Guest post by Logan Strain.
If you’ve invested the groundwork necessary to build a Twitter account, there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing it actually gain steam. Your best tweets get retweeted on a regular basis, you can count on discovering more followers every time you check in, and you can see that you’re developing a strong presence on a noisy platform.
But all accounts reach a level of stagnation if you use the same tactics over and over again. If you see your growth starting to level off, it might be time to shake things up a bit with new techniques.
How can you break through a Twitter plateau and take your account to an even greater level of success? Use these these five helpful Twitter tools and strategies to build upon what you have already established.
1) Improve Multimedia With Twitter Cards
A highly powerful yet underused optional feature of Twitter is the Twitter card. This feature, developed by Twitter, allows accounts to create media-rich experiences that can help you stand out in the mostly text platform. Accounts can use one of seven different cards in a single tweet.
- • Gallery cards that display images
- • Photo cards that include a single image
- • Summary cards with a link
- • Summary cards with images
- • App cards
- • Player cards which showcase videos
- • Product cards
For example, if you want to show off a few different photos of a brand new product on Twitter, you can use the gallery card to display shots from several angles. Or you can use the photo card to add a large picture to your tweet when you link to your blog.
Using one of these cards increases click-throughs and engagement, since they make your tweets look so much different from those ones in your followers’ feeds.
While Twitter cards have been adopted by some major brands, they are still not used by everyone. To learn more, check out Forbes’ great comprehensive overview on this nifty feature and how to implement it.
2) Use Tweriod For Perfectly Timed Tweets
When you tweet can have a huge impact on how much engagement your tweets generate. While there have been some studies on the best overall tweeting time, every account is different. So how do you find a tweeting schedule that is perfect for your particular niche?
Tweriod is a powerful (and free) tool that can give you actionable analytics to supercharge your tweeting. The tool analyzes your tweets and your followers tweets, and lets you know what tweeting times give you the best results. With this information in hand, you can fine tune when you tweet using your tweet scheduler.
3) Experiment With New Hashtags
Hashtags, of course, are essential to getting attention on Twitter. If Twitter is one giant cocktail party, then hashtags are how you take part in a conversation. Most established accounts use a handful of hashtags, either ones directly related to their industry or market, or ones that have successfully garnered engagement in the past.
But if you keep using the same hashtags, you’ll keep getting the same results. Break out of your tweeting routine by exploring other hashtags to connect with. One easy way to brainstorm new hashtags you can try is use the app in Hashtagify.me.
Just enter your most common hashtags, and it will give you other common hashtags that are commonly associated with it. Now you have several more ways to connect with Twitter users with which you can experiment.
4) Create Your Own Branded Hashtag
There’s no reason why you have to use hashtags that are already popular. You can really break through by creating a hashtag of your very own. For example, to promote their “Share A Coke” campaign, Coca-Cola created the hashtag #shareacoke.
In promoting their breakfast items, Taco Bell joked that “Breakfast Burrito from a burger place? That’s like taking a T Rex to yoga.” They then encouraged other followers to create their own jokes in that vein using the hashtag #thatslike. Think of an interesting or funny way you can engage your potential customers with a clever and original hashtag.
5) Optimize Tweet Length
Since 140 characters is so short, many social media marketers take advantage of the full amount of space available with every tweet. But that strategy may overestimate the attention span of the users of the most hyperactive social network on the Internet. Some studies even suggest that the optimal length of a tweet is a paltry 100 characters.
Shortening tweets below Twitter’s limits has resulted in increased engagement for some marketers. Try your hand at extreme brevity for a week of tweeting and see if it has an impact in shares and favorites.
Never Stop Testing
How do you know you’re making the most of the time you spend building up your Twitter account? By consistently trying new things, and keeping what works. Any Twitter account can see steady growth if you simply maintain a steady and consistent tweeting schedule. But if you want to supercharge your growth, you’ll need to rethink your tactics on a week by week basis.
Logan Strain is a web content creator who regularly contributes to Instant Checkmate’s blog, a father, and a podcast addict. When he’s not browsing reddit, playing with his daughter, or binge-watching Netflix, he’s creating top notch web content. Follow him on Twitter @LM_Strain.