Madalyn Sklar

Optimizing Your Twitter Strategy

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Optimizing your Twitter starategy - #TwitterSmarter chat with Dhariana Lozano - January 28, 2021

We know the importance of having a Twitter strategy but for some reason, we don’t go through all the way. We might have some basic structures in place to create content and maintain a consistent tone on Twitter, but that’s it. If that’s you, you’re not alone. Most of us only kinda have a strategy. That’s why this week, we invited social media consultant Dhariana Lozano to discuss why we should optimize our Twitter strategy and how to go about it. Here’s a summary of our chat.

Guest: Dhariana Lozano
Topic: Optimizing your Twitter Strategy
Format: Eight questions directed at the guest. Everyone’s welcome to share.

Q1: Do you need a dedicated strategy for Twitter?

It isn’t always necessary, but if you’re on Twitter and your audience is on Twitter, it helps to have a dedicated strategy. As our guest explained, the platform is constantly updating with new features and improvements to help you keep your community engaged.

That’s why it’s important to be flexible with your strategy and allocate enough time and effort to engage with your audience. That way, you can incorporate the latest changes to effectively serve your audience’s needs. For instance, you can create Twitter Moments to summarize your conversations or post more Fleets to keep your community updated on behind-the-scenes activity—all based on how they respond to your current activity.

Zen made another excellent point about why a dedicated strategy is helpful. Every brand has multiple audiences with certain variables. For example, they could be in a different location, across industries, or in different job roles. For your content to resonate with these different groups of audiences, you have to create targeted content. Having a strategy can make this process so much simpler to plan and execute.

Q2: How do you go about creating a Twitter strategy?

The first step to creating your Twitter strategy is knowing how Twitter works. Don’t be afraid to experiment and learn from others. Try different types of content formats to find out what works for you. Then identify what your business needs to talk about on Twitter. For instance, if you sell mattresses, you can talk about good sleep habits and meditation, but food science, even though remotely related to sleep, might be a bit far fetched. Consider topics and talking points so you can frame content around those. Once you know what you want to talk about and how, finalize the when. Allocate time slots for posting and engaging so that you can manage your social media time ideally.

All that said, if you’re ever overwhelmed by the idea of developing a strategy for Twitter, do what Jeremy does: take it three months at a time. Make three high-priority goals for the next three months and focus on that whenever you create content. Not only is this a good beginner-friendly option, it also works well for the more experienced people. As we said, earlier, though, just remember that your strategy should be flexible so you can include newer updates.

Q3: How can your Twitter strategy complement your other social media?

Like in any social media channel, visuals, and GIFs in particular, are a big deal on Twitter. However, the key difference between Twitter and most other channels is that text-only content still works well on Twitter. Because of that, you can always repurpose content from other media, like an event you promoted on Facebook, albeit with a small twist for Twitter.

Another good way to use Twitter is to continue conversations you start elsewhere, like Kathleen suggested. For example, let’s say you were in the same room with someone on Clubhouse. You can immediately connect with them on Twitter and keep the conversation going. It’s a great way to convert initial discussions into long-term friendships.

Q4: How can you integrate Fleets into your Twitter strategy?

Fleets is like Instagram Stories, but on Twitter. For now, there are no differences between the two features. Use Fleets to share content that you don’t often tweet about—like behind-the-scenes setup for an event, photos of your workspace, or even the weather on that specific day you decided to walk to the supermarket instead of driving.

As Rachel from Express Writers added, Fleets is a way to showcase your personal side. It helps people relate to you more and build trust and credibility for you as a brand.

In addition to video content, you can also share screenshots on Fleets. Use this to your advantage. As Yewande said, you can share tweets that you want to highlight—perhaps it’s your latest blog post, a webinar you’re running, or a course you offer. Use Fleets to give you an extra reach for your already well-performing content.

Check out Madalyn’s guide to Twitter Fleets to learn more about the feature and for some ideas on using them.

Q5: How can you leverage Topics in your Twitter strategy?

Topics is an under-utilized feature. You can follow topics so you see more content related to that topic, even from people you don’t follow. This means that you can use Topics to find people in your industry you don’t know, engage in conversations you wouldn’t have come across otherwise, and most importantly, find ideas for more content.

Of course, as Justin pointed out, Topics can also help you declutter your feed so you see more relevant content.

Since your feed usually includes tweets from people you follow, you’ll often see topics they’re interested in. When you follow specific topics, however, your feed becomes more personalized to fit in content you’re interested in. It’s a way of prioritizing discussions over people. You can get a lot of good use from this feature.

Q6: What are some ways to increase organic engagement?

There’s no secret to increasing organic engagement. Follow all the best practices and you’ll automatically attract more genuine conversations. For example, participate in chats, respond to people who talk about you or about topics you’re passionate about, conduct polls to encourage responses, ask open-ended questions and actively facilitate conversations. Use hashtags strategically to increase responses from a wider audience and incorporate GIFs and images in your content to help your tweets stand out in a busy feed.

Alyx from Charlie Appel Agency brought up another important point. Consistency is key to success on social media. Make sure that you show up consistently, engaging, sharing meaningful thoughts and helpful information. Doing so will help your audience remember you as that person/brand that always adds value to a conversation. Once you gain their trust, they’ll be more involved in engaging with you.

Q7: What are some ways for brands to use Twitter Moments in their content strategy?

Moments are perfect for compiling tweets from the same topic. Just as Twitter uses Moments to compile related news articles every day, you can also use Moments to collate resources like guides, ebooks, webinars, and help documents. Similarly, you can summarize events and articles, just like Joana does for our #TwitterSmarter chats. Or make a Moment of tips and tricks you’ve shared over time, product use cases, or testimonials. There are so many ways to use Moments to fit your business’s strategy.

Rachel shared some more great ideas, including creating Moments for product launches and announcements, updates on contests and giveaways, and customer success stories.

Q8: Do you need advertisements in your Twitter strategy?

Twitter Ads are comprehensive and results-oriented. And the best thing is that you can promote tweets that are already performing well—a feature not available in most other social media channels. This means you don’t have to put in extra effort to design specific ads, and you can catapult your reach with a few tweets.

However, Twitter’s organic engagement is also quite high. That’s why you don’t necessarily need ads in your strategy. If you have the budget for it and you’re curious to see what it can do for you, then by all means go for it. But even if you can’t run ads, you can still get high-quality reach and engagements through organic methods.

Kevin made a good point about why you shouldn’t overly rely on ads. Even if you’re running ads at the moment, it’s also useful to have an organically-motivated audience. That way, if you have to stop your ad spend for some reason, you’ll still know how to organically grow and nurture your community by listening to their wants.

Well, folks. That’s all from me this week. Thanks for reading through. If you enjoyed this recap, you’d love the live chat. Come join us on Thursday at 1pm ET on #TwitterSmarter. We’re a highly-chatty bunch and always love to hear from our community. Hope to see you then.

About me, Narmadhaa:

I write all the things—technical and marketing copy to fill the pocket; haiku and short stories to fill the soul. A social media enthusiast, I’m a member of the #TwitterSmarter chat crew, and always happy to take on writing gigs.

Say hello: Personal blog | LinkedIn | Twitter

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