Increase Retweets and Improve Engagement on Twitter With These 12 Tips (Infographic) Twitter is a great marketing platform, but simply firing off tweets isn't going to necessarily translate into leads and sales.
By Jonathan Long •
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Twitter is a great marketing platform that all businesses, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, use daily to engage with followers in an attempt to convert them into brand ambassadors and promoters (retweets), leads and sales.
Simply firing off tweets isn't going to necessarily translate into leads and sales, though. The majority of business owners don't know how properly use Twitter, so my company teamed up with HubSpot to create the infographic below in order to help explain how to use Twitter correctly to generate conversions.
1. Alternate between "title tweets" and "copy tweets"
Switch up between tweeting your post titles and post copy. If you have an attention-grabbing title, you are going to attract engagement, but don't forget about interesting stats and data within your content. Often, that information will pique your followers' interest and result in a click.
2. Include shortened links to drive engagement
Retweets are great, but the ultimate goal is to attract clicks -- and shortened links drive engagement. If you aren't using a social-media-marketing platform that automatically generates shortened links you can use bit.ly to create them for you.
Related: Twitter Debuts New 'Recap' Feature That Makes It Feel More Like Facebook
3. Use attention-grabbing images
Tweets with images are always going to perform better. We are visual creatures -- so increase your click-through rate, favorites and retweets by including an image that your followers will find difficult to scroll past.
4. Ask for retweets
If you want something bad enough, just ask for it! Asking for a retweet increases the number of retweets you receive -- but make sure you spell it out. Asking for a "RT" results in a 10-time higher rate while asking for a "Retweet" resulted in a 23-time higher rate.
5. Use actionable words
Using actionable words such as "download," "free trial" and "sign up now" will increase the number of clicks your tweets receive. Twitter has stated that using actionable words will increase clicks by 13 percent on average.
6. Recycle tweets
Don't be afraid to tweet the same content multiple times. Identical tweets will often receive the same amount of clicks. It all comes down to the quality of the information you are sharing -- if it interests your followers they are going to click.
7. Tweet about social media
If you can tie in some social media-themed tweets, great! HubSpot noticed that when it tweeted about Twitter and other social-media networks over a specified period of time, it saw a substantial increase in clicks. Consumers love social media -- they spend all day glued to their mobile devices engaging with it, so naturally tweets about the topic are going to draw attention.
8. Quality over quantity when it comes to followers
Would you believe me if I told you that out of 1 billion mentions on Twitter, 91 percent came from people with fewer than 500 followers? Don't stress about the number of followers you have -- instead, work on getting your followers more engaged.
9. Late-night tweets attract more retweets
If you are after retweets then you need to be tweeting between 10 and 11 p.m. eastern time. Is this past your bedtime? No problem -- use a social-media-management platform and schedule a few tweets during this time.
10. Respond immediately to users
Twitter has become an important branch of a company's customer-service department. More than half of Twitter users expect a response within an hour and that increases to 72 percent when they have a complaint. Keep your customers and potential customers happy with quick responses to their questions.
Related: Increase Engagement on Twitter With Solid Tactics Backed by Research
11. Expand reach by tweeting statistics
When you include statistical data within your tweets, you attract more retweets, which expands your Twitter reach, although it won't improve the number of clicks your tweet receives.
12. Present your offers clearly
If your tweets include clear copy, you can expect more clicks and more retweets than if you had vague copy. You have 140 characters to present your offer -- use the space wisely.
Do you have any additional Twitter marketing tips to share? Let us know in the comments below.
Related: Get More Followers and Increase Engagement With These 7 Twitter Tips
