In the first two parts of our “Tactics to Grow Your Twitter Following” series, we shared valuable tips and best practices that you can follow even without spending money. But sometimes, you need a little more than organic tactics to grow your community. The third part of our guide will provide you with a few additional tips – both paid and free – according to suggestions from 100+ experts.
Instead of trying to appeal to a wide and generic audience, it can help to first focus your efforts on attracting a niche audience. Once you’ve built a strong presence within that niche, you can branch out and become more easily noticed among other audiences.
“Having a niche can also help you attract a special interest group. It could be related to business, sports, entertainment, or even world affairs,” advises Nathan Hughes, Marketing Director of Diggity Marketing.
People are different; and their choice of content also varies. While some enjoy visual content, others may find text content easier to process. Similarly, many people may appreciate educational and informative content while others may want to see more entertaining content. So to cater to the varying needs of your audience, make sure you create a diverse range of content for your Twitter strategy.
“You may mix things up by sharing infographics, podcasts, webinars, current events, or even how-to guides, in addition to regular tweets,” advises Divorce Answers’ Director of Marketing, Lauren McKay. “You're in an excellent position to gain more likes, comments, retweets, and follows if you write good tweets,” she explains.
According to Melanie Allen, a Content Developer for Partners in Fire, “There are lots of different ways to add value to the platform. It doesn't have to be strictly educational. You can be humorous, ask questions, post engaging polls, post content threads with tons of information, and even share pictures.” She adds, “Mixing up your content with different types of posts will help you reach an even broader audience.”
“It is critical to represent a bigger audience. Everyone will feel heard and acknowledged in this manner,” explains Susan Smith, Marketing Manager of Velden Engineering. “On your Twitter account, discuss a variety of subjects that influence individuals. This contributes to a higher level of Twitter engagement.”
“If you don't know something about a subject, don't misrepresent it to others,” she adds. “Also, make an effort to be as inclusive as possible. For improved participation, different personalities, races, genders, and social backgrounds should be represented on a regular basis…”
The Canva Twitter feed is the perfect example of a diversified feed. The brand regularly shares a mix of short text, images, and videos. They share tips, create challenges, and retweet creations from Canva users to build visibility and engagement.
To get started with this tactic, you can follow the 80/20 rule like Stacey Kane, Business Development Lead for EasyMerchant. “I follow the 80/20 rule, which means that 80% of tweets should be informative or helpful to our audience, and 20% should be promotional,” she explains.
“Not enough marketers understand the importance of this concept, and it's vital to growing an engaged following. This framework keeps our audience interested and engaged with our Twitter page.”
You can also separate your Twitter content into different categories, like Michel Fortin, Director of Search Seoplus+. “I typically have my tweets separated into categories, such as…‘question of the day,’ ‘seeking feedback, ‘quote of the day,’ ‘interesting shares,’ ‘latest news,’ and ‘promotions.’”
“The ‘question of the day’ is always the first tweet with a question intended to incite conversations. For example, ‘Good morning! What is a cool skill you have that no one knows about?’ The ‘seeking feedback’ one is specific to my industry (i.e. SEO and digital marketing), with the goal is getting insights or advice from peers or helping me brainstorm ideas.”
Timing is just as important as content quality. “With almost 400,000/day posts, it is crucial to post at the right time to get the maximum number of users to view and engage with the tweet,” explains Rima Shah, Head of Digital Marketing at Technostacks Infotech.
“[The] higher the visibility, greater are the chances of tweet activity. Based on your industry and location, analyse the most suitable time to tweet. A tweet receives half of its retweet by the first twenty minutes of tweeting. After that, the tweet does not matter. So analyse and use statistics tool to get the best and worst tweet timing,” she adds.
“When it comes to tweeting, I advise you to time your tweets right to grow your Twitter following. While your target audience is sleeping, blasting your tweets will not help you attract new followers,” explains Teo Vanyo, CEO of Stealth Agents.
“The ideal times to post on social media are typically in the early and late afternoons of weekdays. You can use social media scheduling to queue up information regularly without having to tweet continually in real-time. This practically allows you to acquire new followers at any time of day or night.”
According to Derek Warburton, the Creative Director of Warburtonmedia, “Just as on Facebook, there may be periods of the day or weeks when more of your users are active on the site or more inclined to interact with your material. You'll receive more views and are more likely to boost engagement and clicks on your post if you can identify those peak hours and publish during them.”
