Tweeting to Success - 10 Useful Twitter Tips

Written by Jennifer Anderson

Are your tweets going unmentioned and ignored? Are you having a hard time getting people to follow you? Here are a few useful tips to help you learn how to tweet yourself to success!

1. People need a reason to follow you. The old adage "be yourself" is as true now as ever. Let your personality show through in your tweets, fill out your bio with interesting information, and try to create a compelling reason for people to follow you. Do you have an interesting take on popular issues? Do you have a way with words or a funny outlook on life? Use your uniqueness in your tweets and you will get a lot more followers than you might otherwise.

2. Try to use your real name. Tweeting is all about relationships, so while people might be following you because of your line of business, they want to know YOU as well. So try to get your real name or, at the very least, use your name in your profile description so people can get to know the tweeter behind the tweets.

3. Don't skip the hashtags. What are hashtags? These are the # symbols that you see many Twitter users place in front of keywords. These tags are a way to categorize popular terms that people might search for. If you are not using them, then chances are your tweets are not being found when people are searching.  

4. Spend time on your twitter design. Don't just use the default settings. Instead, upload a background image that helps define you or your brand. Experiment with color settings to be sure your page colors match your background. And by all means upload a decent logo or photo for your account. Otherwise, you'll get the default egg icon and that right there will cost you followers. If you're not quite sure how to go about all of this, then check out this page.

5. Make sure your account is set for public access. If you keep your tweets protected, then no one will see them except the people you allow to do so. This is also important if you expect to use any kind of tool that will post your tweets elsewhere on the Internet. These tools cannot tweet protected tweets.

6. Build lists. You can organize your followers by grouping them together in a list so they are easy to manage. Plus, making lists of tweeters who do not already follow you might encourage them to do so.  

7. Don't be a robot. It's OK to retweet and post links to articles you think are useful, but you have to remember that there are people on the other side of your tweets. Post tweets that have NO link sometimes. Post a relevant joke or an inspiring quote. It's also a good idea to welcome your followers in some way. Don't spam them with a link of any kind. Just either send them a direct message or thank them with a tweet and a mention, such as "Thanks for the follow, @newfollower!" You can also reply to people directly.  It’s hard to keep track of all that is going on in your Twitter timeline, so direct replies will help to ensure that the person you are replying to actually sees your reply. Read more about mentions and replies here.

8. Tweet - a LOT! The more you tweet, the better chance you have that your tweets will actually be seen. There are millions of people tweeting, all day long. When a user logs in to see the tweets others have posted, it only shows the last few minutes (or even seconds) on the first page. For best results, you should try to tweet around 8 times a day, if possible. It's a challenge, and I only manage 3 to 5 a day myself, but this is important, so tweet as often as you can for the best exposure.

9. Tools that can help. After reading the tip above, you are probably wondering how in the world you will ever find time to tweet 8 times a day!  Well, there are many tools out there that can help you schedule tweets, merge tweets with facebook posts, and other useful tasks. Our absolute favorite is inside of Raven Tools marketing software, but we have team members who really like HootSuite and Selective Tweets as well. It's also a smart idea to use a link shortener service like bit.ly. The less characters in your link, the more room that’s left for your actual message.

10. The most important tip I can offer is to have fun. If you are not enjoying what you are doing, then your followers will sense that. Let go a little bit and have some fun with your tweets, and you'll soon find that your follower list growing larger.

Happy Tweeting to You!