After the algorithm change of Facebook in January and then the data scandal that followed in March, it seems like businesses are falling out of love with the king of social media and Zuckerberg. Instagram hasn't had it easy recently either, they have also changed their algorithm and had a number of people jumping ship to Vero.. Ve what??? Blog here about it
Working with small and medium size businesses on a daily basis I always get asked to choose a fav platform and I have been inundated with emails and calls asking about twitter recently.. there's still life in the old bird yet (we did tell you this back in Feb last year)
If you've just started your Twitter journey or you've always used it but never really understood it.. here are some tips and some knowledge behind the little bird.
Twitter has always been and pretty much always will be a chronological platform on the surface, your followers tweets and your tweets will appear with the newest at the top and the oldest further down. That's whats so good about Twitter, it's now, it's here then it's gone (sort of)
Since 2015/2016 the team at Twitter have added new features like moments to help users find new tweets and news they may have otherwise missed.
When you first open twitter you will be shown some ranked tweets, these will be tweets from your followers and will be based on their relevance to you, these tweets may be from yesterday or a few hours ago and are usually selected by how your fellow followers have interacted with them, more likes and retweets the better chance of appearing here at the top.
After these tweets comes 'In case you missed it" these tweets are selected based on your interactions with these accounts over the last 24 - 48 hours, you may have clicked their profile, liked their tweets or interacted with them through DM or by tweeting them.
After all of that you then see the rest of twitter, you'll see tweets from your followers in chronological order, you'll also see promoted tweets, tweets liked by who your following, any retweets and also conversations and threads that are ongoing.
Right then, onwards to the tips... How to have your tweets seen and read by more people.
1. Be Social, that's it! Think of Twitter like a large meeting room full of people, go in to the room, meet and talk to people, listen to people and interact accordingly.
Don't go in there shouting and selling then leave, likelihood is nobody will hear you and you'll have no benefit from it. Another good reason to be social, interact and reply to anyone that tweets you is that you're tweets are then more likely to appear at the top of their timeline tomorrow (as I said above in the In case you missed it paragraph)
2. Use videos and GIFs - if words are not enough then say it with a video or GIF, have some fun with your interactions. Personalised and branded GIFs or videos go down a treat too.
3. Try posting at different times - Don't let any self titled maverick or guru tell you that you have to post at particular times of the day, most likely is if everyone is posting at 5.05pm your tweet will be lost in the noise, post often and post on irregular patterns through the day. I use buffer to schedule posts but try and post at different times through the day and then change my schedule every few weeks so the days and times are different, couple that with the live tweets and we are flying.
4. Re Tweet - now that doesn't always have to be other peoples content, retweet your own or just re post the tweet but with a new image and text. As a rule I will post a blog post at least three times over the course of 14 days, if that blog post receives some likes, retweets and clicks then i'll repost it again and again. That's the beauty of evergreen content.
5. Be social - Have I already said this? Well I'm saying it again because you need to interact more, Twitter is the best platform for this, you can pick anyone you like and tweet them, talk to them and spark up a conversation. This could be a business or a personal account. I try and always thank people for a follow in a tweet, it sends them a notification and starts a conversation, who knows where it could lead.