Why is building an audience on Twitter important?
Twitter has become a great place to find and share content. But the way you find and share content is just as important as how you do it.
To build a large audience, people are going to need to hear from you over and over again. And they’re going to want to hear from you in different ways.
If your content is focused on a particular topic, then you can use Twitter as an effective way of reaching out across that topic by using hashtag searches and hashtags. If your content is based on a chance encounter with someone, then we suggest that instead of tweeting about it, try starting a conversation about it.
That’s your first tip for building an audience on Twitter.
Your second tip is more useful: if you’re trying to grow an audience that is already large, then there are some things that really help with this goal in terms of whether people will actually follow your lead or not (and this goes back to the need for good messaging).
The third tip is one that many people might not be aware of: if you’re trying to persuade someone who has already shown some interest in your brand or message (in other words, someone who has already been exposed), then tweeting at them may not be the best way for you to drive them further into your brand/message orbit (in fact it might turn off some of them rather than add others).
Instead what we suggest is that if you have something interesting and valuable to say about their interests then make sure that other people know about this too before posting anything online yourself.
Tip #1: Follow relevant users and engage with their content
If you have a Twitter account (and you should), it’s worth taking the time to follow people in your industry. Sometimes, they are right, sometimes they aren’t. But it’s worth the effort to discover what works and what doesn’t.
It seems that people are much more likely to follow those who already know them. Take a few minutes each day to find interesting content from other users in your area of expertise. If you’re not careful, you can end up with 100+ followers on Twitter and no one will ever know about it (or even care).
Tip #2: Use hashtags to reach a wider audience
Using hashtags for your tweets is a big mistake. Hashtags are not meant to be promoted, and you should not use them to boost engagement on your Twitter account.
Twitter hashtags are used to be able to quickly search for keywords and phrases that people use in their Tweets. You can create a hashtag that will help you find people using the same thing.
You can also use hashtags to find other users who share the same interests as you.
Tip #3: Share interesting and original content
In order to grow your audience and get more followers, you need to be a good writer, and share interesting and original content. The most important thing is to come up with your own idea. The more original you can make it the better.
Consider this: you are reading an article about a new product that might interest your friends.
You can write something like: “I just got my new book, ‘The Bull’s Eye Diet’ from Amazon. It’s really good! I read it in one sitting!”
Or: “I saw this great documentary about the U.S. military during the Vietnam war that I really enjoyed.”
Whatever you do, try to make it interesting—people love reading about interesting things, and they’ll follow you for it.
Tip #4: Use Twitter ads to reach a targeted audience
Twitter is one of the best places to get your product noticed and grow your audience. Twitter ads can help you reach your audience, engage with customers and provide more value to them.
Twitter ads are pretty straightforward: they are short, descriptive tweets that appear at the top of your own timeline.
They’re easy to set up, but keep in mind that you don’t want them to be too long or too short—too long and they can get lost in the noise of tweets; too short and they will boost a user’s attention span (but not necessarily make her show up on your timeline).
If you have a lot of followers, the shorter the better (and shorter is always better). Take advantage of this short and sweet Twitter ad tag. This will bring up a list of all the Twitter ads available for your brand or company. You can then choose which ones to use by clicking on it and entering some key words for each ad.
The maximum length for an ad tag is 140 characters (or 140 characters plus 20 spaces), so keep that in mind when you set up an ad.
Tip #5: Host a Twitter chat to engage with potential followers
Hootsuite’s “Chat with Followers” feature is a great way to engage on Twitter without having to leave the page. You can set up the conversation to be public or private, and you can sign up for notifications that will let you know when someone follows you, or when someone says something nice about you.
The goal of this tip is threefold: 1) To engage with your followers and invite them to participate in a conversation with you; 2) To engage with your followers and encourage them to start reading more of your tweets; 3) To get people talking about yourself in ways that aren’t necessarily obvious on Twitter (and therefore gain more followers).
Twitter is also perfect as a platform for marketing opportunities: advertising campaigns, viral promotion, etc.
Conclusion
Summarising the benefits of building an audience on Twitter.
Recently I’ve been writing about the benefits of building an audience on Twitter. With that in mind, I’d like to share some quick tips for building an audience on Twitter.
- Identify your target market.
- Align your brand to the target market.
- Build a rich profile with information that is relevant to your target market and that people will be interested in reading (e.g., who you are, what you do, what you’re talking about).
- Create accounts in different languages so that you can reach out to different audiences around the world, and also use these accounts to promote yourself (e.g., through tweeting about events or events you are involved in).
- Use hashtags as part of your strategy so that people can find your tweets, and then engage with them organically on Twitter