FACE THE TWITTER FEAR
CONTENTS
Introduction What is a tweet? Retweets and favourites What is a twitter handle? What is a hashtag? Trends Direct messages (DMs) Using images on Twitter Links in tweets Lifetime of a tweet Followers vs Following
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INTRODUCTION Sort of scared to face Twitter? You’re not alone, there are thousands of people who have signed up and then jumped ship. This ebook is designed to give you the very basics, so you can tweet like a pro and hashtag #likeaboss. So, what is Twitter? You’ve heard about it, but you’re not quite sure what the big deal is. I hear you. But while you’ve been missing out, Twitter has been growing with more than 284 million
active users monthly, so it’s kind of a big deal. This social media news feed allows users to communicate with one another instantly, and is a marketers dream tool.
80%
of users tweet on a mobile device
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Many brands and celebrities use Twitter to communicate with fans and customers, for that personal touch. It’s also a cheap and easy way to gain customer feedback, market research and deal with enquiries/complaints.
72
% of consumers expect brands to respond within an hour to complaints posted on Twitter Marketing Land
Elton john’s account showing the ‘blue tick’. This means it’s a verified account, so yes, that’s the real Elton John tweeting!
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WHAT IS A TWEET?
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A message with a maximum length of 140 characters, which sounds tough, but you’ll soon pick up tricks to cut down your tweets.
According to buffer, “The ideal length is 71–100 characters.”
“Tweets can contain images, links, hashtags and of mentions other users.” (We’ll get onto those late)
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“Tweets below 100 characters gain 17% more engagement.”
Once a tweet is sent, it’s public for the world to see – so be careful what you write! Tweets also appear on the newsfeed of all of your followers. Hit the quill button in the top right corner of the page to tweet.
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RETWEETS AND FAVOURITES
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See all those weird buttons underneath each tweet?
DON’T PANIC! HERE’S WHAT THEY MEAN:
click here to REPLY
click here to RETWEET
To show love and appreciation, users can retweet (RT) or favourite a tweet. By retweeting someone else’s tweet, it will appear on your timeline for others to see. Favouriting a tweet just means it is saved in your favourites to find later, the ‘like’ button of Twitter.
click here to FAVOURITE
To respond to that user, simply hit the reply button and their username will appear at the front of your tweet so they’re notified. You can also write this manually on a blank tweet, but why make it harder for yourself?
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ABOUT
71%
OF TWEETS ARE IGNORED AND ONLY
23% GENERATE A REPLY 10
The goal is to get as many retweets as possible, in order to get your tweet seen by as many people as possible. You are notified if someone engages with your tweet, and you’ll be surprised at the satisfaction of a successful tweet.
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THERE ARE 2 DIFFERENT TYPES OF RETWEETS:
1.
2.
a simple retweet
Where possible, try to go for a comment retweet and add your own thoughts. To do this, click
Vs
comment retweet
on the retweet button and add a comment in the box, otherwise leave it empty and hit ‘retweet’. 12
WHAT IS A TWITTER HANDLE?
u o Y @
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This is simply your username. When you first sign up to Twitter, everyone has to create a username with ‘@’ at the beginning. For example, Proctors is @ProctorsBristol. No two usernames can be the same, so it’s just one of those annoying things if someone has already taken your company name. Try to work around that, being creative yet memorable e.g. @ThisIs[entername].
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@ Since the @ symbol has a different function on Twitter, it’s bad practice to use it as the word ‘at’. Therefore, a tweet like this would be incorrect: ‘Heading off to the event @O2Arena later today, see you all there!’ Since it reads as ‘Heading off to the event O2 Arena later today’.
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IF YOU WOULD LIKE EVERYONE TO SEE THE TWEET,
MOVE THE USERNAME SO IT’S NOT AT THE FRONT:
Thanks @HelpForHeroes, we’re glad you like our designs!
OR... @HelpForHeroes, we’re glad you like our design! 16
To send a tweet to someone specific, you can either go to their profile and hit the tweet button.
Or start a generic tweet with their username at the beginning.
However, if the twitter handle is at the beginning of a tweet, Twitter sees this as a conversation, and the tweet only appears on the news feed of people following both the sender and the recipient.
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WHAT IS A HASHTAG?
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#
THERE ARE SONGS ABOUT IT, AND YOU’VE PROBABLY SEEN IT ON EVERY PIECE OF MARKETING FOR THE PAST FEW YEARS. SO WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE?
A hashtag is a word, or series of words, following a # symbol.
They shouldn’t include spaces and special characters.
For example #marketing.
