13 things all bloggers should do on Twitter

About a week ago I had a Twitter milestone, I passed 25k followers.  Twitter has always been my biggest referrer of traffic and it’s definitely the network that I found the easiest to grow.

 

Twitter was the first social media account I set up when I started my blog, so it has been going for around four years now.

Twitter can be difficult to get your head around, it’s such a fast moving platform and it really helps to have some tips and tricks to help you make sure you are getting the best out of it.

 

So, what should you and every blogger be doing on Twitter?

 

Do you struggle with twitter? Not sure how to get the best out of it or grow your following. Here are 13 things all bloggers should be doing on twitter

 

  • Share your own content

 

Twitter is a high volume, low value platform. Due to the speed it moves, at each tweet has less of a shelf-life than statuses on some slower moving platforms. This means you can afford to share the same content more frequently than you would elsewhere. Each time you tweet something, a significant proportion of the people who follow you won’t see it, so share your own content. A lot.

 

  • Share the content of others

Sharing the content of others is so important. Firstly, it’s how community is built, how you will develop relationships and how your content will be shared in return (although never share with the intention of just getting people to share your stuff. Do it because it’s a nice thing to do). Sharing quality content that’s useful, will also help establish your position as a go-to source for great information. Add value to your followers. The more likely your followers are to click on your tweets and links, the more chance you have of clicking through to your blog.

 

  • Use Twitter lists

In my opinion, Twitter lists are vital. Typically people follow a lot of people on Twitter, so if you’re looking at your entire feed all the time, chances are you will miss most of the things you actually want to see. Setting up lists means you can view content from certain people. You might have a lists of brands, friends or people who interact with you; even all of them. This just makes your feed much more manageable.

 

  • Search for Twitter lists

 

Why not utilise the lists of other people? When you set up a list you have the choice to make it public or keep it private. Imagine not having to do all the leg work yourself, find interesting new people to follow and interact with. Here’s how you do it, pop this text into google site:twitter.com inurl:lists <your search term> and the search results will bring up all the public lists on your search terms. Useful for brands to use too.

 

 

  • Automatically add someone to your Twitter lists

You can use IFTTT to automatically add people who mention you in a tweet to your Twitter lists. Be careful if you run a lot of giveaways and have your @username in the sharing tweet, as this will mean you add lots of compers to your list.

 

 

  • Use Twitter keyboard shortcuts

Speed up your Twitter experience by knowing Twitter specific keyboard shortcuts.

 

n = New tweet

g + l = Twitter lists

g h = Homepage

m = new direct message

gm – dm folder

gp = your profile

gc = interactions

gr = mentions

gu = search box for user profile

f – favourite – when you have opened a tweet

t – retweet – when you have opened a tweet

r – reply when you have opened a tweet

 

  • Upload videos to increase engagement

Have more to say than 280 characters? Then use video in your tweet.  You can tweet out a video of up to 30 seconds.  Tweets visually enhanced by photos or videos tend to get more attention.

 

  • Upload up to 4 photos for each tweet

Tweets with photos do significantly better than ones without, but have you ever added more than one picture?  You can actually add 4 pictures to each tweet.  Once you’ve uploaded one photo, simply click on the photo icon again to pick another photo.

 

 

  • Join Twitter chats

Twitter chats are a great way to find a large number of people interested in a particular niche, all on Twitter at the same time. There are Twitter chats for everything imaginable, so you’re bound to find your ideal reader there somewhere! So use chats to help create great relationships.

 

 

  • Analyse your tweets for free

Most, if not all, bloggers use Google Analytics or Jetpack to monitor their posts. However, did you know you can access free stats on your tweets right from your own Twitter account? You can find your reach/impressions and lots of other stats without having to go to another paid service. Find out which tweets have done well and do more of that!

 

 

  • Engage with potential readers

Using call to actions in your tweets can really help engagement increase. Tell people what you want them to do, respond to you? retweet your tweet? People are significantly more likely to respond if you ask them to do something. Simply putting Please RT in a tweet means it’s SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to be retweeted than if you don’t.

