Every social media platform out there demands something different from you—sometimes it can be hard to tell what each one is asking for at a given time. Just like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all the rest, Twitter is unique.
FIrst of all, is your audience even on Twitter? Let’s take a look at the demographics. The majority of Twitter users are teenagers and young adults up to 29 years old. It’s pretty much split down the middle between men and women, although there are slightly more men on Twitter. Here’s a breakdown of the different ages you’ll find on the platform:
- 38% of users are age 18-29
- 32% of users are age 13-17
- 26% of users are age 30-49
- 17% of users are age 50-64
- 7% of users are age 65 and up
As far as location goes, most Twitter users live in urban or suburban areas. The majority of them have a college-level education or higher, and most make $75,000 and up a year. Does it sound like your audience might fit somewhere in there? If you answered yes, keep on keepin’ on.
Tweeting
We’ll say it again—every platform is its own beast to master. If you’re used to Facebook and Instagram, you know that posting once a day at most is great. When it comes to Twitter, however, you’re looking at posting at least 10 times a day for maximum engagement. Sometimes as often as 20-30 times a day. Crazy, we know. Before you toss Twitter in the trash, we’ve got some tried-and-true strategies to master it.
Getting Started
For starters, scheduling your social media ahead of time is a must. Not only will this save you when something unexpected comes up and you don’t have time to post, but your content will be better too! Make sure you’re really spending time on your posts, which is a lot easier when you give yourself plenty of time to think about them. Writing and posting day-of will only result in inconsistent posting, less compelling copy, or worse—mistakes. This is especially true if you’re writing 10 to 20 posts for a single day! Tweets might be short, but don’t underestimate how long it takes to write them. Those character limits can make getting your point across harder than you think.
Content Ideas
Okay, we went over the nitty gritty—why you should be on Twitter and why you should schedule your stuff—now let’s get down to the fun (yet daunting) part: content. If Twitter is a brand new platform for you, you might feel intimidated right now. You might be asking yourself, what do people even talk about? What should I be talking about? Here are some of the most popular content ideas that you can use for your business:
Ask and You Shall Receive
Questions are always a good idea! They’re a great way to not only engage your audience, but also to gather data and opinions from them. Always make sure your questions are on brand for you, not just random.
Are you an activewear brand? Ask your audience to share how they motivate themselves to workout! Lots of people struggle with motivation, and lots of people have great tips to share. Are you a landscaping company? Ask your audience to share their best gardening tips! You don’t always have to be the one shelling out the tips—letting your audience share their advice and opinions shows that you’re engaged in the community. And the community will engage with you back!
Extra Extra, Read All About It!
Sharing industry-specific news is a great way to garner trust with your audience. Talking about yourself is great, and you should do that too, but aim to become a brand that people trust. Show your audience that you know what’s going on, that you’re on the cutting edge, and that you’re actively listening to other brands. You want to set yourself up as a thought leader, so your audience comes to you for more than your product or service—give them value. If you’re just talking about you, and ignoring (or you appear to be ignoring) what’s going on elsewhere, you won’t look very trustworthy.
Drum Roll Please!
On social media, there’s no such thing as too much hype. Are you launching a new product? A new feature on an existing product? A new event coming up? Talk about it! We know you’re planning ahead when it comes to big things like these, so why not plan ahead with your social? Get people interested in your big announcement long before it’s actually announced. Sprinkle teaser content into your regularly scheduled programming, and get people interested. Once you make the big announcement, you can even pin it to the top of your Twitter profile—that way new visitors will see that first thing when they’re checking out your brand.
GIF or GIF?
The short-form content rules of Twitter (you only get 280 characters per tweet) have changed storytelling altogether—GIFs and memes have become an important element of your story! Not only do they grab people’s attention, make people feel in the loop, and show you’re keeping up, but they can add so much to your 280 characters.
You can make your own GIFs and memes for your brand, or choose from the built-in GIF library on Twitter. Be specific here, though—make sure that if you’re using GIFs and memes, it makes sense for your brand. If your brand is really serious, or sells something really serious, consider skipping this idea, or at least being very choosy with the GIF trends you choose to hop onto.
Click to Learn More
Twitter is the perfect place to share your longer form blog content, too. Reel your audience in with something short, valuable, and to-the-point, and include a link to your latest blog so they can read more if they want. You can track the links to see just how many people are clicking from Twitter, too! Just make sure you really hook ‘em with the tweet.
When In Doubt—Made Up Holidays
Yeah okay, technically all holidays are made up. But we’re talking about social media holidays! You’ve probably seen them around—National Cat Day, Thank a Teacher Day, National Sibling Day, etc. For example, we have an avid baker on our team here at Uptick. We took some fun photos for social with homemade croissants for National Croissant Day! It doesn’t necessarily have to be brand or industry-specific, as long as it fits with the tone of your brand and the people on your team.
FYI
This content idea is along the same vein as sharing your longer form content, but with an important twist—you’re giving this information to your audience for free. As in, they don’t have to click anything, sign up for a newsletter, or literally pay for the value you’re offering. Give them some industry-specific tips that they can act on right now! Sure, they won’t be clicking to your website right then, but they’ll trust you, and eventually come back to your brand for more. Marketing is all about building relationships. Giving your audience some free tips makes you trustworthy, valuable, and more like humans. Remember the questions content idea? Ask your audience to share tips, and share those! Even that will garner trust, while engaging your audience even more.
Yes, No, Maybe
Polls are a great, easy way to engage your audience. It’s minimum effort for them—they don’t have to type a response at all. Make sure the poll you set up is brand-specific (like with all of these ideas). The mattress company, Casper, made a poll asking their audience what side of the bed they sleep on. This super simple, easy-to-answer but brand-specific question got a ton of engagement. This just goes to show that your ideas really can be simple, as long as they’re on brand.
Need Some Help?
We just threw a lot at you—tips, tricks, and content ideas galore. Uptick’s always here to help, whether you want someone running your social media or you just have a few questions. Get in touch with us and we’ll help you out.
