Social media marketing on Twitter is not a numbers game, and most companies don’t realize this. Brands focus on collecting as many Twitter followers as they can by any means possible, even though most of these followers never engage with the brand or add any value to the social media marketing campaigns of these companies.
Companies that have thousands of followers on Twitter have very little engagement from these followers, as most of these accounts are either fake, inactive or are owned by other companies that have nothing in common with the brands.
One of the biggest mistakes a company can make is following other Twitter accounts that have nothing in common with the company or collecting Twitter followers that do not share the same interests as the company.
Instead of wasting time on collecting followers, focus your energies on improving engagement with your Twitter followers. Most small businesses have limited resources and cannot afford to have inefficient social media marketing campaigns.
To ensure that your Twitter marketing campaign succeeds, you need your followers to share your tweets and content with their followers. You want actively engaged followers who will also give honest feedback and pave the way for open dialogue between your brand and its followers. Below are a few pointers that will show you how.
Start Engaging with Your Twitter Followers
Follow the Right Users
It goes without saying that instead of focusing on the number of followers, you need to focus on the type of followers you are collecting. This is why you need to follow the right Twitter users, who will in turn follow you back, as such users will have a lot in common with your brand.
Ensure that the accounts your brand is following have similar profiles and are in the same industry. Following industry experts is a great way to gather valuable content on Twitter that you can share with your followers. This method may not give you a follower base in the thousands, but it will ensure that most of your followers actively engage with your content and brand.
Tweet Valuable Content to Your Twitter Followers
Even after collecting relevant followers, there may be no engagement with your brand if your tweets are irrelevant. You need to establish your brand as an industry expert to maximize engagement. This can be done if you tweet valuable and original content. Tweet links to your company blog posts that have relevant and interesting content.
Instead of rehashing existing articles, offer your own point of view and predictions. Your followers will find it useful and will want to retweet your tweets.
Respond to Your Twitter Followers Promptly
To continue conversations with clients and to have stronger relationships with them, you need to respond to their comments, retweets, shout-outs, questions, etc. as quickly as possible. By using the @replies feature on Twitter, you can check the “interactions” and “mentions” of your brand on Twitter and reply to questions promptly.
Also make sure to have an FAQ blog post. Link to it regularly on Twitter so that followers can follow the link if they have more questions. Always remember to thank followers who retweet, share and comment on your tweets, and use ‘@[Their Username]’ in the tweet to give them a shout out.
You can also use direct messages to communicate with engaged followers who require more information about your brand.
Offer Fun Tweets to Your Twitter Followers
It may not always be possible to create long blog posts with valuable content and tweet them on a daily basis. In such cases, tweeting daily tips or fun facts is a great idea, as such tweets generally get a lot of engagement. Also, these posts are bite-sized and easy to read, which is always a good thing on Twitter.
You can also include behind-the-scenes images or ask interesting questions to followers.
Participate in “Follow Friday”
Follow Friday is not exactly a Twitter feature, but an event created by Twitter followers to highlight other users. Use the #FollowFriday hashtag in your tweet to place the spotlight on certain followers who engage with your brand frequently. This is a great way to reward certain followers and to appreciate their efforts.
You can also create special edition #FollowFriday events with specific themes and tag followers accordingly.
Blue Bird Photo via Shutterstock
Great article! It amazes me that business people do not capitalize on the obvious. The other piece ito utilizing your network is follow up. Over 80% do not follow up on leads after face-face-networking. It is imperative to follow up within 3 days, or within a week or you lose momentum. Just create a system to connect with your networks and the next steps to move forward to expand the relationship.
Martin Lindeskog
Jessica Davis: Have you read Engage!: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web by Brian Solis?
Another thing you could do if you want to increase the engagement is to arrange a tweet chat on a topic that is interesting for your followers.
Great article Melinda! Thanks so much for all of this information. I plan to put it into action! Question… If you follow or have followers (and companies you follow) that have nothing in common is it fair to delete them?
Great article, Jessica! You’ve given some simple, clear, concrete tips for helping us ENGAGE with people, rather than simply adding them like notches on our belts. Keep it up!