7 Tips about Tweeting Content … and How NOT To

Success on Twitter is not the result of diluting your feed with praise about yourself and your company.

Success on Twitter is the result of using your content to influence and connect with your target market. Over 500 million people worldwide use Twitter. Anyone can connect with you, if they are motivated to do so.

Some basic Twitter know-how goes a long way for successfully tweeting about your company. Here are 7 tips to make your tweeting a success:

Seven tips for using Twitter

  1. Keep the content about you and your products to a minimum, and focus on engaging your customer.

  2. Create interesting, witty content.

  3. Ask for a RT (a retweet).

  4. Use #’s (hashtags).

  5. Use @mentions and RT’s to interact with your market and thought leaders.

  6. Respond to your @connects.

  7. Use contests and coupons.

Let’s look at each of these:

1. Keep the content about you and your products to a minimum, and focus on engaging your customer.

While this may seem counter intuitive to traditional marketers,  social media is about interacting, sharing, and creating a bond with your customer. Generally speaking, your customer doesn’t really care about you or your products, unless you can connect with them emotionally. Let’s face it, as consumers, we like to talk about ourselves, not be talked to about your product.

If you can create content that engages, piques the interest of, and emotionally connects with your consumer, you will become a more important part of their world. You/ your product/ your brand will more likely to be shared with others who share the same worldview.

Understand your product, understand your customer, and speak to them on Twitter. Associate your products with feelings, thought provoking information, and lifestyles.

It’s okay to add your products in some of your tweets, but don’t shout about them.

2. Create interesting, witty content.

Great content gets shared. Shared content means more brand exposure, which means more leads, which means more sales. Write tweets that are of interest to your market. And try to be witty, in a way that connects with your market.

Think of the text of tweets as headlines or ad copy. The more attention grabbing they are, the more likely they will be read. The more they are read, the more likely they will be retweeted and shared.

3. Ask for a RT (retweet).

This may seem so obvious that it often gets overlooked, but – ask your followers for a RT, or even better, a retweet. You will likely get good results.

A study by Buddy Media has shown that tweets asking for a RT get 12 times as many retweets, and spelling it out by asking for a ‘retweet’ actually increased that rate to 32 times more. The study also found, however, that currently only 1% of brands use this tactic. (Mashable)

You don’t want to use this too often, though, or your customers will soon become disinterested. But, do give it try occasionally — especially when you have something great to share!

4. Use #’s (hashtags).

Including hashtags in your tweets makes them reach a larger audience. Your tweet not only goes out to all of your followers, but also to everyone who follows, or searches for a particular hashtag.

Remember, hashtags are a way to organize topics. You can create your own hashtags. You can make funny or obscure hashtags that specifically relate to your market and/ or product and brand.

Some brilliant uses of hashtags include @MapleLeafFoods use of #bacon:

5. Respond to your @connects.

Check your @connects frequently. Twitter is about conversing with your customer. Many of your customers these days use Twitter more than email as a way to connect with companies.

A response on Twitter is expected fast.

If a customer is mentioning you in a tweet, you need to pay attention and take action – even if that action is a simple thank you.

Use Twitter as a customer service tool, to respond quickly, and well, to your customers’ needs.  This can go along way to build trust, develop loyalty, and generate more leads and sales.

6. Use @mentions and RT’s to interact with your market and thought leaders.

Twitter lets you communicate with your market very easily. It’s also a great way to get in touch with thought leaders, celebrities and newsmakers in your industry.

If you have a great customer who follows you on Twitter, for example, mention them. Send them an @handle tweet to thank them, retweet a tweet, or mention them in a #ff (#ff stands for FollowFriday). This weekly shoutout has been a tradition on Twitter, and still has some merit. It gives you the chance to acknowledge your valuable and worthy followers, and suggest that others follow them as well.

Because Twitter is such an open forum, you can easily get in touch with thought leaders, other businesses, celebrities and more. You can use this to develop new business leads, get RT’s from industry leaders to gain further reach, and open dialogue to associate your company with others.

For example, if you have written a blog post about a related company, you can send them the link through a mention on Twitter.

7. Use contests and coupons.

Ok, this is where I disclose my bias. Wishpond makes contests, coupons and sweepstakes apps. Social promotions do go a long way in developing emotional bonds with your consumer, as well as getting lots of retweets.

Contests are a fun way to engage your audience and generate buzz about your product. Who doesn’t like to win? And who doesn’t like to share when they’ve won? Contests can create user-generated content for you too. And user-generated content is some of the most shared content. People like to share what they’ve created.

Coupons generate a lot of excitement for your products too. And they are retweeted often to followers and friends. Check out, for example, how @LookoutBlizzard has used our Sweepstakes to generate buzz on Twitter for their new game:

Try out these Twitter tips. You don’t have much to lose, and you may just gain more engaged Twitter followers by doing so.

Krista Bunskoek is a Content Marketer at Wishpond. Wishpond creates social marketing tools tools for business. Their apps work on Twitter, Facebook, websites and mobile. Learn about their social marketing suite.