Twitter Growth Strategies

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Twitter Growth Strategies

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Monday, June 20, 2011

Twitter 101: Create a community, build trust

Every successful Twitter account is a living and breathing community. If you want to be a major part of any
community you must build trust with the community members.

HOW TO BUILD TRUST ON Twitter:

Step 1: Listen Step 2: Actively Respond Step 3: Be Interesting
A community requires two-way Chime in on relevant Think about this from a user
communication. Aim to make conversations whenever it is perspective: why should I
your Twitter account a appropriate. This does not follow your Twitter account?
community based on your mean you should spam, but it’s
brand’s ideals. okay to reach out to people.

• What do people in your • Be helpful: reply to questions, • Post great, relevant content.
community talk about? What issues, and problems. • Talk about the great ideas that
do they spend their time on? • Be thankful: Reach out to those already exist in this
• Who is talking about your who mention your brand. community.
brand? • Start conversations with • Running out of ideas? Refer
• Who are the inﬂuential users in inﬂuential users. back to step one.
your community? • Prove to your community that
• Pay attention to the you are listening.
conversations happening.

Important: Before you create a Twitter account, you must dedicate appropriate time and resources to
ensure the proper management of your social media presence.

PHONE: 303.444.9214 TOLL FREE: 866.624.1851 WEB: room214.com EMAIL: info@room214.com /Room214 @Room_214 /Room214


Twitter 101: Dos and Don’ts

Part of building trust means you agree to follow the rules. There are several written and unwritten rules to
which active Twitter users strictly adhere.

DO DON’T
Be Genuine Use auto-tweeting programs
Follow and connect with inﬂuencers Mass follow at random
Join the conversation Post only about yourself
Grow organically Over-follow/Unfollow
Respond to individual posts Auto-tweet based on general keywords

Twitter has great resources for guidelines and best practices.
Check out their site to make sure you do this the correct way.

Important: Twitter closely monitors your follow-to-follower ratio. If they ﬁnd that you are following users
at mass, then quickly un-following users who don’t follow back... your account will be suspended. Read up
on Twitter’s Following Rules and Twitter’s Automation Rules and Best Practices.



TWITTER GROWTH
TACTICS
Now, let’s learn about some tools and resources that will help accelerate your Twitter growth.



Twitter SEO: Make Your Account Easy To Find

Twitter is all about ﬁnding interesting people to follow. If you want to grow your account, the ﬁrst step is to make
sure your account is easily searchable.

Optimize your Twitter Handle: Create a short, easy to
remember Twitter handle. Avoid all unnecessary
characters, and keep it as close to your company’s name
as possible

Write keyword-rich tweets: Review the top keywords
for your website and consider keywords to include in
your updates, particularly in the beginning of tweets

Tweet your web page content: Tweet links back to
valuable content from your web site

Optimized Twitter Bio: It should be informative, eye-
catching, compelling and contain some keywords that
represent your industry

Web Link: Use a full URL to your site in your bio, not a
shortened URL

Encourage Re-Tweets: Leave extra character space
available for re-tweets



Following: Never Click Follow at Random

Following is the first step to build your Twitter presence. First, target communities who may have an affinity for
your brand, and then connect with the most influential users in those communities.

Find the right users:
• Who are your customers? What are their interests?
• If they are tech-geeks, follow the most influential tech
geeks on Twitter
• Research your audience, then follow a targeted
group of individuals

Stay away from these users:
• Not active in the last month
• Spam accounts only posting about themselves, or
auto-posting their content
• Uneven follow-to-follower ratio (high follows, low
followers)
• Post inappropriate material



Following: Target Your Audience

If you don’t have a clear idea of your customer’s attitudes, interests, or affinities, it is time to research your ideal
audience on Twitter. Affinity maps are a great place to start.

In this example we used InfiniGraph to look at
influencers and affinities for Pampers on Twitter.

InfiniGraph will:
• Provide a list of the top influencers by brand
• Show the other Twitter accounts those users
were most likely to follow

Affinity tools give you clues about your
audience:
• TV viewing habits
• Shopping preferences
• Activities/interests
• Age and marital status

For a brand similar to Pampers we would
recommend you follow:
• Family focused mothers and fathers
• Shoppers with a preference for brand name
• Users with an interest in food and cooking



Following: Lists and User Directories

Once you have a strong understanding of your audience, there are several resources for searching out and
following users who fit your target.

