Twitter is a great way to increase your online reach, so you can drive more potential customers to your website.
Social media mentions of your business help you increase brand awareness, credibility and the likelihood that someone will follow you, allowing you to drive even more traffic to your site.
There are a lot of obvious ways to increase mentions of your business. We’ve shared 5 below. But we wanted to have some fun – so we’ve included 6 creative ways for you to increase social media mentions on Twitter.
5 Obvious Ways To Increase Social Media Mentions
- Share great content.
- Be consistent.
- Write short tweets (tweets with <100 characters get 21% more engagement).
- Use hashtags (tweets with hashtags are 2x more likely to be retweeted).
- Ask for it (brands get a 23x higher retweet rate by asking for a “retweet”).
And now for some more creative ways to increase social media mentions on Twitter…
1. Offer to Retweet
How often do you ask people to retweet your content?
How much better would you feel if someone asked you what they could retweet for you?
Send a message to your followers asking if there’s something you can share for them this week. Focus on people who create content that your followers will love.
We got this idea from one of our fans, Sharla.
We hadn’t chatted in a while, so she sent me a message asking how it was going and if she could retweet something for me. I immediately responded with the post I was promoting at that time. Not only was it an easy way to increase our reach, it was good to reconnect and continue our relationship.
Asking to share other’s tweets (instead of asking them to share yours) may sound backwards.
It’s not.
Offering to retweet harnesses the reciprocal nature of the Twitter community. If you ask someone what you can share for them this week, chances are they’ll return the favour.
2. Comment on Links
Don’t just share links, comment on them.
Your followers don’t want to see the resources you’re sharing – they also want to know why you’re sharing them. And what you thought about them.
People respond more to tweets when you comment on what you’re sharing because it mirrors a discussion.
We started doing this with our Twitter account, and now more than 50% of our tweets are retweeted on average. And more importantly, our click through rate on our links increased.
3. Include a “Click To Tweet”
Do you have something you want to promote on Twitter?
Try sending an email to your fans or colleagues with a simple Click To Tweet message. Click to Tweet allows you to compose a tweet for someone to send when they click on a link.
The easier it is for people to share, the better.
Make sure you include a shortened link of the site and “via your Twitter handle.” For example, “via @getspokal.”
Want to try?
Click here to share this post with your fans on Twitter!
4. Always Credit Sources
When you share something, credit the person or business that created it. A simple “via @Twitterhandle” is fine.
Not only is it good practise to credit the sources you use, it’s a good way to get on people’s radar so you can start a relationship with them. (They may even thank you publicly or retweet your tweet, which will help increase your online reach.)
And if you’re feeling extra social, you can send send them a message thanking them for creating their content. You may be surprised at the response you get!
Crediting sources can also grow your following.
Twitter discovered that organizations that tweet 100% more @mentions grow their following 17% more than they expected.
More followers –> Increased online reach –> Increase in potential customers to drive to your website
5. Add an Exclamation Point!
Social Media Scientist Dan Zarrella analysed 2,000,000+ retweets containing links, and separated them into ones that had exclamation points and those that didn’t.
As you can see, Dan discovered that tweets with “!” were retweeted more than 2x than those without them.
This suggests that if you use exclamation points in your tweets, they’ll be shared more.
However, keep in mind that while tweets with exclamations are shared more, the click through rate on them is almost 2x lower. So, while it’s an effective tactic, use it cautiously.
6. Add Media
Tweets that include media get 300%-400% more engagement on average than those without media. So it’s not surprising that 36% of links shared on twitter now include images.
Next time you share something, why not include a picture, video or infographic along with it?
The more visual you can be, the better.
Conclusion: Increase Social Media Mentions On Twitter
Keep in mind the goal of social media mentions.
The idea is to increase your brand awareness, social credibility and the likelihood that someone will follow you, so you can increase your online reach and drive more traffic to your site.
If your click through rate for your links is low or dropping, rethink what you’re sharing. Retweets with no follow through won’t help you grow.
So, what do you do to get more social media mentions or retweets on Twitter?
Twitter Resources
- p.s. What was the most popular tweet in 2012? Click here to find out!