How to Optimize Your Twitter Account to Get Real Followers?

Twitter is a tool. It is a very powerful social networking platform for growing your business and forge connections with your audience. But the task isn't as easy as it sounds. Attracting users and keeping them engaged on your page is a work of art. And not many seem to know it!!

So today, we have brought up a well-researched Twitter marketing strategy for attracting genuine and loyal followers, which will not only promote your brand but may end up boosting revenue as well. To read more, Hit the scroll bar.

 

Firstly, Why do Twitter followers matter?

Twitter, the global powerhouse of social media, currently ranks as one of the leading social networking sites worldwide. Today, the online channel has around 330 million active users globally, as surveyed by Statista. Such a large user base and rising popularity make it a perfect channel for connecting with millennials. 

You don't agree? Maybe the following facts & figures can change your mind-

• As specified by Statista, 67 percent of total B2B companies avail Twitter as a digital marketing tool (2018).
• Recognized as one of the top 5 social media channels in the US, Twitter covers more than 20 percent of US internet users on a monthly basis, as stated in Emarketer, 2018.
• As per a report by the Pew Research Centre, most Twitter users in America are well educated with salaries of $75,000 or more per year, which makes it a spectacular platform for attracting new business clients.
• According to industry measurements, Television series like The Walking Dead, AMC's, or Game of Thrones ranked as the most popular online TV series because of their Twitter audience and Twitter online buzz per episode.
• And lastly, a research done on Twitter followers says that 74% of people who follow small and medium scale companies do so to receive updates on future products.

 

Also, nearly half of those people who follow companies and brands are more likely to visit their websites, which may attract more investment and high purchases. 

 

This means,

Followers= Reach

Followers= Traffic

Followers= Word of Mouth

 

In short, we can say-

Followers= Sales

Supposedly, the last equation holds paramount importance for people who are looking forward to expanding their business through the medium of social media. 

 

But how do you attract followers in the first place? If you, too, are wondering the same, then this could prove to be a perfect read for you. Spare a few minutes of your time and explore the step-by-step guide to attract more Twitter followers for your account. Keep Scrolling! 

 

How to get more Twitter followers? 

 

 

• Optimize your Twitter profile

 

A twitter profile is the representative of your brand, company, and even persona. Hence, the first thing to do is to optimize your Twitter profile for gaining followers. Your profile needs to represent what you do, where you work and what you work on. 

Hence, we have jotted a couple of things one must consider while optimizing a Twitter profile. Have a look. 

 

 

• Profile Photo

 

A profile picture is the centerpiece of your profile, and hence it is essential to have a clear photo, failing which might leave a bad first impression upon visitors. Due to platform redesign, several aspects of a Twitter profile are approached differently. For instance, the profile pictures are expected to be round instead of square. This new approach helps in distinguishing a user profile from the square images shown in tweets. The size for a twitter profile picture is a 400px *400px square; ensure that your elements abide by it. 

 

 

• Twitter Bio

 

Next in the list is Twitter bio. There is a reason why Twitter provides you as little as 160 characters for giving a taste of your personality. Use it optimally. Include the relevant keywords and hashtags for making your bio searchable.

A bio is an opportunity to showcase your work, so don't hesitate from spicing it up with creativity.

 

 

• Header Image

 

Once you've got a clear profile pic and SEO friendly bio, the next item in the checklist is a Header image. Presently, the dimensions for header image is 1500px*1500px. A header image is a great way to promote your latest product or reinforce your brand. 

Now that you've spent time ironing out your Twitter profile and making it much more credible for users, it is time to move ahead and check out other pointers. 

 

 

• Add Twitter badge to your website

 

A Twitter badge can help you attract many followers. A lot of brands and retailers have a link to their Twitter profiles on the site alongside their Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube pages. Have a look at how Matellio LLC (a software engineering studio has done it).

These icons can be positioned in the footer, and when people click on the badge, they will be redirected to your Twitter profile. For instance, check this out-

 

If you want to increase the chances of people hitting the follow button, make sure that your Twitter bio is updated, and tweets are interesting enough to intrigue the visitors. 

Availing Twitter Publish, an official follow button can be created for your eCommerce store. This will generate a code that is to be placed as a button on your websites' header, footer, sidebar, or on a page. 

 

 

• User Engagement

 

So your Twitter is filled with millions of followers, but your posts receive zero engagement!!! What worth are those million followers if the audience isn't consuming your content? 

