Digital Marketing Resources
I’m using Facebook, so why use Twitter?
• It has over 300 million unique users. • It’s more mobile. • You’re able to connect with your audience directly. • You can receive feedback instantly. • It allows you to provide up to the minute news or last minute changes on events. • It gives you the ability to micro blog your event. • It is the most viral social media tool for getting a topic trending online.
What’s in a Tweet?
It’s useful to understand some of the basics of what Twitter is and does. Twitter is a social network that lets you compose status updates, or “tweets”, which are limited to 280 characters. Like with your Facebook statuses, it’s helpful to develop a consistent voice, though unlike with Facebook, there’s room for less formality. Web links use up 22 characters, regardless of how long they are (links to secure sites, starting https://, use up 23 characters). Up until recently, adding images to your tweets would have also taken up an additional 22 characters but the platform has since abolished this – so really you have no excuse for not adding one to all your tweets to increase engagement.
Building Followers & Engagement
In order to increase engagement with your online audience, there are a number of very simple things you can do. Complete your Twitter profile You would be surprised at the difference adding a one-line description, a link to your website and a photo and a header image can make. It gives people who are undecided whether they’re interested in you that little extra push to click ‘Follow’. Follow other like-minded organisations People know when you’ve followed them, and will often follow back. Search for other users you know on Twitter and follow them. If you’re new to Twitter, let them know, and they may even encourage their followers to follow you back. Talk about others and curate content A key point is to remember that it’s not about you – it’s about your followers. Support things that others are doing, and tell your followers about them. This is of course easier when you’re managing a Festival, because there are so many different contributors. Comment on what’s going on in your world, and encourage discussion. If you can become a source of interesting things, even if they’re not yours, then you will grow and retain followers. Tweet things that will help your followers in some way – advice, freebies, ways to make their voices heard, links to useful or entertaining things and opportunities for self-promotion all go down well. Give people ways to connect Make it easy for people to follow you – let people know the account exists! Tell people outside of Twitter about your account. Put your Twitter name on printed material; link to your Twitter page (the address is in the format http://twitter.com/yourname) from email bulletins; create links on your website and blog.
Avoid automation It’s always worth emphasising, don’t pipe posts from another service straight into Twitter. Always tailor the message to the platform. Don’t use tools that auto-send across all platforms. Keep it positive! This may seem like a no-brainer but it’s worth repeating; there’s enough negativity in the world of social media. Your organisation does a lot of great things, which are of benefit to so many people. Time to start changing the narrative.
Who Should Tweet? Things to Consider…
An Issue of Trust
It should go without saying that you shouldn’t give responsibility for a whole communication channel to someone who is not a trusted member of staff. If you want to give it to your new intern, that’s brilliant, but you’re effectively making them the advocate and mouthpiece of the entire organisation. Do brief them on what and what not to say. As with anything public-facing, ensure colleagues know who to talk to if there are issues, and that they should raise problems before digging the Twitter account, and your organisation, any deeper into trouble or potential controversy.
Sharing The Load This makes more sense if you work in a large organisation, or if you have several strands of work. For example, a theatre which also has an education/ outreach department might have a marketer and an education worker tweeting about different things. This may be of benefit to some of the larger arts centres in Northern Ireland like Crescent Arts Centre, The MAC and Grand Opera House.
Useful Tips
Two issues arise from having more than one person tweeting. On a practical level, there is the issue of how to share the task; and, secondly, there is the problem of maintaining a consistent tone of voice. Single account/multiple users There are several ways to have multiple members of staff using Twitter. The simplest is to give all tweeters the username and password to the account. This involves a high level of trust – not only that they won’t abuse the access, but that all have a good enough understanding of the organisation and of Twitter not to make mistakes. If this is the case you could try Hootsuite (http://hootsuite.com) which has built-in ‘teams’ functionality. This allows an overall manager to grant access to other contributors without handing over the keys to the account. Turning on a feature called ‘auto-initial’ also allows for accountability by forcing tweets to be initialled. It does mean, however, that everyone must use HootSuite for Twitter, rather than their own favoured tools.
Finally, some useful tips for bigger reach and engagement with your tweets… Attach an image
Tweets are always more eye catching and engaging with an image. Social sharing tool Buffer suggest that this will automatically give you twice as much engagement than a tweet without. Tag the image Tagging an image with partnered or like-minded organisations is a handy way to increase reach of your tweet. It is also another way to include your stakeholders and funders in what you are doing. Be concise It’s easier said than done but using fewer than 100 characters is reported to increase engagement by 17%. Include a #hashtag Using one or two hashtags increases engagement by 21%. You can get creative with this and weigh in with what is already trending on Twitter. If you’re running a Festival, having an established hashtag can help build your online brand and hopefully encourage followers to join in, e.g. Film Hub in 2017 using #CinemaDay17.
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