Twitter has been growing tremendously. In 2010, Twitter had 75 million user accounts. In 2011 (and the year is not over yet), there are 100 million active user accounts, with 50 million active users and 230 million tweets every day.   Twitter says it expects to add 26 million active users by the end of the year.

As marketers and business owners know, Twitter is very powerful for getting the word out about your products and services as well as being able to engage directly and easily with your customers, and provide  great customer service.  

But don’t you wish that you had more people reading and retweeting your tweets?

Here are tips for doing just that!

Tips for getting people to read your tweets:

  • Number 1: Create great content!
  • Say something interesting, informative, useful to your industry and your targeted audience.
  • Get creative.
  • Be humorous. Be human.
  • Don’t push your product or service. Be social, helpful, give advice. Be sincere. Be your best self.
  • Be consistent and regular. Make sure you have a continual stream of tweets. This will build trust and familiarity.
  • Establish yourself as someone who continually tweets great, useful content. Your followers will start reading your tweets with interest, and will more likely hit the retweet button.
  • See my blog on Best Tips for Getting Your Posts Shared on Facebook – these ideas apply to Twitter too.

So how do you get your tweets retweeted so that your content spreads across the social network? (Retweeted posts are indicated by the ‘RT @username’ in front of the original tweet)

Tips for getting people to retweet your tweets:

  • Keep your tweets short. 120 is the new 140. Tweets should be less than 140 characters to be retweeted as you need to allow space for an ‘@’ symbol, your username, the letters ‘RT’, and 2 spaces (one after RT and one after your username).
  • Use hashtags.  Hashtags consist of using the # symbol followed by subject words; e.g., #followfriday of #socialmedia. They help organize information into one pool of tweets. They’re commonly used at conferences, live events and webinars, but are very popular for general hot topics. You can search hashtags to see what people are talking about, or search on Twitter. Using hashtags is a very effective way gaining exposure in your industry or niche.  The more interested eyes see your tweet, the more it gets read and retweeted.
  • Schedule your tweets. Make sure you have a consistent stream of tweets and people on different time zones see your tweets when they are actually awake.
  • Use keywords. Good Twitter content makes use of relevant words and messages. Make a list of keywords that best describe your business and industry. Use these words as you compose your 140-character tweets. Think quality over quantity. Make every character and tweet count!
  • Ask your followers to retweet. “Pl. RT!”

TIP: The first words in your tweet are indexed by Google. When you retweet, cut the RT @username portion of the retweet and add to the end of the tweet.

Register, Find and Follow People:
Register your Twitter account appropriate Twitter directories. These Twitter directories are also a fantastic way to find Twitter followers:

And the B-I-G question: What is the best TIME and DAY to tweet?

Well, there are so many different opinions, tests, analysis, reports that have been done. The majority seem to say tweeting between 9:00 AM – 3PM in your time zone is the most effective. Tweet the same message again at 4:00 pm.  The best day? Majority say Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays…

See what works for you!

More great reading on this:

As usual, would LOVE to hear from you.  Please add your comments of what has worked for you.

Best

Yasmin

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