Showing posts with label tweets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tweets. Show all posts

Monday, 21 March 2016

5 Surprising Ways To Engage Your Audience On Twitter

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Maintaining an engaged Twitter community for your brand can be a challenge. With more than 500 million tweets being sent every day, how do you make your posts stand out? It’s all about diversifying your content and surprising your audience with different types of posts.
Let’s take a look at five unusual engagement tactics you can put to use right now.
Ask a question with Twitter polls
Twitter polls is a relatively new Twitter feature with a ton of potential. Asking questions has always been a great way of engaging your audience on Twitter and with Twitter polls this becomes much easier.
All you need to do is click on the poll icon on the tweet editor. Then you can ask your question and add up to four options (emojis included). Although initially Twitter polls were by default accessible for 24 hours, Twitter recently allowed users to customize the time their Twitter poll is open by giving more options from 1 minute up to 7 days.

Twitter poll1


Twitter poll2

Twitter reported a staggering 1.7 billion votes casted since Twitter polls launched back in October which is only an indication of the feature’s potential for driving engagement.

Ideas for Twitter polls

What’s great about Twitter polls is that you can use them in many different ways to engage with your audience. Here’s a few ideas:

Ask for an opinion



Better understand your customers’ needs





Ask for feedback




Ask something fun




Address some real burning issues




 Show it with a GIF
Who doesn’t love a good, funny GIF, right? GIFs were introduced on Twitter a bit over a year ago making taking our Twitter experience up a notch. So do the question “Why use GIFs on Twitter?”, we say “Why not?”. But really:
  • They are eye-catching. Imagine scrolling through your Twitter timeline. You’re much more likely to click on a tweet with a GIF among a sea of static images and text based tweets.
  • They help you showcase your products. Instead of a long explainer video, GIFs can be a useful alternative in featuring your products or showing certain functions.


  • They help you convey your brand’s personality. Whether you are replying to a Twitter mention or sharing some content, GIFs are a great way for your brand to convey a human, fun, casual tone.



They are great for data visualizations. A GIF can help you convey information in “snackable” form, while communicating complex messages in a simple way.


 They can be ideal for promotional campaigns. An animated GIF is a much more shareable, engaging way of tweeting a promotional campaign but also save you some valuable character space.



 Note: Even not technically a GIF, Vines are are another great alternative of engaging your Twitter audience with short 6 second videos. Here’s an awesome example from Oreo.
Reward with Contests and Sweepstakes
52% of people follow brands on Twitter to be notified for special offers or promotions and 38% to take part in competitions. So organizing a simple contest or a sweepstake on Twitter is a great way to keep your followers engaged because, guess what: It’s one of the reasons they actually follow you on Twitter. Take a look at a few ideas for Twitter contests.

User generated content

Sweepstake






Flock to unlock



 Embrace live broadcasting
Live streaming is the future of social media marketing and the reason is simple. As Chris Sacca very accurately pointed out:
All of a sudden, the world’s pockets are full of good cameras and good screens with good data plans and good social platforms to let everyone know you’re broadcasting.
In a few short months since its launch, Periscope has managed to grow over 10 million accounts and nearly 2 million active users per month with engagement being off the charts, as viewers watch the equivalent of 40 years of live video, every day. Live streams can now be viewed straight from your Twitter timeline which means that broadcasts can reach an even wider audience. And if you’re into action cameras, Periscope also integrates with GoPro. How cool is that? But let’s take a look into why live broadcasts are a great engagement tactic for Twitter.
  • Give access to exclusive content. A live broadcast can be a great opportunity for your audience to become part of your story. Show them the people behind the brand, the personality and an exclusive sneak peak behind the scenes.
  • Host an AMA. Being open as a brand is a great way of developing trust with your audience. Periscope can be an ideal platform for setting up informal Q&A session between your audience and a member of your team.
  • Educate. Sharing knowledge is one of the ways to build a strong Twitter community. Broadcasting short webinars, workshops or how-to videos is a great way to share your knowledge, build your authority and interact with your audience.
  • Cover live events. Whether you are hosting or attending an important event in your industry, a live broadcast can help you connect with people beyond this physical space.
  • Showcase your products. A quick, live presentation of your products could go a long way with getting more customers onboard.
Connect over a Twitter Chats
Twitter chats can be a powerful marketing tool for many different reasons. Let’s take a look at how Twitter chats can benefit your brand.

