Social Fresh

27 Twitter Laws to Follow

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Twitter newbies often ask me “where do I start?  How do I succeed on Twitter?”.  It’s often a loaded question followed by anticipated eureka feedback. The truth is, there is no right answer to successfully using Twitter as a platform to succeed. However, there are Twitter laws, as I call it, that can help you get ahead.

Below is a list of the top laws I consider important to follow. Break your own laws and suffer your own consequences.  Here they are:

1. Don’t Swear

Whether or not you want to rule out swearing altogether is up to you, but frequent swearing is usually frowned upon by professional tweeters.

2. Be Authentic

Be yourself! Social media is about getting to know your peers and building relationships. Don’t hide your personality from your followers.

3. Get Personal

While posting professional news and tips is helpful, don’t forget to tweet about your personal life too. Talk about an event you went to or a movie you just saw.

4. Engage

Having a large following on Twitter is almost completely useless if you are not engaging. Reach out to your followers and the people you’re following to start new conversations.

5. Don’t Overschedule

Scheduling tweets is a neat idea when you want to reach audiences on the other side of the world. Just don’t get carried away and start scheduling all of your tweets.

6. Stay Active

Twitter isn’t something you should be updating once a week. It’s something that requires daily attention if you want to succeed with it. Post regularly!

7. But Not Too Active

You also don’t want to overload your followers’ feeds. You don’t need to tweet about what you and your brand are doing every second of the day

8. Tweet Links

Research shows that there is a connection between the number of followers a person has and the number of links they tweet. If you want more followers, tweet links to industry posts.

9. Promote Others

Show your followers and the people you follow that you value them by sharing their stuff. Tweet their new blog posts or even links to their websites.

10. And Yourself… Sometimes

Promoting yourself seems like an obvious tip, but it’s important that your feed isn’t one big self-promotion. You should promote others far more often than yourself.

11. Use Link Shorteners

Link shorteners like bit.ly and ow.ly allow you to track clicks. They also provide specific stats that can help you improve your click through rate on Twitter!

12. Short and Sweet

Keeping your tweets short and to the point is important. You don’t need to use all 140 characters! If you want retweets, be sure you leave characters free.

13. Repeat Yourself

Don’t be afraid to tweet the same information twice! If you just posted an awesome blog post, you can let your followers know more than once. If you only tweet something once, it is likely to be missed.

14. Monitor Keywords

Identify keywords that are important to your brand. Use a platform like TweetDeck or HootSuite to monitor them and reach out to people who are chatting about them.

15. Honest Advertising

If you’re being paid to advertise something on Twitter, be honest about it. Making it clear that you have the potential to earn money from the tweet shows that you are genuine.

16. Provide Value

Why do people follow other people on Twitter? The answer is simply for the value the person provides. Figure out how you can be valuable to others and showcase it.

17. Connect Offline

Once you’ve established a relationship on Twitter, look to connect with the person offline. Ask them if they have time to meet for lunch or coffee. You could even try to meet at a conference!

18. Send Traffic

Don’t forget to send traffic to your Twitter page! Tell your existing customers about it via email and make the Twitter button prominent on your website.

19. Use Hashtags

Using hashtags is a great way to connect with relevant groups of people and gain attention. Be sure to work them into your tweets from time to time.

20. .@Mention

When you @mention someone, only people following that person will see it on their feeds. To avoid this, slip a period in before the @mention and all of your followers will see it!

21. Live Chat

Participating in live chats is an awesome way to connect with new people. Hosting your own live chat on a topic that’s relevant to your brand is even better. Live tweeting during an event is also a great idea.

22. RT Instead

Instead of clicking the retweet button on Twitter, use “RT” instead. This allows you to add a comment. It also allows you to better notify someone that you’ve retweeted their thoughts.

23. Talk, Don’t Sell

Twitter, like all other social media platforms, is not about selling a product or service. It’s about building relationships and then encouraging sales. Don’t make your page an advertisement for your brand.

24. Share Pictures and Videos

Sharing pictures and videos goes with rules 2 and 3. They make you more human and help build connections. So, when you’re doing something cool, take a picture and tweet it!

25. Always Respond

Respond to everything! Every mention, every mention of your brand, every RT – everything. Don’t let anything go unnoticed. Managing social media means you’re always on.

26. Monitor Success

Use tools to monitor your success. Think Radian6, EvoApp, TwitSprout and the like. Find out what works for your followers and what doesn’t. Then, use that knowledge to your advantage.

27. Go Mobile

Again, social media means you’re always on. Having Twitter installed on your phone makes it easy to keep in touch wherever you go!

Do you have any laws or rules you follow? Please share them in the comments below.

 

 

Image source: Shutterstock.com