Twitter Lists - created and managed by
individual Twitter users. A great resource for
finding Twitter users around a specific topic or
interest

Twitter Directories - large databases of Twitter
users categorized by self tagged interests. A fast
and easy way to target Twitter users

Our favorites...

Listorious:
• Users are individually tagged by categories
• Search/browse Twitter lists and follow users
• Offers other similar categories and lists
WeFollow:
• Users self tag themselves with interests
• Automatically ranked by influence/followers
• Good for location based user searches



Following: Find Active Users

Take advantage of tools which help you understand which users are more active and influential.

Klout gives Facebook and Twitter users an overall
influence score based on their interaction rate.
Klout is a quick and dirty way to get an idea of the
activity and influence of any given user.

A high Klout score means your tweets:
• Encourage replies and interaction
• Are often re-tweeted
• Reach more users
• Hold more weight than users with a low score

A few easy ways to use Klout:
• Download the browser plugin - it automatically
shows Klout scores right next to users on
Twitter.com
• Hootsuite Integration - Klout is integrated with
Hootsuite to show you the influence scores of
your followers and the users in your lists



Following: Management

There are several tools to help you manage the redundant Twitter tasks. These tools should be used sparingly,
and never be used to mass-follow and un-follow. Read Twitter’s automation rules.

Automated following:
• Based on Keyword searches
• Never follow the same person twice
• Stops when Twitter follow limits are reached
• Time delays and intervals

Expanded search options:
• Exclude proﬁles with default avatar
• Search users by proﬁle data
• Import and follow lists

Twitter’s stance on automated following/unfollowing:
It is ILLEGAL

Twitter closely monitors following behavior and will
suspend accounts for shady activity.



Monitoring: Twitter Search, Hashtags, and Trending Topics

Get familiar with the search tools which can help you monitor conversations about you brand and other relevant
conversation on Twitter. These tools can help you ﬁnd users and gain visibility to non-followers.

At-large conversation search:
• Set up Twitter keyword searches for your brand
and your competitors
• Respond to complaints, questions, and positive
posts about your brand

Hashtags:
• Hashtags are used to group tweets that discuss
the same topic
• When including a hashtag in a post, your tweet
will appear in a timeline of all tweets with that
hashtag
• Trendistic tracks and archives popular Twitter
hashtags

Trending Topics: Twitter Monitoring Tools:
• The most used keywords on Twitter at any given • Hootsuite and Tweetdeck allow you to save
time several keyword searches, and will notify you
• Join these conversations to gain visibility, but be when new tweets appear in those searches
careful to stay relevant to to discussion at hand



Response: ReTweets, Mentions, DMs

In many cases, Twitter growth is closely related to your level of activity on Twitter. If you want to grow your
account you should constantly respond to questions, conversations, and comments.

At-Large Conversations
Direct Response:
• Time sensitive - requires a quick response time from
your team
• Reply to @mentions and DMs directly

Public Response:
• Publicly thank those who re-tweet your updates
• Re-tweet creative or interesting comments from your
brand’s advocates

Active Response:
• Respond to at-large questions and comments about
your brand and your competitors. Active Response
• Many users will post complaints without directly
mentioning your Twitter account
• Requires close monitoring of keyword searches, but
can directly lead to new fans



Direct Message Offers

Automatic Direct Messages to new followers are generally looked down upon by Twitter and Twitter users. If you
dare to use this medium be sure to offer something fun and unique for your Twitter community.

Example: Travel Channel’s Travel Guides
• Travel Channel encouraged new followers to use
their automated Travel Guide service.
• Users could send Travel Channel a reply with the
name of a major city
• Travel Channel would automatically reply with a
link to view a travel guide for the requested city

Results:
• Higher engagement with new followers
• Increased Traffic to TravelChannel.com
• Increased Twitter growth



Twitter Gaming

Twitter gaming platforms can create a more entertaining and engaging experience for your friends and followers.

Local Bunny will automatically reply to your
followers based on keywords.

Fans @mention your account with a word to
initiate the game. Then, Local bunny sends an
automatic reply to that user with instructions to
play the game.

