Top Practices for Twitter

If your Twitter account just isn’t working out for you, take a look at a few of the pointers we’ve put together. Make a tick-list. How many are you currently achieving?

• IMAGES: Tweets with images perform approximately twice as well as ones without an image.

• DIRECT: You’ve only got 140 characters – make ‘em count! If you want your followers to take an action, tell them.

• TO THE POINT: Tweets less than 100 characters get better engagement on average.

• TIME: There are ALWAYS people browsing Twitter, but lunch time shows a general peak in activity and engagement.

• LOOKS GOOD: Use short URLs, stick to one hashtag and throw in a nice image – it’s easy to make a tweet look messy, so cast your eye over it one more time before you click send.

• BACKSTAGE: Twitter is great for behind-the-scenes footage. There is free reign to talk about a single event all day, without your followers getting tired of seeing one thing covered.

• CHAT: Don’t be afraid to reply to others, interact and converse about relevant topics.

• REPLIES VS MENTIONS: Remember to put a “.” before an @ at the beginning of a tweet if you want everyone to see it. If you don’t, it will be a reply rather than a mention, and only followers of the account you tweeted will see it.

• FORMAT: A good format to use for tweets is: Content. Link. Opinion.

• ORIGINAL: Your own content gives better results for your analytics than retweets, unless you edit or ‘comment’.

• TIMELY: People use Twitter to find out about things that are happening now, not last week. Keep it fresh, current and relevant.