Business value of Twitter
PR, networking, customer service, customer testimonials
Goals and objectives
Twitter's informal, in-the-moment format allows people and brands to easily connect with friends, customers, and communities.
Anatomy of a tweet
When a Tweet starts with a @username, the only users who will see it in their timeline (other than the sender and the recipient) are those who follow both the sender and the recipient. Adding a character before the @ (.@username or the ol' manual RT) will make your tweet visible to all of your followers.
Use MT (i.e., modified retweet) to retweet a truncated version of a tweet or add your own commentary.
Photos, GIFs, polls, videos and quoted tweets no longer count toward your 140-character limit.
The Twitter Glossary
The Twitter glossary includes vocabulary and terminology used to talk about features and aspects of Twitter:
Interacting with users
Following / followers / lists
- Following: Twitter users who you have decided to follow
- Follower: Twitter use who has followed you to receive your tweets
- Lists: Group of other Twitter users by topic or interest (e.g. a list of auto or strip clubs), so that you can monitor their tweets without checking the home stream
Monitor competitors
- You can create a private list on Twitter to monitor competitors that will tell you how competitors are handling their Twitter strategy.
- Create a search that monitors a competitor's @username to see how people are interacting with them.
- Check out your competition's follower list to see if there are any trends.
How to attract new followers
- Follow people in the community
- Post good content
- Local influencers - bloggers, community groups, newspaper, politicians, other businesses
- Run a follow to receive a discount promotion
Maintaining a good following-to-follower ratio
Your TFF Ratio (Twitter Follower-Friend Ratio) is the ratio of your followers to friends (or people who you follow). The higher the ratio, the more Twitter heat you pack. A ratio of less than 1.0 indicates that you are seeking knowledge (and Twitter Friends), but not getting much Twitter Love in return.
Tracking influencers
Turn on notifications or use a tool to track influencers!
Engagement: mentions, RTs, likes, DMs
Who's talking about you and with you? Respond, you dumbass.
- Be careful about retweeting praise.
- RT stories about you.
Hashtags!
hashtag: noun hash·tag \ˈhash-ˌtag\
A hashtag is any word or phrase immediately preceded by the # symbol. When you click on a hashtag, you'll see other Tweets containing the same keyword or topic.
Purpose 1: Join a trending topic.
Purpose 2: Get found in search.
Purpose 3: Add context to your tweet.
Purpose 4: Show humor or emotion.
Hashtag research
twitter.com/search; hashtagify.me; hashatit.com; hashtags.org; keyhole.co; ritetag.com; tagboard.com; tagdef.com; twubs.com; geochirp.com
Popular hashtags
- Auto: #automotive, #car, #cars, #auto, #motorcycle, #autorepair, #autoshop, #oilchange, #carcare, #classiccars, #ride, #drive, #horsepower, #driver, #sportscar, #exoticcar, #speed, #fastcar #travel #traveling #TagsForLikes #traveler #TFLers #vacation #visiting #instatravel #instago #instagood #trip #holiday #photooftheday #fun #travelling
- Also tag car brands and/or models, if applicable: #audi #bmw #lamborghini #bentley #rollsroyce #ferrari #porsche #mustang #astonmartin #camaro #chevy #lexus #nissan #honda #chrysler
- Food and drink: #amazing, #bar, #breakfast, #cake, #chineserestaurant, #chocoholic, #chocolate, #cleaneating, #cocktail, #cocktails, #delish, #deserttable, #dessert , #dessertporn, #desserts, #dinner, #drink, #drinking, #drinks, #drinkup, #food, #foodgasm, #foodie, #foodoftheday, #foodporn, #fortheloveoffood, #healthy, #hungry, #icecream, #liquor, #localfood, #lunch, #mojitos, #munchies, #nom, #nomnomnom, #noregrets, #pizza, #pub, #restaurants, #sharefood, #slurp, #snack, #sweet, #tapas, #thirsty, #treatyoself, #vegan, #vegetarian, #wine, #yum, #yummy, #yumyum
Best practices
- Tweets with hashtags can increase engagement almost 100% (2x) for individuals and 50% (1.5x) for brands. Source: http://bit.ly/2iRi4NE
- If your brand's jumping into a hashtag, you should make sure that you're contributing value to the conversation instead of just promoting your business.
- #Using #hashtags #after #each #word #is #ANNOYING!
- Twitter suggests using one or two hashtags per tweet. We don’t advise including more than four.
- #McDStories: Companies need to consider the potential effects when using hashtags for marketing purposes
Tweeting best practices
Structuring tweets: length, 80/20 rule, where to place links
In most cases, short and punchy tweets will work best for your business. As web and image links count toward your character count, try to compose tweets that concisely communicate your message to introduce the additional content.
Scheduling updates: best day (s), best time (s)
Multimedia: photos, graphics, video, GIFs, Twitter Cards, polls
How to get RT’d
What NOT to do
Don't post updates that are too long.
Don't oversell the brand.
Don't forget (or abuse) hashtags.
Read The Hashtag, a story in two parts
Don't forget to optimize your content.
For content to resonate on Twitter, it needs to follow the channel's best practices.
Don't forget to pay attention to automated posting.
If the Twitter account is hooked up to Pinterest it's important to make sure you're scheduling pins at different times of the day to avoid flooding the Twitter stream.
Measurement
Twitter analytics
Twitter’s analytics help you understand how the content you share on Twitter grows your business.
Tweet activity dashboard
The Tweet activity dashboard shows you a detailed analysis of your Twitter activity. For each Tweet you send, you’ll be able to track: number of impressions, number of engagements and engagement rate (impressions divided by engagements).
Audience insights dashboard
This dashboard will help you get to know your Twitter followers. You’ll be able to see: follower growth; followers’ interests; and followers’ demographics, such as language, gender and location.
Takeaways
- Learn which content resonates with your audience.
- Understand how users interact with your tweets over time.
- Get to know your followers.
- Judge whether your follower base is growing.
- Determine whether your Twitter ads are working.
Math, math, math ...
Third-party tools
- Favorites: Buffer, Cyfe, ManageFlitter, Sendible, TweetChat
- Others: Followerwonk, Google Analytics, GroupTweet, HootSuite, Klout, LaterBro, Riffle, SocialOomph, TweetDeck, TweetStats, Tweriod, Twuffer
Twitter promotion
Offers
Use auto-response offers to reward people for following your account.
Or promote offers and content using Twitter ads.
Contests
Advertising
michellelrs / loyalrewards