HOW TWITTER CHATS CAN HELP YOUR BRAND
But how can you actually set up a Twitter chat?

Step 1. Get the hang of it

Even though Twitter chats are not necessarily rocket science, there are certain rules and etiquette you need to take into account. So before hosting your own Twitter chat, make sure you are familiar with the concept by attending a few chats in your niche. This way, you’ll be able to better understand how they work and at the same time, research your field so that you pick a topic that perhaps has not been covered yet and is more likely to draw interest.

Step 2. Be wise about the name and hashtag

This is probably the most critical part before launching your Twitter chat. The name and most importantly the hashtag are the ones that set the tone, convey the subject and attract relevant audience as they create expectations on what will be discussed. So before sharing your chat with the world, do some research to make sure that the hashtag you’ve chosen is unique. This way, you avoid noise and confusion with other ongoing Twitter conversations.

Step 3. Pick a time

The time and date your Twitter chat will take place heavily depends on the type of audience you are aiming for attracting. If for example your audience is located in the US, then a US time would be a no brainer. Things can get more complicated if your audience is around the globe but make sure you pick a time that works for most timezones. A Twitter chat normally lasts for an hour. As for the best day of the week, there’s no golden rule really. Except never schedule it for a Friday afternoon for obvious reasons. Before deciding on the day of the week you can do some research on when other chats take place and pick a day that doesn’t clash with other Twitter chats that could be relevant to your audience.

Step 4. Be Prepared

If you are planning to host a Twitter chat on a regular basis, creating a calendar would be a great solution for an overview of the topics you will cover. During the Twitter chat, things can get pretty hectic. So preparing the questions ahead of time, and writing down some answers can save you a ton of time and help you focus more on moderating and engaging with the participants.

Step 5. Promote

Before your Twitter chat, and especially if you’re organizing one for the first time, make sure that you build momentum by regularly tweeting about it or even by notifying your audience via email and targeted tweets.
Another way to expand your chat’s reach and get some interesting conversations going on is reaching out to influencers asking them to join you as a special guest in one of your upcoming Twitter chats. These guys are very likely to share their guest gig with their own network which will lead to more participants for your chat.
Now over to you! Have you put any of these tactics to use? Let us know in the comments right below.

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Tuesday, 2 February 2016

How to Set Up Your Twitter From Scratch (The Right Way)

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If you set up your Twitter the right way now, you'll move a lot faster when you want to quickly schedule tweets, find relevant influencers, and grow your following.
If you haven’t registered and optimized your Twitter profile yet, follow these steps first.
Okay let’s begin:

1. SET UP TWITTER ANALYTICS

Go to analytics.twitter.com. You have to actually visit this page to tell Twitter to start tracking your analytics. Why don’t they do this automatically? Who knows.

2. SET UP BUFFER & GET THE EXTENSION

Buffer is an application we’ll use to schedule out tweets and find the best times to tweet.
Go to buffer.com → Sign in with Twitter to create your account.
(If you’re truly starting from scratch and have 0 followers, you’ll need to sign up via email.)
Connect your LinkedIn or Facebook accounts when prompted. This will allow you to post to those profiles from Buffer as well.
Put in your time zone and let Buffer figure out your optimal times to post. Choose how many times you want to post -- 2 per day is a safe choice for now.
Tracking links is good. Enter your email to finish up.
You should get prompted to add the Buffer extension. Go ahead and do that now.

3. SET UP HOOTSUITE & GET THE HOOTLET EXTENSION

You can only schedule 10 tweets with the free Buffer account. I’ve never had an issue with this, but if you’re feeling frustrated, you can use Hootsuite’s scheduling system. It’s not as user friendly but it gets the job done.
Go to Hootsuite, and sign in with Twitter.
Also install the Hootlet extension, which will allow you to schedule out retweets.

