It is often said that ‘the less you talk, the more you’re listened to’. The 140 character social media birdie called Twitter can be a great tool for Start-ups to drive engagement if used correctly.
Buddy Media, a social media engagement company, recently conducted a study of 320 top brands on Twitter and looked at what works and what doesn’t to get maximum engagement, and the greatest degree of virality. There’s something we as startups can always learn from them.
- Tweet on Weekends: Most startups do not tweet on weekends. There can be many reasons for the same- nobody in office, general lack of interest, laziness, etc. However, as this report found out, weekends have the maximum engagement as your Followers are comparatively free and just chilling out. For categories like Shopping, Fashion, Entertainment and Sports this engagement is even higher. To ease the process, businesses can use apps (both free and paid) to schedule their tweets for weekends.
- Tweet during Business Hours: Twitter users are generally ‘the first to know’. They engage when they know that the information that is being shared is real-time. 8AM to 7PM is the best time to tweet to drive engagement. The report points out that while Twitter engagement is more during Business hours, the reverse holds true for Facebook.
- Keep it short silly! : The limitation of 140 characters is not a bane but a boon. In fact the report found that tweets less than 100 characters performed the best on the engagement scale because it gave Followers the option to include their own thoughts while retweeting.
- Value Add-ons : Adding Links and pictures to your tweet improves Twitter engagement manifolds. However while adding links, ensure that they actually work. The report found that as high as 92% of linking errors occur because there is no space between the text and the actual link. Adding pictures to tweets, on the other hand, doubles the engagement rate.
- Less is more: Over-tweeting might scare your Followers away. Limit tweets to a maximum of 4 per day. Also include hash-tags to highlight the theme of your tweet but restrict it to a maximum of 2 per tweet.
- Spell it loud and clear: If you want people to retweet , request them to do so. Tweets that specifically ask followers to “Retweet” or “RT” receive 12 times higher Retweet rates than those that do not use this call to action. Data also reveals that when followers are specifically asked to “Retweet” (by spelling out the whole word), the Retweet rate is 23 times higher than average!
So what are you waiting for…give your twitter handle a new boost of life and see it rock!
All the best !!
Full report by Buddy Media here.
