Twitter is one of my favorite social media platforms because it allows you to chat with perfect strangers, find new people to follow/collaborate with, and share information quickly. Pinterest is what I use to find stuff and Twitter is what I use to find PEOPLE.
But figuring out how to grow an audience on an app that’s moving SO FAST can be challenging. It seems that as soon as you’ve said “Hi!” to one person, six more have popped up and your convo is over as fast as it started. But despite the volume of information, Twitter is a fantastic way to reach outside your own blogging bubble and connect with lots of different people you might never have come across otherwise.
Twitter is actually how I ended up training and teaching at the aerial studio here in San Diego. One of the instructors saw me tweet about aerial and San Diego while I was still living in Michigan and invited me to come take a class. When I moved there a few months later, one of the first things I did was sign up to fly with her!
And what that shows me is that Twitter can work for all kinds of niches – yep, even yours! Here’s how . . .
Be a resource for ONE thing
What is the one thing you share that helps your audience and how can you use Twitter to give them more of that?
I began to see spikes in growth when I finally started erring on the side of tweeting helpful stuff (from myself and others) to move my audience toward their goals over sharing random thoughts and what I ate for dinner. (Though I do still share that sometimes.) When people come to my profile, they’ll see a massive amount of info on how to get their blog, social media, and email list growing strong, not some of that stuff mixed with a bunch of other random tweets.
My blog has a super focused niche and so does my Twitter account.
Write blog posts that are tweet-able
If I clicked ‘share’ on one of your blog posts right now, would I need to rewrite the title to make sure people understood its value? Would I need to upload my own image? Or are your blog posts good to go as is?
This is an issue I often find (even on bigger blogs!) when I go to tweet posts. I share a LOT of content for other bloggers, and I don’t have time to be digging up images or retyping blog post titles or fixing links. It’s important that you know what your posts look like when they’re tweeted (and pinned and Facebooked and whatever other social media platforms you want your audience sharing to). It needs to be a simple one or two-click task because an easy way to gain new readers is for your audience to do the sharing for you.
Be friendly and interested
One of the best things about Twitter is that conversations happen out in the open, which means Twitter makes it REALLY easy to make friends with perfect strangers. Your followers and the followers of whomever you’re chatting with can both see your side of the conversation (or both sides if they follow both of you). This means they have the opportunity to jump in, click on your profile, and check out your site. If your profile is active and interesting, you may get new followers on the spot.
Joining in conversations on occasion also helps your audience see that you’re friendly and open to chatting, which makes it more likely that when they have a question, YOU will be the person they think to ask. Can’t go wrong with building a reputation of being friendly and helpful!
Join / host Twitter chats
The fact that Twitter is out in the open is also great for joining in on a big discussion. You can use TweetChat.com to search for keywords and find Twitter chats on literally any subject. And if for some reason the topic you write about isn’t being Twitter chatted yet (or all the chats you find are lame), feel free to start your own. (BTW, Dare to Grow has an entire lesson on exactly how to do this. #justsayin)
Schedule tweets in advance
Lastly, scheduling tweets for my blog posts, products, upcoming events, and affiliate partnerships has been a game changer. Now I can be tweeting 24/7 without having to be glued to my computer, stopping work and breaking my focus every hour. The more you’re tweeting the more likely people will see and share your content, so letting a scheduling app take over the work is the way to go.
My new favorite tweet-scheduling platform is SmarterQueue. SmarterQueue not only allows me to schedule tweets with one click but also gives me the ability to re-queue content. This is MASSIVELY helpful when I’m running promotions so I don’t have to copy/paste tweets over and over or write 15 different tweets for one product or webinar. It also allows me to re-queue my own posts and posts from others, so I can set them to re-tweet a specific number of times instead of having to hit re-tweet on each one repeatedly. In short: HUGE time saver!
A few things I did not do . . .
Spam people asking for follows or shares
Asking people to follow you never really comes across as genuine. If you really want to get someone to follow you, then you’ll lead with your content or a friendly conversation, not a generic “HI GIVE ME ATTENTION PLZ!” (Yeah…that’s what it looks like.)
Add a million people and then unfollow when they don’t follow me back
Honestly…I don’t understand why this is a thing. Yes, it works, but it just seems rude and a waste of time. It’s like giving someone a gift and then taking it back when they don’t return the favor.
If you want to follow people, then follow them. Social media isn’t about getting a million likes. It’s about connecting and building an audience of people who are genuinely interested in what you do.
Spend my entire day on Twitter
Yes, I have tweets going out approximately every hour, 24/7, but I am not ON Twitter 24/7. I pop in a couple times each day to chat, thank people for sharing my content and share what I’m up to, but I did not and do not spend hours and hours tweeting and talking to every single person.
That being said, if you want even more Twitter strategy (like what to post and when to post for maximum impact) and strategies for Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook too, then head over to Dare to Grow and join my course + community!
I’ve created step-by-step guides and videos for each platform and I’m always available in the Facebook group to help you figure out what works best for your blog.
Enrollment ends on Sunday!
P.S. If you aren’t sure if this course is for you, check out this case study from one of my students!