“Some studies have shown that publishing between 12:00 and 3:00 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays is one of the best times, while others have discovered somewhat different peak hours; for example, a week found that 5 p.m. had the most retweets, but posting between 12 and 6 p.m. had the highest CTR. Most research found that publishing throughout the daytime hours resulted in the most incredible engagement and CTRs.”
According to Lauren Cook-McKay, Director of Marketing for Divorce Answers, “In addition to the number of tweets you send, the time you send them is crucial. Examine your Twitter analytics to identify when your followers are most active and likely to respond to your Tweets.”
“Is your target audience, for example, a group of busy professionals? They will be less inclined to interact during working hours as a result. Try to post in the evenings when they are more likely to respond,” she adds.
“To ensure that your users see your tweets, find out when they are on Twitter. To schedule timely posts that won't be buried in your followers' feeds, use data from Sprout Social, Hootsuite, or Buffer,” advises Jason McMahon, a Digital Strategist for Bambrick.
“The best way to maximise your current audience and expand your follower count is by making sure that you are tweeting at the right time when your users are most likely going to see your tweets,” agrees Shiv Gupta, CEO of Incrementors. “And the best way to make sure this happens is by making use of insights using data from social management tools like Hootsuite or Buffer that can also allow you to schedule timely posts.”
“This will help you to ensure that your tweets aren't buried in your followers' feeds and that you aren’t posting too frequently either, which should help you to maximise your visibility and reach, without alienating your current audience,” Shiv explains.
“Also, space out your tweets so that your followers aren't overwhelmed,” suggests Jason Feldman, Founder of Feldman Feldman & Associates PC. “Limiting your activity to one or two tweets every one or two hours will help you increase your visibility while avoiding alienating your following.”
The Audiense Connect Twitter marketing platform can help you understand when your audience is most likely to be active on Twitter. It analyses the timelines of relevant users and generates a Best Time to Tweet report to show you how to time your tweet to gain maximum reach.
If you’re a Buffer or Hootsuite user, the platform has integrations with these tools so you can easily schedule your tweets to go out at the optimal times.
Do you have a great tweet that would make people want to hit the “Follow” button as soon as they see it? Pin it so people who are just checking out your profile will see it at the top of your page.
“Pin your best tweet at the top of your page,” advises Simon Brisk, CEO of Click Intelligence. “You can link to your latest promotion or your best work. Whatever it is, it should be high-quality enough that people are willing to follow you to stay informed and get more.”
“You may pin tweets to your profile, which will keep them at the top of your page until you unpin them. It's a basic strategy with tremendous effects for increasing engagement,” agrees SEO Specialist Brack Nelson. “If you get new followers and they visit your Twitter profile, the pinned tweet will receive a lot more attention.”
Sometimes, organic efforts alone aren’t going to cut it to get to the level of growth you expect. When this happens, you may have to consider paying to promote your tweets and reaching a wider audience.
According to Gerrid Smith, CMO of Joy Organics, “Advertising on Twitter is a wonderful strategy to grow your Twitter following because it has a cheap cost-per-click rate and allows you to target your audience based on interaction and keywords. When you promote a tweet, it has a better chance of reaching the proper people.”
To get more out of this approach, Matt Weidle, Business Development Manager for Buyer’s Guide suggests leveraging ads to promote your best tweets. “Take note of the themes and ideas that yielded the best results and share more content along those lines. You can even run a promotion on Twitter ads to increase the number of engagements on your most popular tweet.”
Samsung Mobile created a poll in which they asked people what they wanted to do with their phones. They then promoted it so more people can see it.
To learn more about how to leverage your Twitter paid campaigns, check out our bonus tip at the end of the article.
A followers campaign is another type of paid advertising tactic you can run on Twitter.
“Along with organic growth, I suggest boosting your numbers by conducting a followers campaign. Followers campaigns enable you to promote your account to a certain demographic, and you only pay when someone follows you as a result of seeing your advertisement,” explains Mortgage Broker Alan Harder.
“Consider brief campaigns to increase momentum or an ongoing campaign to generate a steady stream of new followers. Increasing Twitter followers for your brand may take some testing and patience, but the result will be significant in the long term,” Alan advises.
“You may speed up your growth by conducting a followers campaign in addition to expanding organically,” agrees Marcus Valdez, Founder of The Game Dial. “Followers campaigns facilitate you to promote your account to a specific demographic, and you only pay when someone follows you after viewing your advertisement. Consider conducting brief campaigns to get traction or an always-on campaign to attract new followers on a regular basis.”
Contests and giveaways are another strategy that doesn’t require significant financial investment. This is an excellent option because your new and existing followers stand to gain something, which could prompt them to enthusiastically participate. But make sure the prize is something that your audience would find valuable.