They are used to gain higher coverage.
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Hashtags turn into a hyperlink, which leads to other tweets using that hashtag. They make it easier for people to find and follow discussions about brands, events and promotions. E.g. if you searched #Oscars2015, you can see all discussions either live or afterwards for the event.
THE IDEAL LENGTH OF A HASHTAG IS 6 CHARACTERS
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Other ways to use it could be for a group such as #marketingblog to find relevant tweets about this or as a joke or sarcasm e.g. Wow, the weather outside is brilliant‌ #justkidding. This wouldn’t be searched for, but just as a way to poke fun.
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TRENDS
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You may have heard the phrase ‘it’s trending on Twitter’. A trend is based on the popularity of a hashtag or topic. Once many people (generally thousands) use a hashtag or mention a topic, it shows on the left of the homepage. You can change your settings to see trends worldwide, in a country or local area.
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IT’S A GREAT WAY TO SEE WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS TALKING ABOUT, EITHER FOR MARKET RESEARCH OR JUST TO CATCH UP ON NEWS. IF YOUR TOPIC IS TRENDING, YOU’VE HIT THE TWITTER JACKPOT, GAINING HUGE VISIBILITY.
£
Not bothered to do the legwork?
£ £
£ You can pay to promote a hashtag (tweet or account), and can pick and choose which demographics see it.
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YOU WILL ALSO FIND YOURSELF AT THE CENTRE OF ATTENTION AMONGST PEOPLE ALL AROUND THE WORLD SHARING THE SAME BUZZ AND EXPERIENCE AS YOU WHILST YOU TWEET!
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WHAT IS A DM? 26
A DM (or direct message) is a private message between two or more users, but only works if all parties are following each other (so beyoncé and the like can avoid weirdos).
This is useful for competition winners to send contact details or to chat about private matters – without the need for an email address. Click on the ‘Messages’ button in the navigation to send a DM.
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IMAGES ON TWITTER
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Tweets with an image gain 55% more leads than those without, so it’s really important to include relevant images where possible. Images automatically show in your news feed if they are less than 506 pixels wide, so make sure they’re properly sized before posting.
55% MORE
150% MORE
89% MORE
18% MORE
{ { Tweets with images receive 18% more click-throughs, 89% more favourites and 150% more retweets.
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HEADER IMAGES ON YOUR PROFILE PAGE SHOULD BE 1500PX WIDE, 500PX HIGH AND REFLECT YOUR BRAND.
Jet Blue has taken the time to create a brilliant image that works perfectly.
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LINKS AND TWEETS
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Links account for
92
%
of all user interactions with tweets
Add a link in your tweet to send users to the full article or a website. But with only 140 characters to play with, a full link would take up the whole tweet. Use link shortening tools such as ow.ly, bitly or tiny.url, to make your life easier. They should be used wherever possible – and can be for outside of Twitter too!
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10. LIFETIME OF A TWEET?
LIFETIME OF A TWEET
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AN AVERAGE OF
500
MILLION TWEETS ARE SENT A DAY
WHEN THE AVERAGE USER FOLLOWS HUNDREDS (SOMETIMES THOUSANDS) OF ACCOUNTS, A TWEET LASTS A COUPLE OF MINUTES BEFORE IT’S PUSHED DOWN THE NEWS FEED INTO THE ABYSS.
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So it’s OK to tweet the same thing more than once, especially if it’s important like an event registration or deadline notice. Create a gap and publish the tweet later on in the
day, and re-word it slightly to avoid looking repetitive. All sent tweets show on your profile, and it looks bad to see the same tweet 20 times over. For example:
“Dont forget to sign up for our event next week!” [link]
“Have you signed up for our event next week?” Do it here: [link] 35
FOLLOWERS VS FOLLOWING 36
FIRST THINGS FIRST, IT’S MORE IMPORTANT TO HAVE A FEW REALLY ENGAGED FOLLOWERS THAN THOUSANDS OF LIFELESS FOLLOWERS.
RETWEETS, REPLIES AND FAVOURITES ON EVERY TWEET? NOT A GOOD LOOK. 37
A general rule is to have a third more followers than following.
The average number of followers per user is
208
This is significantly more for a brand.
However, from a purely vain point of view, it looks bad to follow too many people, with only a handful of people following you.
THE END #PROCTORS 38
CONTACT US www.proctors.co.uk +44 (0) 117 923 2282 facebook.com/ProctorsBristol @ProctorsBristol linkedin.com/company/proctors pinterest.com/proctors2015 proctors.tumblr.com youtube.com/user/proctorsvideos
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