Engagement led to high visibility and increased reach, which, in turn, produces more followers. And therefore, we can call it a cycle; one breeding another and vice versa. 

The next step in this guide is to understand the key of active user engagement:

 

1. Search, follow, and interact with your industry leaders. It is an excellent method of getting your account popularized. 
2. Make sure you follow people with similar thoughts or like businesses. You can avail the Twitter's "Who to follow" list, to know the people to follow.
3. Follow back the people who follow you. This could make them feel special and raise your chances of having more followers.
4. An influencer's tweet is quite essential, make sure you respond. Give them feedback and try engaging more often.
5. Start communicating with @mentions. It is a manner to connect and keep the followers sustain with your brand for a long time.
6. Last but not least, one of the better ways for social engagement is to find, follow, and engage with your  Linkedin connections.

4. Tweet Frequency

Moving ahead in the article now is the time to determine the timing and frequency of your Twitter posts. And when we speak of timings, blasting your account with tweets when your target audience is sleeping won't do any good. Tweeting in odd hours will result in less visibility, which implies less engagement, and ultimately fewer followers. 

After a lot of research, we have listed down a few pointers regarding the scheduling of tweets. Have a look-

 

• Tweets have a lifespan of 15-20 minutes, and hence it is recommended to tweet often for keeping your followers engaged. Though there is no exact time interval available, tweeting after every three hours in a day will help you build a good number of Twitter followers. 
• Tweeting on weekends is quite useful. As per research by Dan Zarella," Brands receive 17% higher engagement on weekends compared to weekdays".
• Try tweeting often between 1 pm to 3 pm as the traffic for Twitter is at its peak during these hours. 
• Apart from weekends, you can also post on different timings of the day. The timing between 5 pm to 6 pm is also known for high user engagement.

 

In addition to the above mentioned, it is vital to maintain consistency for your tweets. It is all right to tweet often, but they should never be in bursts. 

 

5. Quality Content

Quality content pays emphasis everywhere, be it in your digital marketing efforts or a Twitter channel. Quality is what separates a bad tweet from a good one. But what defines a good tweet?

A tweet that brings value on table coupled with the basic Twitter tactics will easily fall into the good category and bore a higher engaging audience. 

The next section in Twitter marketing is to understand the mindset and taste of your customers. A couple of arenas that generally do better are as follows-

 

• Informative/Educational content, which may typically include an infographic or how-to-make article.
• Entertainment category includes things like gifs, memes, videos, or other stuff.
• Inspirational content equates to quotes and inspirational stories like rescued animals, weight loss videos, etc.
• One more exciting category is interactive stuff like quizzes, polls, web games, and much more.
• The last would be promotional content consisting of coupons, advertisements, and user testimonials.

 

Each of these content types represents the users' perspective, analyzing which can reap fruits in the long run.

 

6. Analyze your Twitter Account 

Crafting a perfect strategy for Twitter Marketing is a meaty job, even for the seasoned marketer. Thankfully, there is a lot of data available that can provide us with valuable insights into your Twitter account. 

Twitter Analytics is a tool that gives information about your account, followers, and the whole Twitter community as a whole. This wealth of data aids in creating meaningful Tweets that will synchronize with your targeted audience. Below are the seven kinds of things that you can fetch using your Twitter data-

 

1. Audience Insights
2. Comparison of Data
3. Tweet Impressions
4. Tweet Engagements 
5. Engagement rate
6. Events data
7. Video content performance

 

7. Tagging, Retweeting & Replying

Twitter isn't just about millions of followers but making most out of the social media platform. Optimizing profile, scheduling tweets, and leveraging Twitter analytics is important, but that's not enough, you are required to get in the trenches with your followers. Engage with users via retweeting, replying, and tagging regularly. 

For starters, replying to another brand's tweet with a thoughtful and detailed response will fetch you more followers than a one-word reply. 

Another way to get brands attracted to your accounts is by shouting them out. Tagging other brands to showcase your love is a popular tactic; in return, you may get a shout from them as well. 

These are some of the easy methods of attracting a large number of followers, and they don't have to be very time-consuming. Any combination of retweeting, tagging, and replying will be enough to mark your presence. 

 

Take-home Message

Twitter is an international platform, and growing following base on it demands time and lump sum efforts. Applying these tactics, as mentioned in the guide will help you invite an engaging audience and keep the fake ones at bay. 

Though we have mentioned everything essential but if something has been missed, feel free to share in the comment box below. Happy Twittering!