How to Win the Twitter Game of Thrones

The smart path to Twitter success

Tweet your way to fame with these power tips

Have you ever wondered how the Kings and Queens of Twitter claim their thrones? As with any power game, they begin a strategy, which they are prepared to adapt at short notice if necessary. The good news is that you can do it too.

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The tips below all focus around how to use Twitter as a platform and to encourage more engagement and followers – they’re well worth considering.

Avoid sending multiple tweets in a short space of time

Sending a lot of tweets in a short amount of time will only cause more people to unfollow you. If you’re using different tools to send out tweets, it can become a bit of a juggling act but if you’re mindful about it and try to space out your tweets when possible – that will be a big help.

Stop sending automated DMs

DMs are Twitter Direct Messages - This can work as a tactic to generate traffic or cross promote your other social networks when done right. Many so called ‘growth hackers’ tend to use automation to send DM’s to new followers but the side effect is that you will lose followers.

Most people hate receiving automated DMs and automated DMs which include a URL to the service used to send them are even worse.

Tweet more (within reason of course)

Tweeting for the sake of tweeting is never a good idea and neither is tweeting so much that your followers get sick of it. You don’t have to settle on an optimum number of tweets as that really varies on a number of factors – look more at a ball park figure.

There is a balance to be found here and the key is to tweet frequently enough to be seen and noticed.

Engage with other users

If you aren’t engaging with other Twitter users, you’re going to struggle to build an engaged following. There will always be a limit to the time we can spend engaging with other users but it’s well worth putting the time in to schedule engaging updates and respond to your @mentions.

Follow people who value what you have to say

A popular strategy people have used to get more Twitter followers is to simply follow other people who have similar interests. This can work well but the chance of someone following you back is low.

Instead try following people who already know who you are and value what you have to say.

Ask for retweets but use sparingly

Studies have shown that asking your followers to retweet can help increase your retweets by up to 4 times. More retweets is a great thing because it expands your reach and with each retweet you have the opportunity to gain more followers.

Just add “Please retweet” at the front of your tweet.

This has the potential to work purely because you are including a direct call to action for your followers but it’s important to note that some people on Twitter do find this annoying.

Vary the type of content you share

Variety is important on Twitter. Just sharing an endless stream of links won’t help anyone. Try shaking things up by sharing other types of updates like quotes and engaging questions.

If you want to get even more engagement try using a tool like Share As Image to create images for your quotes in seconds. Share As Image is a browser extension, just find a quote you like, highlight the text and click ‘Share As Image. According to a recent twitter study, images are 94% more likely to be retweeted.

Leverage and optimize hashtags

Including relevant hashtags in your tweets is a great way to get more eyeballs on your tweets.

Pin your best stuff to your profile

If you’ve got something to share that can be valuable to your audience, try pinning it to your profile.

Whenever someone visits your Twitter profile, they will see this pinned tweet which is a great opportunity to give your followers something great. Including an image is an important part of this and ensuring that what you’re sharing vibes with your target audience.

Share the content your audience is interested in

Keeping your updates as relevant as possible is a sure-fire way to get more traction on your tweets (and expand your following). People who want to learn about a specific topic will follow you to learn about that topic.

Share other people’s content and tag them

One of the key steps to gaining more followers is to help people out and share their stuff. Sharing other people’s content and tagging them is a sure-fire way to get on their radar. This is an important step in cultivating mutually beneficial relationships. The more you help other people out, the more likely they are to help you out.

Take part in Twitter chats

Twitter chats are a great way to develop meaningful relationships on Twitter, get to know people and get more followers. Think of them as a Twitter party where people get together to talk about a specific topic at a specific time.

Schedule your tweets to be published when your followers are online

Optimising the times which you share content is the key to getting more traction and increasing your reach. Free tools like Tweriod will enable you to find out exactly what times your followers are most active on Twitter. Once you know when your followers are most active, you can start scheduling your tweets. You could do this manually but it’s a lot easier to use a tweet scheduling tool.

Like to know more?

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If this topic is of interest to you and you would like to discuss it in more detail, please contact me. As a digital recruitment specialist who has also run digital marketing companies, I am in a unique position to help you with your digital marketing career or staffing requirements.

The company I work with, Morgan Consulting, has been operating for over 20 years. My colleagues are not just recruiters. Like me, they are first and foremost business people. They are true specialists who have a deep understanding of the service, practice group, industry sector and location in which they recruit.