Have you noticed how your Twitter feed (now known as X) has gone downhill recently? Even before Twitter was bought by Elon Musk in 2022, the platform seems to have lost its value (in our opinion).
We attribute this to the quality (or lack of quality) of the content being posted by many brands and companies. Have you fallen into the “just post everything to Twitter” trap? It’s OK because we will share our top 11 tips to fix your X (Twitter) App.
1. Listen and respond
If someone retweets one of your posts, have the decency to thank them or at least acknowledge the Tweet. Your community can become a powerful advocate for you and a great way to grow your following, but only if you interact and and respect it. You may have followers who share or comment on your content regularly. If you don’t acknowledge their efforts, that sends a negative message, and they may stop interacting with you.
2. Be community minded
A community relies on the interaction between members. Don’t forget to offer value to your community, and you’ll receive value in turn. Providing value means:
- engaging with as many relevant people as you can
- Starting and participating in conversations
- Sharing your expertise (without being spammy or salesy)
- Conversing ethically and on-brand.
3. Don’t over tweet
If you look at “how often you should post on social media” blog posts online, many say you can tweet upwards of 40-50 times per day. Considering that a tweet’s average lifespan is only about 15 minutes, that makes sense.
However, from a value and community-focused perspective, tweeting that many times in a day through your brand can be seen as over-tweeting (and annoying to your followers). Unless you have tremendous value to share for EVERY of those 40 tweets, it’s best to focus on 3-5 per day maximum. Don’t forget that replies and re-shares count too. Consider writing (or pre-scheduling) 1 post per day and resharing or commenting on 2-4 more.
4. Don’t sell or spam
Overt selling on Twitter is bad. If we wanted to be sold to, we would be watching the ad-supported versions of Netflix or Disney+ instead. If you use your Twitter presence as a blatant sales tool, people won’t want to follow you.
If you plan to be more salesy in your Twitter posts, be subtle about it. Try to plan your content with the 80-20 rule: add value 80% of the time and promote 20%.
5. Don’t cheat
Don’t plagiarise other Tweets without acknowledgement (remember to use the “RT” function or tag the original author). Retweeting can be a strong tool to make a direct connection, so use this as an opportunity to build rapport rather than annoy. All it takes is a little @.
Bonus tip: With so many Twitter accounts, some usernames may be similar. When tagging someone, ensure you’re tagging the correct (and current) account.
6. Don’t be greedy
Watch your follow-to-follower ratio. If you are following way more people than you have following you, then it looks like you are desperate (or like a spam or bot account). The Twitter algorithms take the ratio of your followers to follows into account when choosing how you show up in their feeds.
And, unless they already know you, people are less likely to follow you if you have few followers. You should always have more followers than you are following.
7. Be strategic
Get smart with your Twitter time. As any Twitter user knows, you could spend all day surfing the feeds and interacting on the platform. Focus on following companies and people you want to do business with. After they’ve been added to your news feed, look for ways to interact with them, to add value and to get their attention. When posting content, think strategically about your audience – posts shouldn’t be all about you but all about how you can add value for them.
8. No one cares what you had for lunch
Lots of brands or companies still insist on posting inane drivel on their feeds. You can get away with this on your personal profiles, but when using Twitter for business, it’s usually frowned upon (unless you’re a food critic)
Bonus tip: Try reading your tweet out loud. If it sounds boring and banal, then spare us all and don’t post it. Make sure everything you post is on-brand.
Your Twitter strategy can be made easier using the right tools. You might want to manage multiple accounts or deal with multiple timelines – there are tools to help. We use Hootsuite in all of its forms to help us manage our multiple feeds across our team. There are also many other social media scheduling and management tools, such as Buffer, Sprout Social, Later, and more.
Check these tools out and find one that aligns with your social media goals, frequency, and budget. Don’t forget that for your Facebook and Instagram posting, you can use the Facebook Business Suite for free (up to 30 days in advance) for free.
However, if you can post via the native apps themselves, the algorithm may reward you for that, as many social site algorithms want to publish on their own platforms, not third-party software.
10. Create your follow policy
Don’t waste time dithering about whether to follow an account or not. Decide on your Follow Policy from the outset, and don’t stray from that – it’ll save you lots of valuable time.
11. Measure, measure, measure
You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Set goals for your Twitter presence in terms of following counts, interactions and traffic to your website, and ensure you have the tools to help you measure your success. That way, you will know whether your time is well spent.
You can track analytics using a third-party analytics app (like Hootsuite) or through the native Twitter Analytics (although it’s been a bit inconsistent and buggy recently).
The final word: Don’t treat Twitter like other social networks
Too many businesses get on Twitter without having a clue how to use it properly and then have the audacity to turn around and say that Twitter doesn’t work. Reality check: it isn’t Twitter that doesn’t work (most of the time, at least); it’s the way you are using it.
Want it done right? We manage and maintain Twitter and other social media feeds for our clients and would love to add you to our roster. We’ll help craft content that is on-brand and customized for each social channel.
Interested? Ask us about our social media marketing packages today.