“You can grow your following by organising contests and giveaways in addition to promoting your products and services. Each participant is a potential new follower, and each follower has the option of informing their friends,” explains Joy Organics’ Gerrid Smith.
Writing guests posts is a well-known strategy to gain backlinks and establish your authority in the industry. But guest posts also have benefits beyond that, even helping you attract followers to your social media profiles.
“If you're a Twitter user with a penchant for writing, guest posting on well-known blogs and newspapers can help you gain a lot of new followers. You must, however, add your Twitter account in your author bio first,” advises Ryan Dalal, CEO & Founder of Word to PDF.
“Every article you publish in a reputable online magazine will drive traffic to your Twitter profile as a result of this strategy,” he explains. “There's a good likelihood that readers will follow you if they enjoy your thoughts and insights. Although gaining Twitter followers through tapping into the followings of online newspapers and well-known blogs is a gradual and steady process, it produces fantastic results for consistent users.”
Twitter is one of the few platforms where the followers of people you tag can still see your posts. This means tagging the right people can help you gain visibility with relevant audiences and potential followers.
But instead of randomly tagging others, use this as an opportunity to start conversations that others would want to engage in.
“I used to tag multiple people at a time to induce a thread where engagement would be made maximum,” explains Dan Ni, CEO & Founder of Messaged.com. “And overall I made sure that the content I posted was both attractive and would act as a hook for my target audience.”
Dan’s strategy is to create content that mentions major companies and tagging them when he shares the content via Twitter.
“You can start having discussions with your followers if you've been participating in Twitter Chats and actively engaging on Twitter. Asking about your sector or specialisation, or even simply a fun icebreaker, and then tagging your Twitter buddies to respond is a popular way to do this,” suggests Corporate Investigation Consulting Founder, Gerrid Smith.
“This will start a conversation topic. The trick to initiating a discussion is that you can't do so without first establishing a rapport with other users. People who have never engaged with you previously are unlikely to start responding to inquiries right away,” he warns.
Besides your followers, you should also consider tagging influential people to ask them questions and start conversations that could attract others. “Tagging influential people on relevant topics can lead to comments and likes from them, which also leads to immense engagement,” explains Technostacks Infotech’s Rima Shah.
Positive energy is contagious, according to Will Cannon, CEO of Signaturely. That’s why he recommends using positivity to attract potential followers on Twitter.
“Haters and others who want to knock you down will try to repress your views, insult them, and use social media to do it. As a result, you should make your personality stand out among your fans by exuding optimism,” he advises.
“You can do it by discussing relevant subjects or taboos and soliciting feedback from your followers. Allow your Twitter account to serve as a forum for your followers to interact with you and share their stories. This aids in the development of a larger fan base and the recruitment of new followers. You can also use Twitter to talk about mental health and how your followers can promote it at work and at home...”
Our very own tip is to leverage advanced Twitter marketing platforms like Audiense Connect to discover effective opportunities for growing your Twitter community. The Audiense Connect platform gives you all the tools you need to manage your community and create a Twitter strategy that makes a difference.
Audiense Connect comes with robust competitor analysis tools to benchmark your community size and identify who follows them. This allows you to identify potential people you should target in your campaigns and what strategies are working.
The platform also lets you build opt-in chatbots so you can enhance how you engage with your customers or potential followers. Use this to automatically greet profile visitors with a warm welcome message that would make them want to keep engaging with your brand.
One of the main highlights is the Tweet Analytics feature, which offers audience insights that you can no longer get with the native Twitter analytics. With this feature, you can analyse your content performance to see what’s working with your audience. You can also get community insights like demographic and languages. It even lets you discover your audience’s interests, which is a great way to uncover how to shape your campaign in a way that resonates with them.
Moreover, Audiense Connect allows you to create highly personalised audiences that you can use to improve your Twitter ad targeting – something that will come in handy if you ever want to promote your tweets.
Audiense Connect also has the best Twitter Tailored Audiences product in the industry. This allows you to refine your criteria and target the most relevant users. You can get as niche as you’d like and target people based on personality traits or how they’ve engaged with your account.
From paid advertising to organic tactics – there are plenty of ways you can build a strong and engaged Twitter community. You can also use the Audiense Connect Twitter marketing platform to take your Twitter marketing to the next level.
The platform’s robust community analysis and advanced monitoring and listening will help you understand your audience more deeply. So you can craft campaigns that are relevant to them and make an impact. Sign up for Audiense Connect today and grow your Twitter marketing efforts.