5 Twitter Tricks to Boost Engagement

Christine Skiffington

Twitter helps businesses engage in conversations and reach consumers in a casual environment. Engaging with your audience is more than fun; it increases brand awareness, positive reputation, and sales. Still, you might spend time cultivating an audience, only to find your followers giving you the social media cold shoulder. To maximize the platform, ensure that you’re keeping these techniques in mind.

1. Be interesting. Developing an effective Twitter presence is all about knowing your audience and executing a well-crafted strategy. Your followers will naturally stay interested if you publish content that they find intriguing and compelling. Tweeting images, videos, and links are proven to be more engaging. By sharing relevant content, your business is already on its way to building an interactive audience.
   
2. Tweet when they tweet. it’s important to know when your audience is online. The best time to tweet will differ depending on your brand and targeted audience. There are various tools, some of which are free, that can suggest the best times to publish tweets to reach the largest audience. Try posting messages throughout the day and review Twitter analytics regularly. These detailed reports, available to all users, can be accessed for free at analytics.twitter.com. Examine the impressions and engagement rate of different content to determine what is most popular, then adjust your strategy to maximize results.
   
3. Build community. The sense of community within social media is a great advantage for brands. Engagement is amplified by joining existing discussions within various groups, often by using popular hashtags. These expand your message’s reach to a broader audience that is already interested in similar content. Take a look at what hashtags are trending at that time and connect it to your brand to engage in the conversations or start your own.
   
4. Talk with, not at. No matter the platform, communication with your audience should be a two-way street. Take the time to acknowledge or respond to all of the mentions that you receive. Twitter users are more likely to engage with and promote brands that they know are responsive and friendly. Add a personal touch to conversations on Twitter and followers will be more comfortable reaching out.
   
5. Spark discussion. Some audiences are quieter than others, thus it’s possible that your audience requires a more direct approach. If your followers are not taking the initiative to engage with you, start a conversation of your own by posing a question to your audience. Invite feedback from your followers and include a call to action in your tweets. After all, these conversations show that your brand is receptive to two-way communication, which is what social media is all about.

Photo Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/sodafish

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