In our last blog, we took you through the process of setting up and promoting your business’s new Twitter account. But Twitter is no fun if you’re not tweeting! To keep it simple, here are five best practices to remember when tweeting from your business account.
- Use photos and videos. Most people utilize the Twitter app on their phone versus on desktop. Which means that you have a small amount of space to grab the attention of viewers as they scroll through their feed. Photos and videos not only help to get people to stop their scroll and read your tweet, but studies have shown that tweets with photos or videos get clicked and favorited more often those who do not have them—including over triple the number of retweets.
- Tweet longer and smarter. Towards the end of 2017, Twitter rolled out the expansion of tweets from 140 to 280 characters. Initially, much of the Twitter world was aghast. However, longer tweets have proven to be successful, with some studies indicating that users engage more with longer tweets. Does that mean you need to fill up every tweet to the maximum character limit? No, but feel free to be a bit clearer and focused in your tweets, no longer needing to abbreviate words or even using the dreaded (1/3), (2/3), (3/3) text that many were resigned to use when their message wouldn’t fit.
- Content. Remember that your content should be engaging, informative, funny, or the right tone that fits your overall brand. Ask questions of your followers, show them behind-the-scenes activity at your business, and provide them insider tips. For example, Bob’s HVAC could tweet a tip on how to save money on air conditioning in the summer. Before pushing out the tweet, step back and think “would I retweet this?”
- Use Hashtags. Hashtags are a great way to join in to a conversation about a particular topic, or a way for new people to find you and your tweets. According to Twitter, tweets with one to two hashtags receive two times more engagement than those without. However, you don’t want to go overboard. More than two hashtags and those engagement numbers drop. You can add the hashtags into your copy for a more organic read, include them at the end of your tweet, or a combination of both. For example:
- #Lavender #candles are a great way to make your living room smell great!
- Lavender candles are a great way to make your living room smell great! #LavenderCandles #Candles
- #LavenderCandles are a great way to make your living room smell great! #ILoveCandles #Lavender
One more tip! Just remember, that using punctuation in a hashtag, like an apostrophe, colon, semi-colon, or dash will break that hashtag. Here’s an example: Your living room will smell great with our #lavender-scented candles. The hashtag “breaks” after the word lavender. So, if you wanted the hashtag to read #lavender-scented it should be written like this: #lavenderscented.
- Retweet and reply. If someone mentions your business on Twitter you can either engage in conversation with them, or favorite their tweet. If it’s a tweet that might need a bit of customer service attention, a quick response asking them to direct message you to keep the conversation on Twitter, but not make it public, would be appropriate. If it’s a positive mention you can reply, favorite it, or even retweet it with (or without) a comment to showcase that tweet to your followers. It’s called social media, which means your business needs to be social by going beyond just tweeting, but rather engaging in conversations, either those started by others, or by creating a conversation yourself.