Do you need a Twitter Cheat Sheet?
There are a many myths about engagement. Rules made up at cocktail parties and measurements that don’t allow for the one to one human connection that Twitter does best.
Dashburst reviewed a new Twitter Cheat Sheet. The facts are right, but before you implement them, let’s have a discussion here about how following them can hurt you
Are you getting the type of interaction and retweets you always hoped for on Twitter? Did you know you could basically double your engagement rates on Twitter just by including an image within your tweet? Or that using more than two hashtags or tweeting too much can significantly lower your interaction rates? Twitter is the fastest growing social network increasing by 40% over the last half of 2012. This makes it paramount for your business to master the intricacies of Twitter, which will help further raise awareness about your and and generate additional new leads.
So here are some great tips and tricks to help you increase engagement on Twitter like follower retweets, click-through rates (CTR) and replies.
First off, 78% of the engagement with a and is through retweets. As the number of tweets you send per day increases though, engagement will typically decrease. The other 22% of engagement with a brand’s tweets are from replies.
92% of the interaction with a brand’s tweets are by clicking links, but most businesses don’t realize that the engagement rates for brands are 17% higher on Saturday and Sunday–only 19% of brands actually tweet during the weekend. Brands typically see 30% higher interaction rates tweeting from 8am to 7pm. Tweets that contain less than 100 characters also receive 17% higher engagement than longer tweets. So keep it short and sweet! Tweets that contain links receive 86% higher retweet rates than tweets without links. The bottom line is people are looking for you to provide them with links to relevant information.
Tweets with hashtags recieve 2X more engagement than those without hashtags, yet only 24% of measured tweets contain hashtags. Tweets with one or two hashtags have a 21% higher engagement than those with three or more hashtags. However, tweets that use more than two hashtags actually show a 17% drop in engagement. So using hashtags can be effective, just don’t overdo it!
Tweets with image links have twice the engagement rates compared to tweets without images! Also, tweets that ask followers to “Retweet” recieve 12X higher retweet rates than those that do not. However, only less than 1% of ands implement this strategy. In fact, when followers are explicitly asked to and “Retweet” is spelled out, the retweet rate is 23X higher than the average. When using the shortened term “RT” instead, the retweet rate is only 10X higher.
See full story on dashburst.com
Interesting that you mention that the hashtags receive more engagement. Absolutely true, as you can break out to reach a broader audience.
The tip with shorter tweets is also valuable as I tend to write longer tweets.
I see more people getting into trouble with hashtags than than those who have figured out a profitable use.
Just now I saw somebody retweet me. They inserted the # in front of three words of my tweet. That sort of thing just makes it harder to read.
Using the hashtag of an event you are attending or a subject that gets talked about, and only using one in a tweet is a good idea. In those cases there’s actually people looking for the tweets on that subject. I #that you make of for your own thread is likely a waste of time and less you have a big enough audience that people will be looking for it.
be careful with any of these stats. They get him from measuring a mass of tweets, with no way of knowing what readers are thinking, and likely measuring spam and fodder. Shorter tweets are better. Which again points to the futility of adding a bunch of hashtags.
Yeah, I think Twitter, like any form of interaction, is much more human than we can start to think it is. Quantity (code & searchability) is backseat to quality. Otherwise it doesn’t matter how many people see it b/c no one’s going to want to engage. And it seems to me that hashtagging excessively (which I’ve been guilty of) is thinking in terms of numbers, not individual perception.
exactly. The 20th Century was an anomaly where mass communication in one direction worked quite well. As soon as we got the net, we started moving back to the way we always wanted it. People prefer to do business (communicate, play, work, love) with other people. That takes two way communications.. human to human
Thank you I am going to apply this info to my twitter immediately!
I hope you don’t act too fast. Think about what you’re tweeting. think of the stats you see here best trends, not rules.
Hi Warren,
I see a lot of referrences to and’s. Is that a typo or do I have to update my dictionary?
George, I think those are words from the article I was quoting. Looks like they had “brand’s” which is a grammar issue for those who don’t consider a brand in entity worthy of being a personal pronoun. Thanks for letting me know, I’ll check what happened in the cut-and-paste process and fix it best that can.
Thank you Warren for your response. Now that you told me it’s more fun to read. 🙂
I’m particular surprised about the hashtags info as I’m just about to learn that on instagram (I’m new there) it appears to be the other way round. The top instragram’ers are the ones who have more hashtags than I can even conjure up to a photo. 😉
Warren… I thought the same when reading the article, that it had to be a cut and paste issue. Your response was like from 16 days ago. Did you look into it? Because it did add some confusion to the article when reading it. Thanks and thanks for the tips,
our investigative team is rather small… I’ll see what I can do about adding the next quarter budget if we need to beef that up
The longer I spend around twitter, the more convinced I become that most businesses just don’t have a twitter strategy. I continue to see a ton of buy stuff tweets often interspersed with stale quotes. I have the definite feeling that most are checking an item off a to do list; rather than really trying to engage with customers and prospects.
You’re absolutely right, Harold (again). I talk to business owners every day and one my favorite mantras is “social networks are not advertising platforms” and yet they don’t believe me. They think that they can advertise their latest sale or product and that the people on Facebook or Twitter will not only appreciate that information, but flock to purchase. Business owners see ridiculous claims like, “I made $2,368 on Twitter yesterday, and you can too!” and they think A) that’s real, and B) they can do that too.
love that line.. I say “social media is 1% media and 99% social (and things we haven’t even figured out)”
Gotta say, for the most part, your line is better. I only put the 1% in because advertisers moving money to Facebook, et al are getting better targeted results 🙂
That’s what I was thinking when I said that marketing in the future is just two words
Listen and Love
Simple as that 🙂
I totaly agree with Harold’s comment. The game is to engage with customers and prospects.
The best thing I ever learned that people don’t change. Connect with them, and don’t expect them to learn new tech or ideas. 🙂
Twitter is always misunderstood from a professional marketing perspective. Spamming is over used and clouds the true potential of the social median. Recent Facebook and coming enhancements may make significant inroads on Twitters turf. Time for Twitter to turn up its game.
Hashtag info is interesting and informative. Great info and thanks for sharing.
I think People still are not ‘getting’ the Twitter conversation premise. I used to think Social Media was a good tool for People who might otherwise struggle a bit in person. I’m now thinking that online, as well as in ‘the flesh’, its those with strong social skills who thrive more. This seems obvious, sure. My hope was that it could be adopted by all, and with positive outcomes. It proves that you can’t be either shy or complacent about it.
I’ll stick with my primary credo NO RULES… I let people do what they can or what they want and wish them well…
Is there some things I found that work better for me. That’s what I share in hopes that others might find it is useful
What about #Hashtagoholism ? An abnormal physical desire to write Hashtags, or worse, create #NewHastags … .?
🙂
I don’t think that’s a recognized syndrome
I agree that overuse of hashtags is annoying, harder to read and doesn’t necessarily lead to people searching through hashtags for common ground (except perhaps at conferences). However, I think hashtags are also useful (and sometimes entertaining) to express one’s state of mind (e.g. #Ineedavacation #hopelesslyinlove #Idontgetit).
I think purpose behind most social media on a business sense is to do three things – interact directly with dissatisfied customers, keep their name in front of satisfied ones and to attract new people. Even giant companies like Red Bull, and Fila don’t understand the value of direct interaction. I enjoyed this piece.
Thanks for this article Warren. Congrats on your book!
thank you
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