How to Increase Engagement on Twitter

For brands looking to improve their visibility and brand image, Twitter is undoubtedly one of the best online social networks. With over 500 million active monthly users, Twitter offers companies the chance to have conversations and dialogue with their audience to get their attention.

340 Million Tweets Sent a Day

Twitter is a platform where people can communicate with each other freely without worrying about privacy concerns and restrictions. However, the vast audience in itself becomes a challenge when it comes to engaging the audience on Twitter. Nearly 340 million tweets are shared daily on Twitter and making your tweets visible among this is crucial.

Here are some tips on improving engagement on Twitter:

Timing is the Key

According to a report published by Buddy Media on Twitter insights, the timing of the tweets is very important. According to this report, the brand engagement rate of audience is 17% higher on weekends. Is your company communicating online during the weekends? A majority of companies surprisingly aren’t. You might want to learn more about being on social media during the weekend. Despite that, only 19% of total tweets by brands are made on weekends.

Engagement rate is much higher between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Twitter, going up by almost 30%. So, tweets made between these hours, and specifically on weekends would get more engagement.

Add Images and Links

Links and images are two important additions to a tweet that can increase engagement substantially. A great example is below from @xbox & @zachbussey:

 

 

Tweets that have images have an engagement rate two times higher than those without images. On the other hand, tweets that contain a link with a short message have a significantly high retweet rate. A great example of this is from @chrisbrogen:

 

Compared to tweets with no links, these tweets are retweeted 86% more. 92% of interaction with a brand’s tweet made by audience is through link clicks.

Keep Tweets Simple and Few

Even when tweets are only 140 characters long, brands often make them quite complicated. A great example of this from @loblawsON, a company I respect.

The post idea from @loblawsON is brilliant. It most likely aligns with there business objectives of increasing brand awareness and increasing foot traffic/sales in stores. Keeping the tweet a bit smaller, around 100 characters could see 17% higher engagement rate than longer ones. Keep in mind that lowering your character count allows consumers to add more to your original tweet! This helps foster a community and most importantly will generate more conversations with your followers. You are just making it easier for them to jump into a conversation.

Also, the number of tweets made every day is inversely related to the engagement rate. While more than one tweet should be made every day, too many of them will not only make people avoid them but they may also unfollow you.

Use Hashtags

Hashtags are another element that can significantly increase engagement level, if used wisely. Tweets with hashtags can generate 2 times more engagement than tweets without them.

Twice the Engagement Level

However, only 24% on tweets have hashtags. Again, using too many hashtags can be bad for your post’s engagement level. Tweets that have up to two hashtags have a 21% higher engagement rate than those with more hashtags. Posts with three or more hashtags show a drop in engagement by 17%.

Tip: Use ONLY appropriate hashags and use them sparingly 1 to 2 hashtags max.

Ask for Retweets

Another strategy that can be used to increase engagement is asking your audience to retweet. While only 1% of the brands are using this strategy regularly, the tweets asking for a retweet gets retweeted 12 times more.

 

An important factor here to remember is that when posts spell out “Retweet”, the retweet rate is 23 times higher than average compared to retweet rate ten times higher than average when they use “RT”.

With these tips, you can definitely bring a significant change in the engagement level on your Twitter posts.

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Matthew Goulart


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Matthew Goulart is the founder of Ignite Digital, a Canadian digital marketing agency. Through Ignite Digital, Goulart works with Fortune 500 companies and advertising agencies from around the world and has helped launch profitable and highly successful digital marketing initiatives for his clients.