Game types:
• Spin to win
• Trivia
• Word scramble

Beneﬁts:
• Build engagement with followers
• Visibility to the friends of your followers
• High levels of participation
• Works with minimal incentive



Twitter Contests and Giveaways

Contests and giveaways are a great way to add value for your Twitter followers. There are several simple contests
which can easily be run from any Twitter account.

Retweet contest: ReTweet Contest
• Instruct fans to re-post a message in order to BrandX: Repost this to win tickets to tonight’s
gain entry into your contest
• Track the number of entries with a hashtag or game: "RT: I love @brandX check out their products
an URL here http://bit.ly/game"
• Select a few random winners

Hashtag Contest
Hashtag contest:
• Instruct fans to post a Tweet and include a BrandX: Tell us about your favorite movie and use
speciﬁc hashtag to gain entry
this hashtag #moviecontest if you want a chance to
• Use Twitter search to track all tweets using that win free movies for a year.
hashtag
• Select random winners
Trivia Contest
Simple trivia contest:
• Instruct fans to re-post a message in order to BrandX: Friday Trivia! In what year was Brand X
gain entry into your contest founded? 10th, 20th, and 30th correct answers win
• Track the number of entries with a hashtag or a free trip to Canada.
an URL
• Select a few random winners



Promote Your Twitter: Online

Convert current customers and fans into social media fans through all available brand touch points. Use current
online assets as a platform to drive Twitter account growth.

Social media promotion can be done at all brand Digital: In-person:
touch points. • Web • Packaging
• Email signatures • Events
The key is to make it easy to ﬁnd your account • Blogs • Point-of-purchase
and become a follower. • Email newsletters • Advertising
• Facebook/Linkedin

Room 214 Email Signatures Facebook Landing Page Room 214 Blog Team Twitter Feed



Promote Your Twitter: In-Person

Take the social media experience out of the digital world and promote your Twitter account wherever you will
ﬁnd interested fans. Use added incentive (coupons, deals, etc) to encourage customers to become fans.

In-Person Social Media Promotion

Pepsi Raw Packaging In-store Window Cling QR Based Event Flyers



Re-Purpose Twitter Content

Twitter content from you and your followers can be re-purposed to create new and interesting content.

Paper.li
• Re-posts content from selected Twitter users in
a easily readable newspaper style format
• Creates an automated news hub

Social Print Studio
• Uses avatars from Facebook or Twitter to create
large high quality posters
• Decorated Mashable’s office with the avatars of
over 500,000 Mashable Twitter fans



Paid Advertising: Twitter Promoted Products

Twitter has several options for paid promotion of your account and your content. These programs are currently in
beta and Twitter has restricted use to large brands with large budgets. Find out more from Twitter.

Promoted Tweets:
Regular Tweets that are ampliﬁed to a broader
audience. When you promote a Tweet, only users
that follow similar accounts to yours see it.
• Cost-Per-Engagement - only pay when a user
replies, retwees, clicks or favorites your tweet
• Tweet appears in stream for relevant users

Promoted Trends:
Feature a trend related to your business at the top
of the Top Trends list.
• Massive exposure - seen all across Twitter
• High Cost (reports of $80k - $100k for 24 hrs)

Promoted Accounts:
Part of Twitter’s account recommendation engine.
• Twitter looks at your account and followers to ID
similar accounts and followers
• More personal and accurate



Paid Advertising: 3rd Party Advertising Products

Several 3rd parties have creates advertising networks that exist outside of Twitter on desktop applications and
mobile apps. These platforms can deliver results at a cheaper cost than ofﬁcial Twitter advertising options.

One Riot:
• Displays ads on mobile Twitter applications
• Target users by age, gender, interest, location
• 2 Billion ad impressions monthly
• iPhone, Android, Blackberry

140 Proof:
• Displays ads on web, desktop, and mobile
Twitter applications
• Target users by interests and persona
• Has worked with GM, Burger King, Microsoft,
Levi’s, Sears and more



Thank You!

Questions? Feel free to reach out!

Room214.com

Twitter: @Room_214

Brandon Whalen

bwhalen@room214.com

Twitter: @Brandonsings

Twitter Growth Strategies



Twitter Growth Strategies

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