Growing your Audience on Twitter

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Everyone on Twitter wants only one thing: to grow their audience. But it’s never as easy as it sounds. If you’ve been on the platform for more than two weeks, you’ll know how challenging it can be to grow a community on Twitter. That’s why, this week, we spoke to digital marketing consultant, Amit Panchal, about widening your social media reach and growing your audience. Here’s a summary of our chat.

Guest: Amit Panchal
Topic: Growing your audience on Twitter
Format: Eight questions directed at the guest. Everyone’s welcome to share.

Q1: How long do you have to be on Twitter to get a large audience?

Time has nothing to do with an audience. When you start, focus on creating content consistently. As you grow, see that your content is relevant to the audience you’re trying to reach. The more relevant your content, the more people you’ll attract.

Jeremy emphasized the importance of engagement in your Twitter strategy. If you’re creating content that resonates with people and you’re building meaningful relationships with your community, then your audience will grow.

Q2: How often should you tweet in a day?

Technically, you can post up to 2400 tweets in a day. You probably shouldn’t, though. Our guest recommended tweeting 8-10 times a day and spacing it throughout the day so you can experiment to see what kind of content works best for your audience and when.

Berrak also mentioned the issue of time zone. Twitter audiences are spread across the world, and so would your own audience. That’s why it’s important to keep testing—so you can find the best times to tweet and the ideal frequency.

Q3: What are some best practices for engaging with others on Twitter?

Be present and engage. Post regularly, but also like, retweet, and reply to other people’s tweets. If you don’t do that, you can’t expect people to do that for you.

You can’t always be the smartest person in a group—so don’t try to be. Instead, as Jon suggested, have a learner mindset and ask questions about your community. That’ll help you engage more and genuinely.

Q4: What should you avoid doing when trying to grow your audience?

The most important thing is not to keep your account private. If you want to grow your audience and widen your reach, your account should be publicly accessible. Also, avoid following too many people at once. Not only does this seem suspicious but it can also flood your feed with tweets that you can’t keep up with. Our guest’s last piece of advice is to avoid repeating a tweet, hashtag, or link in close succession.

As Madalyn said, it’s also important not to let your account become inactive, or ignore those who try to engage with you.

Q5: How do you find the right Twitter chats and Spaces to participate in?

Use hashtags and search for Communities, as Lance suggested. You’ll find chats and Spaces that might interest you. From there, you can meet new people and broaden your network.

Yewanda also reminded us about the explore tab on Twitter. You’ll see conversations and people that match your interests, as well as trending topics.

Q6: How do you generate content ideas that people would want to engage with?

Don’t underestimate the power of reading the news, as our friends from VirtuDesk said. Their team also looks at trending topics, hashtags, and top keywords.

Sarah told us she shares content that she finds useful and inspirational. Similarly, she also shares her ideas and reflections about topics and conversations she’s had with colleagues and peers.

Q7: What kind of content works best on Twitter?

Questions, industry news, trending topics, and handy tips are all great types of content. If you engage with thought leaders and industry experts, and reply to their tweets, your chances of getting more eyes are higher.

As our guest added, you can also repurpose old tweets that have performed well in the past.

It’s worth remembering that some types of content will always perform well, as Jim said. Videos, graphic images, and Twitter threads can all give your engagement rates a boost.

Q8: Can you get more engagement by adding more hashtags?

Hashtags are great for engagement. Our guest shared a statistic from TrackMaven: tweets with a single hashtag get 12.6% more engagement than tweets without hashtags.

But that doesn’t mean more hashtags mean more engagement. Twitter itself recommends using no more than two hashtags per tweet. If you use too many hashtags, your tweets will seem more spammy than helpful. Make sure that you only use hashtags that are relevant to your tweet.

Well folks, that’s all from me this week. Thanks for reading through and for more great insights from our chat with Amit have a look at this Twitter thread. If you think this summary is pretty good, you’ll love the real-time chat. Join us next Thursday at 1 pm ET for #TwitterSmarter. We also hang out on Twitter Spaces at 5 pm ET to continue our chat. Catch you there!


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About me, Narmadhaa:

I write all the things—marketing stuff to pay the bills; haiku and short stories so I feel wholesome. A social media enthusiast, I hang out with the #TwitterSmarter chat crew, and am always happy to take on writing gigs.

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