Posted by There’s no denying that brands have come to rely on social media marketing. That’s because social media platforms like Twitter allow brands to interact with consumers in a more intimate way.
But despite the popularity of Twitter, and despite how effective Twitter can be at keeping brands top of mind and driving consumer action, engaging followers is not as easy as it may seem. You can’t just publish a few Tweets every day and hope it gets you the results that you want.
In order to really be successful on Twitter, you’ve got to write engaging Tweets that inspire your followers to interact with your brand. Keep reading to learn some helpful tips on how to write engaging tweets.
Know Your Audience
You can’t engage your audience unless you know them well. Do you know YOUR audience?
What makes them tick? What do they care about? What do they worry about? What language do they use?
This last question is very important. The most successful brands on Twitter speak their followers’ language. When your followers recognize the language being used, they instinctively want to connect.
You can also analyze your Twitter account using socialert to know more about your audience. It provides you useful insights like top topics, hashtags they like and engage with.
Use Humor
Today’s consumers are looking to brands to do many different things: Create great products and services, educate them and especially… ENTERTAIN them. It’s always been this way really. When you look at some of the best brand TV commercials, a majority of them are funny. Geico’s cavemen commercials come to mind.
Think of each Tweet as a mini commercial for your brand. How can you add some humor to it?
Look at this fun Tweet from Denny’s.
Don’t Rely on Tweet Schedulers
It’s not easy making sure you offer a steady stream of awesome content to your followers. That’s why smart brands create content calendars and use Tweet schedulers to automatically post their Tweets for them.
While this can be incredibly efficient and helpful, you should never solely rely on this method. Some of your most engaging tweets might be inspired by a newsworthy event.
For instance, let’s look at a classic example of how one brand leveraged a big event to their benefit. Remember this Tweet @Oreo sent during the 34-minute power outage at the 2013 Super Bowl:
There was also this newsjacking and hilarious Tweet from Charmin some years back:
Keep an eye on newsworthy events and see if your own brand can leverage them to create engaging Tweets.
A Video is Worth 1000 Words
Twitter has revealed that Tweets with video get 10X more engagement. And Tweets with video tend to stand out in your followers’ feeds.
Think about what kinds of videos your audience may find helpful or entertaining. If you sell a product or service, what information do your followers need to get more value from them?
And again, if you can find a way to make your audience laugh in your video, even better. Here’s a great example of an engaging Tweet using video from @sonic_hedgehog.
Lifehack: How to bake amazing Sonic cookies. pic.twitter.com/vWOUdlGrdd
— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) January 4, 2018
Use Hashtags in Moderation
It’s a known fact that using hashtags can increase user engagement. Hashtags help your Tweets get found by new prospective followers, and that’s a very good thing.
But it’s important to mention that you should limit the number of hashtags you include in each Tweet. There has been much debate over the years as to what the optimal number of hashtags is. Some say 2 – 3 is fine, while other studies conclude that the one hashtag is ideal on twitter. This same study also found that engagement declines when the amount of hashtags used increases.
Taking a look at this Denny’s Tweet again, we can see they used a lot of hashtags. Now, in this instance, they were being funny, and most users will recognize this. But we have all seen Tweets from brands where they included a list of hashtags just like this one. Don’t be that brand.
Now you may be asking, “If I can only include one single hashtag, how do I know which is the best one to use?” Socialert lets you monitor hashtags being used effectively by your competitors so you can know what might work best for your brand.
Keep it Short and Sweet
Now you may be thinking, “Twitter’s very nature demands that we keep our messaging short.” Well, that is true, but just because you are given 280 characters does not mean you have to use all of them.
Data suggests that the shorter the Tweet, the more engagement it gets:
Twitter’s own data also reflects this. Here’s what they have to say about length:
“Concise Tweet copy helps the main message cut through. Research shows that Tweet copy with fewer than 50 characters generates 56% more engagement than Tweet copy with 50-100 characters.”
Be a Human Being
Social media is successful because human beings have an innate desire to connect to other human beings. People don’t want to be bombarded with marketing messages; they want real human interaction. While you may be a brand, there are humans behind that brand, and your followers want to connect with those human beings.
Here’s what Twitter has to say about using a human tone in your tweets:
“Twitter is a conversational platform, so it’s important to develop a human tone of voice for your brand. If your brand was a character in a movie or a TV show, who would it be? How would they respond to criticism and praise? These are all very important questions to answer to help you distinguish your brand on Twitter.”
And to ensure that your Tweets always have a consistent human tone, consider assigning your account to one person on your marketing team. He or she will help your brand feel like a real, genuine person.
Wrapping Up
Twitter is one of the biggest social media platforms with new users coming on board every day. If you want to get your message in front of people and have those people become followers and loyal fans, then use these tips to ensure you are crafting and publishing engaging tweets each and every time.
With Crowdfire, you can find curated content, schedule your posts, engage with your audience, deep-dive into analytics and create custom reports. Now introducing Social listening. Try it for free.