The key to success on any social media platform is to know why you are communicating. Once you have your objectives, then you are ready to work out who you want to communicate to and how you going to influence their online journey. There are both organic and paid ways to increase your followers and improve engagement on Twitter to support your communication strategy.
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Organic Growth on Twitter
For general housekeeping, make sure your Bio is clear and manages the expectations of the people who read it. Say who you are (person or organisation) and what type of information you will be sharing.
Think about what information your target audience will be searching for, what words, in particular, they will be using. Put those words, where appropriate in your bio and in your posts. Think about hashtags at this point – are there relevant ones that already exist or can you use a new one?
Are you visualising your message well? Maximise the use of your banner and profile images. Make sure you use photos and videos in your posts too. If you need assistance in how to utilise photos and videos, drop us a line for help.
Finding people on Twitter
Think of the keywords that are relevant to your cause or business. Search for those words on Twitter and see who comes up. If you follow relevant people, hopefully they will follow you back – this is the basis for organic growth.
It is always a good idea on Twitter (or any platform) to listen first and speak later. So once you have found your follower base, then start publishing tweets. With Twitter it’s very easy to concentrate on creating interesting content, and this is very important. But remember Twitter is a social platform: it is just as important to respond to other peoples’ tweets, share their good content and be part of the conversation.
Think of Twitter like a networking party – who likes the person who just talks about himself?! You will find the more you interact with other people, the higher the chance is that they engage with the content you share.
Paid Success on Twitter
Once you have built up a base following on Twitter and you are confident you have some relevant content for your target audience, then you can start to more quickly build your engagement through paid social media marketing tactics.
You can promote your account to drive wider audiences to a call to action – think about whether you want sales conversions, signups, leads, higher web traffic, etc. When you have your objectives, you can plan your paid activity with a focus on ROI.
For content that is particularly interesting to your audience, or important for your business, you can promote a post, again focused on a preferred ‘Call to Action’. You pay when you see success, not on impressions, which uses your budget more efficiently than some other digital advertising methods.
When setting up a promoted post, think about the following:
- What is the content supposed to communicate?
- What is my target audience (demographic)?
- What keywords can I use?
- What do I want the End Action to be?
Measurement
Whether doing organic, paid or a combination of activities (our preference), measure your activity and its results on a regular basis. Not only to ensure you are achieving your goals but importantly, if you are not, why not and how can you tweak your activity to gain better results.