 

  • Chat to brands

Start building relationships with brands on Twitter. Share their competitions, chat to them, answer their questions, get to know them. Getting to know them will make make future interactions so much easier and hopefully more favourable.

 

  • Use Twitter cards (It’s FREE!)

 

From Twitter ads – Creatives – Cards. Create a new card – upload a picture, write the copy, save. Then you can tweet this card out whenever your choose and they are so much more eye catching!

 

13 Things All Bloggers Should Do On Twitter

 

 

Which of these things do you do? Anything new to try?

 

If you want to join my mailing list and get access to my epic Blogger’s Resource vault of cheatsheets and downloads as a welcome gift, you can do that here.

 

Comments 54

  1. I struggle with Twitter – possibly because I do none of the things above. I am going to try and look into it a bit more and see if I get a few more followers. Great post lovely.

    Reply

  4. Ohh! This is so useful. I didn’t know about those keyboard shortcuts. How clever!
    I didn’t know you could add 4 pictures to each tweet…I think I will have to give it a try.
    Thank you for this x

    Reply

  10. Congrats on the 20k followers, fab achievement! I had no idea about the keyboard shortcuts so that’s great knowledge, thank you xxx #thelist

    Reply

  11. I have to admit that I struggle to love twitter – it’s just too fast paced for me, twitter parties just blow my mind trying to keep up! I find it’s a great way to connect with people though and to be fair I’ve not tried some of these – had no idea about keyboard shortcuts! #TheList

    Reply

  12. Wow, what an amazing and helpful list! I have had facebook since it started and always got on very well with it, so never saw any need for anything else. When I started blogging I decide other social media was necessary – I have fallen in love with instagram, but twitter? I struggle with it, particularly the speed. I am doing about half of this so will try and follow some of the rest. I never knew there were twitter shortcut keys, I need to try them out! #thelist

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  13. Great tips Aby. I don’t use Twitter half as much as I used to as I’ve found it’s changed so much over the years. I do get a lot of traffic over there though so really should make more of an effort.

    Reply

  19. Hi Aby, I’ve been using Twitter for about 3 years now and there are things on your list that I didn’t know / hadn’t thought of. How do you use Twitter Card??? I had no idea about that search for lists! Some great tips in here that I’ll be using! Thank-you #TheList

    Reply

  21. I haven’t tried the Twitter cards thing yet. Great list definitely. The twitter lists that you can automatically create from a hashtag is so cool.

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  22. Wow there’s so much here that I’ve never done or even never come across before! I know I need to get myself into gear and start making some lists. I never even knew you could put videos on twitter! #TheList

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  24. I love this – so helpful! I hadn’t heard of Twitter cards so I’ll be doing that. I love Twitter lists though they are so handy and I am all for sharing the love on twitter too! Thanks for yet another helpful article xx #TheList

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  31. Some useful tips. I only found out about shortcuts last week, and I’m rubbish at using lists. It takes so long to individually add people to them when starting them from scratch.

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  39. Very interesting. I found twitter the easiest to build for follower numbers, but never been much of a referrer for me and you’re actually the first person I’ve found who does get high referrals from it! I like Twitter though. I really need to get my head round the Twitter cards. Didn’t know there were Twitter shortcuts! #thelist

    Reply

  40. Very interesting. I found twitter the easiest to build for follower numbers, but never been much of a referrer for me and you’re actually the first person I’ve found who does get high referrals from it! I like Twitter though. I really need to get my head round the Twitter cards. Didn’t know there were Twitter shortcuts! #thelist

    Reply

  48. I had no idea you could search for other people’s lists! Also the Twitter card is a good idea I might start doing that when I do travel lists or guides, I think it would work well.

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  49. Twitter was my first platform, too, and I love it. But, it does require lots of presence, more so than many others. Thank you so much for the info, it really is getting me thinking. I need to learn more about the lists, though. I was a little confused on exactly what it is…

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  50. Hi Aby,

    I thought I knew about Twitter. It’s the platform that I use most.

    But, I have never experimented with Twitter Lists. Thank you for the heads-up.

    Reply

  52. I didn’t know about Twitter Lists , so with what I read here I will have a look at it and start making them.

    Reply

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