for quality, relevant ads here. On the other hand, if your ads are poorly targeted or not resonating with your audience, expect to pay more for clicks and impressions from now on!

Advertisers will want to keep a close eye on Relevance Scores throughout the life of each campaign. If your scores are slipping, your ad delivery will suffer and costs will increase.

HOW TO USE RELEVANCE SCORES

Facebook cautions that you shouldn't use Relevance Score as the primary indicator of ad performance (which I think is total nonsense heh), but then Google says that about Quality Score, too. Clearly, they want to downplay its importance since they still want you to spend on poor quality ads, but believe me when I say the factor that determines your ad placement and cost is pretty damn important!

Before launching a full campaign, test out your ads with small audiences to see which combinations of creative and targeting produce the greatest Relevance Score. Other metrics still matter, of course – cost, conversion, and reach among them.

This one metric is going to be massively impactful, though. It plays a role in how often your ad will appear and whether it will appear at all. It will guide your CPC and CPM. I'm pretty crazy about AdWords Quality Score for these same reasons – you can't underestimate the power of this score.

Remember, too, that bids still matter. On Facebook, ads with low Relevance Score but a high bid might still beat out the ad with the high RS and lower bid - I'll be busy reverse engineering the exact formula in the next few weeks. 

Are you excited to see a quality score-type metric available to Facebook advertisers? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Source

Read More

How to Increase The Click-Through Rate on Your Tweets

How do you get someone to click on your links on Twitter?

This seems like one of the most pressing questions I see coming up day in day out. And rightly so. Figuring out how to attract more people that like what you are posting is one of the most important aspects of being successful on Twitter.

While a higher click-through rate is certainly not the only thing to be good at on Twitter, it can be a great basis of success. So without further ado, here are 15 of the best tips out there to guarantee a higher click rate.

1. Learn to write persuasive tweets

Tweets are just like headlines. They need to attract attention and get the reader to read to click on the link. Your tweet needs to convince the reader that it’s worth his or her time to click on the link and read the content it leads to.

The best headlines are the ones that state a benefit and generate curiosity—the same applies to the best tweets. You need to let the reader know that the content the link leads to will benefit them and try your best to get them curious. Also make them really easy to read—get rid of complicated words because people browse through tweets as quickly as they can and the easier a tweet is to read, the higher are the chances of them clicking on the link.

Here is an example of a recent Buffer Tweet that has attracted well over 150 clicks, as seen through Buffer’s social media management analytics:

For more information, the Buffer blog has some useful articles on how to write persuasive social media updates.

2. Focus on using the right keywords

People are always looking for good content on Twitter. They normally look for it in their Twitter feed. And if they don’t find what they are looking for, they will type down words in the Twitter search box and look for the latest tweets on that topic.

If you want your tweets to turn up during these searches, you need to add keywords to your tweets, keywords your audience will most likely search.

If you add keywords, your tweets will turn up in the search and this will most likely increase your click-through rate as it will increase the exposure your tweets get. I found this works extremely well with “How To’s” and “Guides” keywords. It also proves to give a great conversion.

3. Use hashtags thoughtfully

It helps to use a hashtag along with your tweet. People might search for hashtags instead of words in the search bar, as hashtags can lead to relevant tweets they are looking for—so use relevant hashtags in your post. For example, if you’re tweeting something about Twitter, you can use the hashtags #twitter, #sm or #socialmedia. If you’re tweeting about something on copywriting, use the hashtags #writing or #marketing, etc.

Using hashtags can make a huge difference on your CTR. An oft-cited study from Buddy Media found that adding hashtags can double the engagement on your tweet.

Someone who is extremely knowledgeable about retweets is @TweetSmarter, here is a great example:

4. Post at the right time, when most of your followers are online

Post at a time when it’s most likely that people are going to click on your tweets. Click-through rates are normally at their highest in the afternoon, according to Dan Zarrella. But these are just general stats for a general audience.

You need to figure out the time your target audience prefers. You can either do this by yourself by tweeting at different times and checking how many people click on your tweets by using a click tracking software like bit.ly or Buffer, or by using a service like SocialBro, which figures out your best times to Tweet.

Note SocialBro and Followerwonk each connect with Buffer so you can sync your ideal posting schedules.

5. Take part in Twitter chats

Take part in Twitter chats on subjects you specialize in, and share good content. Twitter chats are attended by both experts and people looking to learn more about the subject the chat covers. If you are an expert on that subject, this could be a great opportunity to increase your click-through rate.

Popular tweet chats are attended by many people and when you take part in these chats and share good content not only published by you but also by others, and if the attendees find it helpful, it could really increase your click-through rate. These people, who have just read your tweets and found them helpful, will take note of your work and follow you on Twitter and the next time they see your tweets they will want to read them.

So take part in popular Twitter chats and share content they will find helpful.

