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#ContentWritingChat Recap: Twitter Strategies for a Great Brand Presence with Becky Shindell

by | Mar 3, 2017 | ContentWritingChat

#ContentWritingChat Recap: Twitter Strategies for a Great Brand Presence with Becky Shindell

You might think Twitter is a dying platform, but we’re about to prove you wrong with our latest #ContentWritingChat. This week, we covered all the best strategies to help you grow your audience and establish a great brand presence on Twitter. If you’re ready to step up your game on Twitter, dive into this recap!

#ContentWritingChat Recap: Twitter Strategies for a Great Brand Presence with Becky Shindell

Our guest host this week was Becky Shindell. She’s a Social Media Manager for one of our favorite tools, SEMrush. Plus, she works behind the scenes on their Twitter chat, #semrushchat. So, it’s no surprise that Becky is pretty knowledgeable on Twitter and we were excited to have her join us and share some of her best advice.

Q1: How can a brand determine if Twitter is a worthwhile platform to be on?

With all the social media platforms available today, it can be hard to decide which ones are worth your time. If you’re wondering if Twitter is really the right place for your brand to be, we have some advice that will make the decision a little easier.

Becky recommends considering the goals you have for your brand. She knows that Twitter is a powerful platform for customer service. That could be a key way that you use it to serve your customers.

Julia knows it’s important to be where your audience is. Find out if they’re spending their time on Twitter and if they are… You need to be there too!

As Annaliese said, make sure your target audience is actually active on the platform. If they’re signed up, but not using it, then it won’t do you any good. You want to make sure your audience is there and already engaged.

Research, research, research! You’re going to have to do a little digging to find out where your audience is most active online, but it’ll pay off in the end.

Is your community on Twitter? Is there already a conversation around your niche happening there? If so, Kristen says Twitter is worth your time.

If you aren’t sure if your audience is on Twitter, don’t be afraid to ask them. You can create a survey and ask for responses to find out which platforms they’re most active on. As Lexie said, your social media strategy is all about being where your audience is.

Another thing to take into consideration is how Twitter actually works. As Cristy said, it’s not a pay-to-play platform like Facebook as become. Twitter is appealing to so many brands for that reason because they don’t worry about a large portion of their followers never seeing their posts.

Q2: What types of content perform well on Twitter, thus encouraging clicks and shares?

Once you’ve decided to invest your time into using Twitter, you want to make sure you’re posting great content. And we all want clicks and shares, right? These tips will help you create irresistible content your audience will enjoy.

As Becky said, great visuals are key to getting your content noticed on Twitter. An eye-catching image will get people to stop as they’re scrolling through their feeds. Create something that’s going to grab their attention and appeal to them if you want to earn those clicks and shares.

Vishal knows that pairing captivating visuals with amazing copy is the formula for a perfect tweet.

Jessy said it best when she mentioned a great visual can help you break through the clutter. Social media feeds are busy these days and you need a way to stand out. Photos, GIFs, and videos can help you do that.

It’s also important to consider what resonates with your audience. What works for one brand might not work for you and vice versa. Don’t be afraid to test ideas to see what your audience responds well to and what they aren’t digging. Sarah said to make sure everything is helpful, relevant, timely, pretty, and beneficial.

Cassandra agrees that, in the end, it all goes back to what your audience enjoys.

Q3: How do you measure the success of your content? Which metrics are most important to track?

So, you’ve posted all of this content to Twitter… How on earth do you find out if it’s performing well? Which metrics should you be paying the most attention to? There’s no need to let your analytics stress you out! We have some suggestions on what you should be tracking.

Becky said she likes to use Sprout Social to see how her audience is responding to content. She tracks engagement, retweets, and favorites. She also takes a look at their demographics to get a better understanding of who the audience is. Then, that information can be used to create more of the content that works and less of what doesn’t.

Engagement, clicks, traffic, and real ROI. That’s what we’re all about here at Express Writers. And as Julia mentioned, one of our clients signed on with us after discovering our Twitter profile and scrolling through our tweets.

Annaliese offered some great advice that will help you get the most out of your Twitter presence and your analytics. She suggests using Google Analytics and setting it up to track how visitors from Twitter behave once they get to your website.

Conversions, conversions, conversions. The ultimate test of whether or not your Twitter presence is working for you is whether or not those followers are converting. You want to see that they’re not only coming to your website, but converting in some way. That could be becoming an email subscriber, a paying customer, etc. If those conversions are happening, you’re on the right track.

For Tony, it’s all about engagement rate, clicks, and impressions. Engagement is a great thing to track because it’s nice to see that your audience is responding in some way, like leaving a comment. It’s simple, but it helps to build a relationship with them.

Jenn knows just how powerful conversations are between you and your audience. It’s a key step to building trust with them and you need to create content that gets them talking. Make sure you reply to them when they leave their response too!

Like Jenn, Keira also wants to see conversations happening around the content she shares. But as she pointed out, it all depends on the goals you’ve set for your content and that will differ based on the particular post.

Q4: What can you do to get your brand noticed on Twitter?

