By BloggerKhan

My profession is Management and Marketing and it revolves around outsourcing, ecommerce and marketing on the internet. Wise men say identify what you are passionate about and then see if ...

When it comes to social media, Twitter is a platform that should not be neglected, especially considering the number of users (320 million monthly active users) i.e. potential customers for your business. Small businesses use it to get some much needed traction, big brands to strengthen their relationship with customers and promote new products. The success of their content is measured by their Tweet engagement.

Before we go any further, here are two parameters you need to know:

1. The number of characters is limited to 140. Any tweet you want to publish must fit within that limit. Some argue that for optimal results, tweets shouldn’t be more than 110 characters long (hashtags included!). URL shorteners are your best friends whenever you want to include links.

2. The ultimate goal is Twitter engagement meaning that people favorite, retweet, respond to your tweets or click to any links/content you post. Ideally, this will bring more traffic to your website.

Many brands spend long hours crafting clever post ideas but they go down the News Feed in the blink of an eye if there is no engagement. Do not get discouraged. Keep working at it and as you refine your skills, your results will improve.

ReTweet, Reply and engage

Here are a few tips on improving tweet engagement:

• Get visual – photos, videos and infographics get much more engagement than simple text tweets.

• Research and use appropriate hashtags.

• Post relevant content and keep new followers engaged as they tend to unfollow if you do not grab their attention quickly.

• Offer customer service.

Tools such as Twitter Analytics are of immense help. Twitter Analytics shows data about impressions of a 28 day period, engagement rate, content that got the most engagement, the type of engagement and much more.

Picture courtesy of
Raminetinati’s Corner

Here are a few extra things you can do:

1. Engage with the content of others. The more you do so, the more likely they are to start paying attention to what you do. Might not work as well for big brands with huge following as it is a nearly impossible task but small businesses will get the engagement they are after and start building relationships with their followers.

2. Retweeting is more important than liking. It’s not only a form of validation but also shows you value the tweet enough to share it with others.

3. Don’t just link to your site. We know your brand exposure and business expansion is likely the ultimate goal of any Twitter campaign but social media users do not like this type of limitation. So, share the content of others as well. Do not link only to your site. Respond to tweets sent to you. If you engage the audience, they will engage with you. Do this especially if they are expressing a concern, asking a question or praising your product. This is a very effective form as it sparks a conversation. Chances are they will engage with you again in the future.

4. Find the peak hours. Your content will get more engagement if the audience is on the platform when you post it. Discovering the days of the week and the hours of the day when they are most active is essential if you are to have any success on Twitter. Most studies show the best campaigns happen in daytime, but this may vary from case to case. Besides, your followers may be in different time zones. Using Hootsuite or Buffer or SocialOomph, you can schedule posts to be published outside of working hours.

5. #Hashtags! They have become a part of Twitter culture and using them will get more engagement and an audience for anyone looking through that particular hashtag. Start with general ones but do not overwhelm your audience. As you grow, you can start using specific hashtags related to your brand.

6. Space out your content. Don’t tweet 5 things at once, rather spread them out during your peak hours or the entire day for increased engagement.

7. The power of questions. People love talking so why don’t you give them the opportunity by asking their opinion or what they are doing for the next big holiday. Do not avoid power words: use adjectives such as the best, the fastest, complete etc.

8. Don’t be afraid to ask for retweets.

Did you find this article useful? If so, share your comments below or Tweet about it.