Twitter and Twitter Analytics: Tips for New Users

Enter the world of Twitter; politics, education, viral jokes, GIFs and everyone suddenly becoming news reporters. It is the social media platform where links, photos, GIFs and videos are shared on a completely public basis. It is also a very important social media platform for any business trying to reach a wider audience, increase engagement and interest in their brand, with the goal of gaining more business leads.

Introducing Twitter…

Twitter is a vital social media platform for companies to reach a larger audience of potential customers and to create brand awareness. It is also known that around 50% of those that follow a brand on twitter are likely to visit that company’s website, and when you are successfully reaching your target audience this could lead to increased business. Twitter gives you the opportunity to reach people that you may have never had the chance to before and they might be exactly who you’ve been looking for, so it’s a good idea to set up your Twitter account ASAP!

Twitter analytics is a great tool available for managing a company Twitter page. It gives you the ability to view the statistics about your posts, your audience and information on the Twitter population as a whole. Twitter analytics gives you the ability to identify your social media strategy’s strengths and weaknesses when trying to reach your audience, which is vital when trying to grow your brand awareness.

This article is going to look briefly into two areas giving you the vital basics of what you need to start your Twitter journey. The first will be content, which will focus on the use of hashtags, types of content and sharing. The second area will look at the use of the Twitter Analytics Tool.

So here are a few tips for new users on using Twitter for your company page…

Content

You have a maximum of 280 characters for you to use in your tweet. This is to make your statement easier to read, and more catchy; so fill it wisely!

Tone of Voice

The most important first step before you start creating your content is to know what your tone of voice is. What type of language do you want to use? What type of business culture do you want to portray? These are the types of questions that you need to ask yourself before you start tweeting. This is vital as it gives you a direction to the types of posts that you want to share and the type of content you want to create.

Types of Content:

There are various types of content that you can tweet.

You can share links to a page, such as a news article on your website. This will persuade people to go to your website as well as being able to show the personality of your business. However, you need to be aware that when sharing a link this will use 23 characters up out of your 280!

Images, Videos and GIFs are also a good source of media to share as a lot of people enjoy graphics. They have the potential to share a story better and grab the attention of the reader if they are scrolling through a page of written tweets. They are a good way of increasing engagement with your followers. None of these go into your 280 characters and you can have up to 4 images. This aspect will be very influenced by your tone of voice. You may choose to share more serious media and news videos if your tone is more serious and authoritative, and decide to stay away from GIFs. While on the other hand, if your tone is more enthusiastic and upbeat then you want to use GIFs to show a more fun side to your business.

(GIF – format of image files, both static and animated images)

#Hashtags are the newest way to interact with a larger conversation that is happening nationally and globally. They are tags that you can put on your tweet which makes it appear on a page specified to that subject. Trending hashtags can always be found on the left hand side of your home page and the location can be changed to suit your business. Hashtags are important for staying relevant to what is going on around your area and the world, whether it be politics, news or #ThrowbackThursday’s, as well as being a good link to a larger audience engaging in a wider conversation.

A week’s worth of hashtags that are used universally-Just for you!

#MondayMotivation

#CharityTuesday

#WednesdayWisdom

#ThrowbackThursday or #tbt

#FeatureFriday

#SocialSaturday

#StartupSunday

Analytics

Twitter has a very useful tool for those running a company Twitter page; Twitter Analytics. This tool provides you with information about your audience, tweets, events, post engagements and more, either specified to your company page or to the whole twitter population.

So let’s give you a rundown of some information twitter analytics gives you:

Impressions are the number of times that your tweet has showed up in peoples news feeds. The higher the number, the more times your tweet has been shown in a feed. You can use the tool to compare tweets, which got the most impressions and try to identify why they got more. This can then allow to see whether you can recreate the increased number. Another option is to use promoted tweets can allow your tweet to reach a larger audience. However, it is important to be aware that your own engagement with the post will also included in this number!

An example of how different posts can impact your number of impressions:

Example One

Example Two

This is an example from Footprint Digital’s Twitter analytics. This shows a comparison between posts about the same event however the post content was very different.

The first example shows a post that contains two images and three hashtag links as well as a link to the website which provides more information about the event. While the second example doesn’t contain any imagery, only two hashtags and then a link to the information page.

As you can see the impressions level on example one is significantly higher. We also have more of the viewers engaging with example one through post retweets, detail expands, media clicks and profile clicks, all of which example two lacks.

The large difference could be due to the addition of images which caught more attention to the reader. There could have been an impact made by the different hashtags that were used. It is possible that more people engage with the hashtag #DigitalTransformation than they do with #BrandStrategy. All these elements can be compared through the Twitter analytics tool to understand where improvements can be made to your tweets to reach a wider audience.

Engagement & Clicks statistics are a really useful tool to identify the types of tweets that get the most attention and engagement with your audience. You can identify where the click was made, whether it be on the link (classed as ‘click-through rate’), image or on your profile. This statistic can be influenced by the type of content you use, as tweets with images or videos tend to receive more engagements. In addition to this the types of hashtags you use will also have an influence if you want to engage with readers over a specific subject. These statistics can be used to compare tweets to identify what makes one tweet more engaging than another as shown above.

Audience insights are a great tool for being able to identify what your audience is interested in. You can see what your audience or the whole Twitter community’s top interests are (Mostly Dogs, but who can be surprised!). This feature also gives you the percentage of your audience that is interested in the topic. This tool allows you to identify areas that you can engage with your audience over, for example if their top interest is ‘science news’ then you could share content on the most recent science news. You will increase your engagement rate, your audience’s interest in what you have to say and your relationship with your readers.

Another interesting aspect is the tool to identify Events. This feature shows any upcoming events, public holidays or trending events, globally or in any specified country. These events can give you content ideas. If you join in it gives you a sense of common ground with your readers, a more human and relatable image, while also giving you the time to be slightly creative with your content. With any content you will need to refer to your tone of voice so you may choose to participate in events that perhaps are more serious such as elections or remembrance days, while other company pages may want to create videos for Halloween, or Easter egg hunts. Nevertheless, whatever your tone of voice there will be an event that you can join in with.

To Wrap Up…

These are all brief introduction tips to starting a Twitter accounting and beginning to use Twitter Analytics to help you build a successful company page.

Twitter is a must have social media platform for growing your brand awareness and customer engagement. Once you know your company’s tones of voice get tweeting and join in with the Twitter community. Then start monitoring your Twitter analytics and you’re bound for social media success!

Ellie Elam, Digital Marketing Executive