Last month I studied popular Twitter accounts to see if they had any trends I could learn from.
This resulted in two posts on How To Improve Your Twitter Game. Both posts explained the study I was performing. One trying to figure out what to post on Twitter and the other when to post on Twitter.
This post is a summary of my findings. They can be summed up to 8 Twitter tips that I have observed after studying 19.011 Tweets from 7 popular accounts.
I hope you can use some of these Twitter tips.
1: Post at lunchtime
A lot of people check Twitter during lunchtime and in the hours right after. This is a great time to tweet if you want to be seen.
Check out my Twitter “time” study here to see data backing up this claim.
2: Tweet more
If you want more followers on Twitter, tweet more. It’s as simple as that.
Many popular accounts post A LOT. The accounts included in my study post on average 5 to 18 times a day.
3: Text-only tweets get most engagement
This one surprised me a bit.
On many social media platforms, images and videos are getting more likes than text-only posts. But not on Twitter. At least that’s the trend I have observed. Twitter is first and foremost a text-based social media platform and it seems like that is also what its users are using it for.
It should be noted that some accounts (like @amazon and @elonmusk) are getting better results from media tweets than text-only. So it may depend on your style and/or audience. But the overall trend is that text-only performs very well.
4: Tweet about a good cause
Tweet about a good cause and you’ll see engagement.
This is a double-win, spreading the word about something good and receiving more attention while doing it.
5: Try using call to action
Try including a call to action like “Please retweet” in some of your tweets.
Of course this works best if you have a reason why people should retweet.
6: Celebrities = engagement
Celebrities always attract attention. And on Twitter this is no different.
7: Use current events
Use current events and trends to boost your profile.
Your followers will welcome relevant news or observations with open arms (and favorites and retweets).
8: Be yourself
Be yourself and you will stand out. Moreover, you will also attract the right followers.
The smallest account in my study had 156K followers, the largest one 59.5M. And none of them built their following by copying other people. They did it by being themselves.
More Twitter
- Learn WHEN to post on Twitter in the first part of my Twitter study.
- … and then see WHAT to post on Twitter in part two.
- If you want more traffic from other social platforms, this reddit marketing guide is worth a look.
