How To Build A Twitter Presence

Image from Madrageek

Is it me or is there never enough time in the day?

Some days (or even weeks, if I’m being honest), I feel like I don’t have time to connect with my Twitter followers. Yet, there’s always a voice in my head reminding me that I need to [be big on Twitter].

My solution?

Look for ways to quick ways to @mention my followers.

If you’re lucky it’ll become a conversation kick-starter. If not, there’s a good chance you’ll at least receive a thanks in return. And that’s always better than having an empty @mentions tab gathering cobwebs.

So here are my top Twitter tips to triple your Twitter mentions.

#FF/#FollowFriday love (a.k.a. Follow Fridays)

These hashtags are used to recommend Twitter users you find valuable to your followers.

Have you been the recipient of a #ff mention?

Doesn’t it just make you feel warm and fuzzy? Probably not. But it should at least make you feel good being recognised as a worthy user for your followers to recommend.

If you’re short on time, simply glance over the engagements you’ve this week. Pick the users who you’ve found most interesting/valuable and recommend them like so.

You can also use #FF, an acronym for Follow Fridays, or #Follow if you want to recommend users on days other than Friday. Whichever suits you best. I prefer #FF so I can leave room for users to reply with a thanks and still be able to fit all the contents of my original tweet in with my username. Or even better, add a short comment to make the tweet more valuable.

Use the tweet characters to describe something specific and amazing about the people whose tweets you value the most. For example, if you’ve spent the week throwing @mention love at authors (including the Twitter handle of authors of the articles you’ve shared on your Twitter account), you could tweet:

Advanced tip: If you have time, send different tweets for each Twitter user you’re recommending. An extra 5 minutes is all it takes to show your followers why that particular user is worthy of following and sets it apart from all the other mentions. More importantly, the time you dedicated to this won’t go unnoticed by the user you’re recommending. They’ll be much more inclined to retweet and follow you. Here are the steps according to the brilliant @dayneshuda n his article on Follow Friday success: “1) Use the entire 120 or so characters to describe something specific and amazing about the people whose tweets you value the most. For my handle (@dayneshuda) I can get away with leaving 15 characters available. 2) Include #ff 3) Include a Website (preferably the actual URL vs. a shortened version…for branding)

@mention new followers

This doesn’t have to be an incredibly time consuming task. Unless you’ve manually changed the settings, by default you receive email notifications when you gain new Twitter follower (Check out our previous article if you’re looking to build targeted Twitter followers). Don’t delete these emails, have a quick look at their name, photo and bio. Is there anything you can quickly think of to @mention them? If you have a little time on your hands, you can quickly view their website to help you figure out what they’re interested in and anything in common you might have. Here’s one of the first @mentions I ever sent!How To Increase Twitter Conversations 2

Think about how you can you help them or how they might be able to help you. These tweets are more likely to spark conversations and @replys than a simply ‘thanks for following’.

How To Increase Twitter Mentions

This was a great way for me to increase engagement back in the days when very few people were @mentioning me. Even with my busy schedule, I tried to @mention at least one person a day. If you don’t have time everyday, you can put all your emails into a special folder, then you can set aside 20-30 minutes a week to go through them. More recently though I have switched over to using SocialMotus’s New followers feature to engage with users.You may have your own Twitter tool that curates a list of new followers. With SocialMotus, you simply head over to the engage feature, then ‘New Followers’ dashboard and you’ll find a list of all your new followers.

How To Use SocialMotus To Manage Followers

Hover your mouse over their username to find details information about their Twitter bios, last tweets etc. You can also quickly follow them in return. If you need more information, you can always click on their @username to go to their Twitter page.

Don’t retweet the traditional way

It’s easy to hit the retweet button when you find an interesting tweet. But a couple of more seconds of your time can really make a difference. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to add a short comment to personalise the tweet. Is there anything that particularly stood out? A response you can give?

Rather than tweeting the article title @dallaswillcox tweeted an interesting fact from the article (clearly showing he had read the article). This helped him stand out from the other retweets we received and I ended up retweeting him.

Even something simple like this tweet below was enough for me to retweet @ImAmandaJulius.

Throw @mention love to the author

Everyone loves to be praised for their hard work (even though they may brush compliments off, they’re secretly jumping up and down inside).

When you share an article, often it only @mentions the website you’re sharing it from.

Try “via @”mentioning the author as well. Usually you can find locate their Twitter handle in their profile or through a quick twitter search.

All it takes is a few added seconds and you’ll often get a follow and/or thank you out of it, as well as someone else who becomes aware of your brand. If you’re lucky, it opens up the lines for communication.

In my previous article on How To Find Your Best Time To Increase Twitter Engagement @JulieBurstein was the only one who was lovely enough to credit me with an @mention. Not only did she receive a big thanks and a new follower, she is featured in this article and I plan to let her know once it’s published!

If there’s room you can also leave a quick comment to encourage the author to interact with you. A simple tweet to show your appreciation goes a long way!

These are my Twitter tips for tripling your Twitter mentions at times when conversations don’t come so naturally. As always, perfecting the right technique for your account takes trial and error. Try using a combination of the tips above to see what works best.

Are there any tips you recommend to increase your mentions and spark conversation?

If you enjoyed my article, feel free to throw me some @mention and/or #ff love my way.

Or a simple share will do. I’ll take what I can get.