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Top 10 Twitter Tips and Tricks for Beginners

Top 10 Twitter Tips and Tricks for Beginners

Achieve Twitter Success

It can become overwhelming trying to achieve success with Twitter. With a network of 500 million users and 200 million active users that dedicate 170 minutes an average per month, how can you use Twitter successfully?

Who Uses Twitter

Twitter is a growing phenomenon. Of the total men and women that use the internet, 15% of women use Twitter and 17% of men use Twitter. Here is a look at the age demographic most frequently found on Twitter.

• Ages 18-29 – 27%
• Ages 30-49 – 16%
• Ages 50-64 – 10%
• Ages 65+ – 2%

How to Use Twitter

Twitter can seem intimidating for a new user. However with Twitter you can maintain up to date on all your favorite topics and become a thought leader or chat with celebrities. As a consumer or business you can send and receive discounts, deals, events, and more. Keep customers engaged, build brand recognition, or generate new leads and customers for your business.

10 Ways to Look Like a Pro

It is alright if you find yourself fumbling around in the beginning. Here are ten easy ways to help make yourself look like a pro on Twitter.

1. Create a strong and attractive profile.
Add a picture and use the full allotted 160 character descriptions to explain about yourself and why people should follow up. If you are representing a core set of topics, list them as it serves as your mission statement. Be sure to include any links to your website.

2. Make a list.
Get a list together on topics and experts you would like to follow. Include media outlets, hot bloggers, and brands that interest and relate to your goals. You can click a list to see the people you want to read and create your own customized news feed.

3. Use search.
Avoid stream fatigue by using search to read up on the latest topics and news that interest you. Try it as a hashtag, such as #marketing. Do not forget to time yourself so you do not spend hours getting lost in all the postings.

4. Follow key influencers with Twitter.
Locate influences of people who are already popular within your target audience. Use Twiter search or Klout.com Pulse search to locate them. Measure by engagement, follow them, and talk to them.

5. Get Busy.
There is nothing more unattractive than an inactive looking profile. Tweet at least once a day, building up to three to five times daily. Do not neglect weekends.

6. Follow back your followers.
For personal accounts, follow back anyone legitimately who follows you by using Tweepi.com. Brand accounts should follow the most engaging folks.

7. Be interesting.
Mix up your activity by posting your thoughts, ReTweeting others, share competitors things, reply to people, and more. Don’t just promote.

8. Use direct message.
For private one to one messages, use direct message. If you Tweet, thanks for the follow to each new follower, your stream will be boring.

9. Ask for ReTweets.
Don’t leave engagement up to change. Ask for a “ReTweet” and get up to 23 times more than if you did not ask at all. Ask for an “RT” and you can expect 10 times more than when you do not ask.

10. Keep it short and sweet.
Obtain short URLs at bitly.com or with hootsuite. Use abbreviations such as THX (thanks) and PLMK (Please let me know). Tweets with less than 100 characters get 17% more engagement.

Bonus:
User engagement is typically increased for brands during the weekends at almost a fifth of the rate. However, less than 20% of brands tweet on weekends. Interaction overall is 30% higher between 8am and 7pm.

With brand engagement, 22% receive replies, 78% receive retweets, and 92% gain link clicks. When a link is included in your tweet, you have an 86% more chance of seeing increased engagement and double the chance when an image is included in your Tweet.

What’s a Hashtag

Hashtags are used on Twitter similar to keywords with search. When you use a hashtag in your Tweet, you can increase your engagement by over 20% with only one or two hashtags versus three or more. Your engagement also doubles with use of a hashtag in your Tweet.

Tweets can become labeled with hashtags as well as searchable. Use Hastags.org to see trending tags and compare them to HashtagBattle.com. You can also find hashtahs on Twubs.com.

About The Author
Although millions of people visit Brandon's blog each month, his path to success was not easy. Go here to read his incredible story, "From Disabled and $500k in Debt to a Pro Blogger with 5 Million Monthly Visitors." If you want to send Brandon a quick message, then visit his contact page here.