With more than 200 million Twitter users who post 340 million tweets a day, SEO blog writers worth their salt will tell you that Twitter has a major social impact for its followers and the brands that utilize it.
Tweets start conversations on an unlimited number of topics. From political debates and last night’s sports scores to major headlines hitting the main stream media, Twitter is covering it all. Twitter provides a powerful backdrop for any business or brand to engage their followers in conversations they care about. It also drives traffic to your website and your blog.
But how exactly do you make your mark with 140 characters or less per tweet?
In short, it’s about grabbing someone’s interest, not telling the whole story right away. It’s the difference between a hello and an engaging question to someone new you meet at a networking event rather than laying out your whole life story at the first introduction.
Choose your words carefully. You want to grab someone’s interest with smaller stories and bites of information. A good tweet will make your followers care about what you care about and then move them to action, whether that’s engaging in thought-provoking conversation or even clicking a link to a longer blog post.
These short powerful statements can build your brand and recruit new audiences. Twitter provides an opportunity to express your content in a fun, creative and informative way. Be courteous and keep the conversations flowing. If someone follows you, say thank you, give them a mention or a direct message. Think less in terms of just putting out content and more in terms of starting dialogue with your followers.
Once you get going make sure to use hashtags in your tweets. Hashtags are basically the theme of your tweet. When you are driving content to your blog or website, select your hashtags strategically to get your content in front of the right people. Take a look at hashtags that are being used and what conversations you can find already taking place.
Retweet what you find informative and interesting. But better than that, don’t just retweet as is, add your thoughts to the mix by agreeing or even disagreeing with the tweet or asking a question to your followers.
You may only have 140 characters but there’s a lot of room for engagement if you embrace being creative. Twitter may be short on words but rarely short on impact.
Stacy J is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