Here is a resource to find a Twitter chat on a topic and a day that might work for you.

6. Space out your tweets enough, so you don’t flood followers

In his webinar, Science of Time, Dan Zarrella points out that tweets that hadsufficient gaps between them had a higher click-through rate. Therefore, if you want to increase the CTR of your tweets, make sure you leave a time gap before and after you tweet them.

For example, if you want to post at 1 p.m., make sure you don’t tweet anything 30 minutes before this tweet and 30 minutes after this tweet.

This should help increase your click-through rate. Of course, Buffer is a great option to make spacing out your Tweets easier and never flooding your followers.

7. Connect your Twitter account with your other social accounts

Linking your accounts to one another is a useful way for people to find you on multiple networks and to engage with you where they’re most comfortable. If a potential LinkedIn connection sees that you’re on Twitter, it’s possible that they may click over to your profile and browse through your timeline, potentially boosting your clickthrough rate on your tweets.

To connect LinkedIn and Twitter, log in at LinkedIn and go to Settings > Manage Twitter Settings. In the pop-up box that appears, be sure to check the box for displaying your Twitter account on your LinkedIn profile.

Your Twitter profile will then appear on your LinkedIn profile page.

When you add your Twitter account to your Linkedin profile, choose that you want to publish the same tweets you tweet on Twitter on Linkedin. This should help increase your click-through rate, as both your followers on Twitter and your connections on Linkedin will see your Tweets. Note: This functionality is no longer in place.

If you are interested in autoposting tweets to LinkedIn or other networks, you can test out automation tools like Zapier and IFTTT, which allow you to connect multiple services.

Of course, be wary here that you don’t over-automate.

8. Work on getting more followers

The more followers you have, the higher your click-through rate will be, as your tweets will be exposed to a larger audience directly. It would also be more likely that you will get more retweets which will lead to many more clicks on your tweets.

So work hard on getting more followers. Here’s a great post by Leo Widrich ongetting more followers.

9. Tweet only the best content you find

This might seem kind of obvious, yet making it a point to tweet only the most relevant content is crucial, I’ve found.

If you tweet some irrelevant or bad content and some of your followers visit it and it disappoints them – they will either unfollow you or stop clicking on your tweets. If you tweet good content and they find it helpful, they will want to read more from you. Build the trust with your community.

There is a big list of Twitter sharing ratios that might be helpful to consider for this, including the 4-1-1 method, the Golden Ratio, and the Rule of Thirds.

10. Write tweets between 120 and 130 characters:

Dan Zarrella published an excellent infographic, “How to Get More Clicks on Twitter“.

In his study, Zarrella found that tweets between the lengths of 120 and 130 characters had the highest click-through rates. So when you write tweets makes sure they are of this length.

11. Use words that encourage clicks

He also found that tweets that had the words “via,” “@,” “RT,” “Please,” and “Check” had the highest click-through rates, while those with the words “@addthis,” “marketing,” and “get glue” had lower CTR’s. Therefore, if you want higher click-through rates make sure you use the right words that increase click-through rates and avoid using the ones that don’t.

12. Tag others in your Tweets with “@username”

Tag others in your tweets, as the above tip shows that using the word “@” can increase your CTR and the best way to use “@” is by tagging someone in your tweet. Whenever you can, make it a point to tag someone in your tweet. This could be the author of the content or just the twitter account of the publisher.

Tagging others and adding a comment about the post can also help you make connections with people and get more followers as it has been pointed out on this post. This is a great way to show the thoughtfulness of your Tweet and make others curious about it.

13. Place the links early on in your Tweets

Zarrella also found that tweets in which the links appeared one quarter through the tweets had a higher click-through rate. Therefore, place your links earlier on in the tweet, instead of placing it at the end of the message as it’s usually done.

14. Tweet differently on weekends

The study also shows that tweets made on weekends i.e. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays had higher CTRs than those posted on the weekdays. The difference here however is that the frequency needs to be much lower as social streams are a lot slower too.

What I found to work great is to drop Tweeting frequency to only 2-3 tweets on weekends. It goes in line with Dan Zarrella’s research and doesn’t overwhelm your followers on a slower day of social news.

15. Check and analyze the results of your clicks

These are just some tips on how to increase your click-through rate. This can vary from person to person. It all depends upon your audience. You might have a different day, time, etc. on which you have a higher click-through rate. The best thing to do is check your results.

There are many great services like Buffer, SocialBro, or Tweriod that can help you do that. Your results will help you learn the best time to tweet at, in order to increase your click-through rate and make sure you reach your audience.

Here is a set of results from the Buffer analytics dashboard. It shows you which types of posts are performing better very easily:

Over to you

Have you got some tips to increase CTR? Would you like to share them with us? Please leave your tips in the comments below.

Source

Read More