If you decide to invest your time and effort into a social media platform, you don’t want to go unnoticed. You want people to see your posts and engage with them. You want to attract followers and convert them into customers. So, how do you actually get noticed so you can see major results for your brand? Start implementing these tips:

Becky’s advice is to use relevant hashtags, original images and copy, and great GIFs. She also said to tweet frequently to stay in the feeds of your audience.

If you want your brand to be noticed, you need to be present. Don’t slack off on posting and expect to see growth. Don’t get lazy with engaging and expect to build relationships. You need to be proactive about engaging with your audience.

Be a thought leader in your industry and people will want to follow along. It’s also important that you stay on top of the latest trends so you can provide the best content for your audience.

Engage, entertain, listen, and respond. It’s simple, but effective advice that Lauren knows will get you results.

Engagement is always essential and Antonio agrees. He stressed just how important it is to listen to what your audience is saying and to respond to them. He also mentioned that you can pay for traffic, but that doesn’t compare with growing your audience by building relationships.

Hashtags are a key way to get your content noticed. They help you reach a wider audience with each post. You just need to make sure you’re using ones that are relevant and popular enough that people will discover it.

And of course, Twitter chats are one great way to get noticed. They’re perfect for making new connections and sharing your expertise with a new group.

Mallie is also a fan of using Twitter chats to make connections. Start reaching out to people in a way that feels genuine and people will respond well.

Q5: How can you capture leads on Twitter in order to turn followers into customers and raving fans of your brand?

We couldn’t have a chat on Twitter strategies without discussing how to use the platform to capture leads, could we? We asked our chat participants to share their advice for taking people from followers and turning them into customers and huge fans. Here are their tips:

Becky suggests sharing content that educates and entertains your audience. And don’t forget to add a CTA!

Mallie also agrees that a call to action is essential. People won’t always know what the next step is, so you have to tell them.

Lexie said to be helpful. If you see people asking questions that you can answer, chime in and help them out. They’ll appreciate it and they just might check out your site and possibly become a customer at some point.

Vishal’s advice is great to keep in mind. Don’t be pushy, creepy, or desperate. You need to be yourself, otherwise people will see right through you.

Be authentic and treat your followers right. It’ll work out in your favor.

Q6: What are the best strategies for increasing engagement on Twitter?

If you’re feeling like the engagement levels are low on your Twitter account, it’s time to step it up! Luckily, we’ve compiled some great tips from Tuesday’s chat that will help you out. Read through these and implement them if you want a major increase in engagement.

Becky knows how important it is to engage with your audience. At SEMrush, they like to thank people for sharing their content, which is an easy way to open the lines of communication. You could even take it a step further to ask what someone liked about the article they shared.

Julia knows it’s important to be active. If you aren’t, why would anyone both engaging with you? They wouldn’t expect to receive a response. Be present on Twitter. And be sure to try out a few Twitter chats here and there!

Don’t sit around and wait for engagements to happen. As Jessy said, you need to encourage conversations yourself. Ask questions and respond to replies you get in order to get the discussion going.

As you ask questions, choose ones that are open-ended. Skip the ones where someone could provide a yes/no answer because that doesn’t leave much room for follow-up.

Jason’s advice is to be consistent with your posting and to share relatable tweets. It all goes back to giving your audience what they want. And when you receive replies, take the time to write back.

The reality is, there are many brands out there that don’t bother to respond to people. Don’t be like that! Take the time to respond because that’s what builds relationships.

It’s also smart to take posting times into consideration. Test to find out which times work best for your audience and make sure you’re sharing content then. You need to be able to reach them at the right times. Watching your competitors helps a lot, too!

Q7: Do you rely on any tools for scheduling content and tracking the success of your tweets? If so, which ones do you love?

If we want to succeed, we need an easy way to help us implement all of these Twitter strategies, don’t we? Fortunately, there are a ton of great tools out there to help us schedule posts and track how well things are performing. If you’re looking for a new tool to try out, check out the ones in this list:

The SEMrush team loves using Sprout Social!

We’re all about that Buffer love and using Canva to create social media graphics.

Just like Annaliese, we’re big fans of Buffer here at Express Writers.

Even Lex is making her way over to our favorite, Buffer!

Kristi relies on Hootsuite and Twitter’s own analytics to manage her account.

TweetDeck is another great tool and especially comes in handy during Twitter chats.

Q8: Which brands do an amazing job with their Twitter content? Tag them and let them know!

There are tons of brands who are rocking it online and implementing these very Twitter strategies every day. There’s so much to learn from them, so check out these brands and see what they’re doing well:

Applebee’s continues to impress people with their Twitter presence. One of the great thing about them is that they’re always quick to respond to replies they receive.

Julia’s favorites are definitely worth checking out!

For Lex, she loves to see what Wendy’s and Taco Bell are posting.

Another Wendy’s fan!

Are you following any of Kristin’s favorites?

We look forward to seeing you at the next #ContentWritingChat! Mark your calendars weekly for Tuesday at 10 AM Central Time for great chats centered around content writing and marketing. Follow @ExpWriters to stay updated on our new topics and guests!

Tags: Twitter | Twitter content tips | twitter strategy