Do you feel like you have a group of zombies following you that could care less about what you say on Twitter? Do your followers rarely “Retweet your Tweets” or “Mention” you in posts? If so, you are probably not engaging enough and you will probably need to reconsider your Twitter Marketing Strategy. Don’t be too upset if this is the case; you’re not alone. The Harvard Business Review ran a survey at the end of 2010 that revealed that only 12% of businesses thought they were utilizing social media successfully.
So how can you increase your engagement with your followers? Find below 10 ways to adjust your Twitter Marketing Strategy to boost follower engagement:
- Make sure you’ve identified your target audience properly. As with any marketing program, pinpoint your target audience and revise and re-structure your strategy to meet their needs.
- Outline your content focus and/or Twitter purpose in your profile. This will set expectations for followers and let them know how they should be making use of your Twitter feed. If you have multiple content focuses and/or purposes for your Twitter account, then think about the possibility of dividing your account into several Twitter feeds so that you can keep your focus. In doing this, you’ll be boosting the chances of people adding you to lists and referring to your feed as a resource. This will aid you in maintaining followers and develop a more engaged audience.
- Offer your Twitter feed as an easy to use resource. Format your Twitter feed to make it a searchable, easy to use and shareable format. Make sure that all Tweets contain optimized blurbs with hash tagged keywords that will help your followers quickly identify the kind of content they are interested to read about.
- Your feed should contain only high quality content. Followers will come back to sources that supply them with high quality links on a regular basis. So make sure you limit your page to good content. One bad experience may result in a follower defection.
- Decide who to follow. Follow thought leaders in your industry who’ll give you access to people and companies who’ve expressed interested in this same area. This will lead to higher quality followers who’ll be more engaged with your content.
- Engage with thought leaders in your space. Engaging with other people and companies with large followings and similar focuses, you will increase your Twitter feed’s exposure to people and companies that share an interest in your content.
- Be responsive to your followers. There is nothing more aggravating for users than an unresponsive voice behind a Twitter feed or Blog. If someone attempts to engage with you, try to respond to them as soon as possible. Brad Feld, who’s a prominent tweeter and prolific blogger has gathered a huge following around sharing wonderful content and being very responsive to followers. He responds to blog comments and Tweets within the space of an hour more often than not. This shows his followers that he is interested in what they are saying and it encourages them to share their thoughts on a regular basis.
- Make your Twitter presence known. Publicize your Twitter presence on other social media platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google +, etc.) as well as your blog, website and newsletter. Doing so will make it easier for your customers and prospective customers to find you. Oftentimes, your followership will be different across different social media mediums, so broadcasting your Twitter presence can expand your followership considerably.
- Incorporate Twitter into your blog or article comments and reactions section. By including Twitter mentions and retweets on your own content, you will increase the exposure of the comments and reactions. This will serve to encourage more individuals to engage with your content, because it will expose their Twitter feed and brand to every single personwho reads your blog or article.
- Monitor your progress. Regularly check your Klout score and Twitter Counter statistics to monitor how your revised strategy is affecting your follower engagement. In this manner, you can be agile and quickly change your strategy to optimize your follower engagement and the effectiveness of your Twitter Marketing Strategy.
Instituting these changes to your Twitter Marketing Strategy will increase your follower’s experience and guarantee that they will return to your feed for content in your area of expertise and boost your likelihood of being retweeted, which will in turn increase your content exposure.
If you are eager to learn more about making use of Twitter as a business tool, you need to read my blog posts on Twitter tips to maximize your influence marketing strategy and how to use Twitter as a customer service medium. Similarly, if you are interested in learning more about influence marketing and content marketing strategy, I suggest you check out Get Content, Get Customers: Turn Prospects into Buyers with Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett.
Brandon works with the portfolio companies to develop business strategies and optimize market and product positioning by means of market research, market intelligence, and customer and marketing analytics.