4. SET UP RIGHTRELEVANCE & ADD CONTENT FEEDS

RightRelevance is one of my favorite resources for aggregating quality content all in one place.
Go to Rightrelevance.com and connect to Twitter using the button up at the top.
After you’ve signed in, you’ll be prompted to enter your email address. Do that and then add a few topics for yourself using the search bar at the top.
I’ll choose personal branding. After clicking “Add Topic,” it shows up in my sidebar. The point here is I can always go back to this sidebar and see what content is trending in each of these topics. It makes it really easy to find share-worthy content and get ideas for your own articles.
Go through and add a few more topics in your niche.

5. SET UP CROWDFIRE

Next go to crowdfire.com and login in with Twitter.
Crowdfire allows you to easily grow your following, clean out followers who are inactive, set up an automatic direct message to new followers, and a whole lot more.
Sign in with your email. Again, uncheck the follow button unless you’re dying to follow them on Twitter.
NOTE: The next screen asks you if you want to routinely brag to your audience about all the new followers and unfollowers you’ve gotten. You don’t, so hit NO.
(If you were going too fast and accidentally hit YES, go to Automate on the sidebar, click the Automatic Tracking along the top, and uncheck the “Tweet my follower and unfollower stats.”

6. ADD TWEETS TO YOUR QUEUE

Now let’s add some tweets to the queue.
Go to buffer.com and click on your queue. This is your tweet pipeline. It’s where your tweets will reside until they get sent out at the scheduled time.
Add your latest blog post or another article you want to share.
Copy the URL to the post, and don’t be alarmed when Buffer shortens it. Then give it a title, add a photo and a hashtag or two. Leave enough characters (20ish) so that people can retweet you without editing your post. Adding an image takes up a lot of characters but the extra engagement from images makes that move totally worth it.
Then add your article a second time. Don’t worry -- you’re not tweeting it out twice in a row. We’re going to fill in that space with other posts.
Try to give it a different title, maybe a quote or alternative title the second time around.
  • e.g. The 28 Day Online Reputation Management Challenge {URL} #ORM #personalbranding
  • e.g. Want to get your #PersonalBrand in shape? Try the 28 Day Online Reputation Management Challenge {URL} #branding #ORM

7. FINDING THE RIGHT HASHTAGS

Go to RiteTag.com (and sign in with Twitter.)
Type in the hashtag you’re curious about in the search bar. When I try #personalbranding, I see that there are 21 tweets per hour that use that phrase (my competition) and 30,000+ people who see those tweets per hour (my audience). Not bad.
#Branding is much more popular at 400,000+ people per hour. But there are also 217 other people using that hashtag every hour. More competition.
For reference, the blue tags have a longer shelf life because they’re not as popular as green. The green ones are trending -- you can take advantage of that by getting in front of more people but your tweet is likely to get buried in the noise faster as well. Grey hashtags are no good and red tags are overused.
If I have the space, I’d always prefer to use one blue and one green hashtag.

8. FILL IN THE REST OF THE QUEUE

Go to RightRelevance and find some articles that fit your brand and add them into your queue using the same strategy. The goal will be to tweet your content and curate other high quality content to turn your Twitter into a content authority in your niche. 

9. SCHEDULE RETWEETS

Finally, let’s schedule a few retweets.
In Twitter, search a person or a phrase that fits your brand. I like Neil Patel’s work so I found him on Twitter and scrolled down his feed to find one of his latest posts.
When you find the right post, click the little owl to activate the Hootlet extension.
Sign into Twitter. Then choose your Twitter account from the little dropdown menu. Click Post Later and schedule the post whenever you’d like. Perhaps on a day that you’re not tweeting.

CLOSING NOTE

And that’s it! Your Twitter is all set up and ready to kick ass.
Now you’ll be able to schedule tweets with ease, retweet your favorite authorities, and grow your following quickly and effectively. Tweet me if you have any questions and check out the rest of the 28 Day Online Reputation Management Challenge.

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