Many companies, regardless of their size, are jumping onto Twitter to help connect with their customers.
Businesses are using Twitter for good reason:
- There are nearly 140 million active Twitter users
- People send 340 million tweets per day
- 34 percent of marketers have generated leads through Twitter
- 20 percent of marketers have closed a deal using Twitter
When you develop a following on Twitter, you gain access to a select group of prospects who have chosen to connect with you. Sending messages to these users, several times a day, is a great way to communicate with a willing public.
If nothing else, Twitter is an important brand building tool. You can maximize the potential positive impact it can have on your brand as well as make it easier to generate leads and close says by better leveraging Twitter.
The benefits of Twitter are not solely limited to your immediate network. Effective Twitter marketing can generate buzz and increase electronic word of mouth marketing when your followers decide to retweet one of your messages.
Retweets are the way a Twitter user takes your message and passes it along to their followers. There are two main benefits of retweets:
- Your messages gets to more people
- A retweet serves as an endorsement because the person who retweeted your message believed it was important enough to pass along
The basics of retweets
There are three kinds of retweets:
- Basic retweet. When your message is passed along and unedited.
- Quoted. When someone retweets your message, but adds their comment before the “RT” in their message.
- Modified tweet. Sometimes people want to retweet your message, but can’t do so while remaining within the 140 character limit. People can retweet your message after cutting words and adding abbreviations – these messages are marked with a MT (modified tweet) instead of a RT.
A retweet is always an endorsement and always broadens the reach of your original message.
There are, however, different reasons people will retweet your original message. Some people are retweeting simply because they like your message, agree with you and want to spread the word. Others are looking to build their personal brands and believe that their efforts are strengthened by attaching themselves to your message.
No matter the kind of retweet and no matter the reason for the retweet, a retweeted message can spread throughout extended social networks very quickly. This is the power of Twitter marketing.
Given the power of Twitter marketing ultimately rests in your ability to have your message retweeted, we need to know what elements a make a tweet retweetable.
9 things to consider when tweeting
Here are nine proven tactics to substantially increase the odds of your message being retweeted.
1. Size matters: be brief
Each Twitter message can only be 140 characters and you need to consider that whenever someone retweets your message your username and “RT” is added to the message. Keep your tweets as short as possible and people will be more likely to share your messages because they don’t have to modify or edit the original tweet. Also, it will give people room at add their opinion and people like being able to add a personal touch.
2. Grab attention and get people reading your message
Using attention grabbing language early on in your tweet to hook the reader. Earning attention quickly is essential because there are hundreds of millions of tweets sent every day. Including attention getting language is a tradeoff because you are giving up a few characters of your company’s originally message, but its a tradeoff that’s worth making.
3. Ask for a retweet
Believe it or not, politely asking for people to retweet your message works – it’s like a call to action in copywriting. Simply add, “Please RT” to the end of your message and you will see an increase in the number of times it is passed along. The important thing to remember with this tactic is that you can’t use it too often – only go to this well when needed and when it is a very important message from your company.
4. Be human
People like interacting and like knowing there is a personality behind the Twitter account they are following. A common mistake is for the person controlling the account to let his or her personality come through. Instead, develop your brand’s personality by using humour (where appropriate), provide some history lessons about your brand or even try sending out some inspiration quotes from people within your company.
5. Share your accomplishments
You are tweeting to send out good news messages on behalf of your brand. If your company achieves something remarkable, let people know about it. When you show your company is successful, customers want to justify their affiliation with you to their friends and followers and will retweet your message to communicate that. To communicate your success, you can craft a message yourself or retweet the message of one of your followers who speaks highly of you.
6. Provide relevant information
People are on Twitter because they want to stay up to date on the latest news. For this reason, educating your followers is essential. If your tweet is more informational and less promotional, you improve your chances of getting retweeted.
7. Offer deals
I know number six said not to be too promotional, but it’s okay to offer special deals to your Twitter followers from time-to-time. Tweeting out a deal available to all will get easily retweeted and make more people follow you so they can catch future specials.
8. Engage, engage, engage
A great way to engage your followers by being topical and timely. Write your tweets with an eye to current events and holidays.
Another way to engage in a topical manner – try attaching your brand to relevant social causes. By sending out messages attached to a social cause, you also humanize your brand.
9. Tease
Don’t forget to drop hints about an important, upcoming announcement from your business.
If you really want to maximize the rate at which your messages get retweeted, try combining the nine tactics outlined above. Using these tactics above will help you write effective and powerful messages that will grow awareness of your brand and the size of your following on Twitter. Use the nine tactics outlined above and your business will benefit.
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