Keys to Success on Twitter

It’s a pretty special feeling knowing that we now have 10,000 followers around the world on Twitter! Yes, that’s right 10,000 people have an interest in A Brit and A Southerner – it’s pretty incredible and we never could have imagined when we started out that we would have such a strong interest from all parts of the globe. Not only is it a very rewarding feeling, it is also a learning curve for us as we begin to enter unchartered territory with many of our social media networks.

More followers means higher expectations and none more so than our very own expectations. Trying to keep Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+ updated along with maintaining our website is very time consuming. But when you reach a milestone like we recently achieved on Twitter, it makes all of the time spent worthwhile.

Keys to Success

Figuring out the keys to success on Twitter is just like any other social media network. There is no single way to do it ‘the right way’ and everyone’s popularity will vary depending on your specific niche and follower interests.

However, here are five ways in which we feel our Twitter following has grown exponentially over the last 12 months:

1. Engagement
2. Tweet Quality and Quantity
3. Variation
4. Automation
5. Passion

Engagement

As with any social media platform, engaging with your following is crucial. When you grow your following, it is inevitable that the number of accounts you follow will also grow. This not only enhances but unfortunately increases the volume of tweets on your newsfeed. Use lists as your friend to create ways to uniquely identify certain groups of ‘tweeters’.

Several times each day I will browse through our newsfeed and interact with different people. The beauty of Twitter is that you can intervene and join in on any conversation that interests you. It’s not like the ‘real world’ where you would never (or at least shouldn’t) just walk up to some random folks and join their conversation. That’s why Twitter is so cool and probably why there are over 284 million active users, according to Twitter’s latest usage statistics.

The more interesting you are with engagement, the more popular you become. By interesting I am referring to bringing value to engaging conversation. Let’s take the travel industry. Someone may tweet that they are taking a trip to Barcelona and looking for the top things to do. Why not interact and provide a link to either one of your own blog posts that detail this or even direct them to a website you are aware of that provides such information!

Tweet Quality and Quantity

140 characters…that’s all you have! Here’s my tip of the day – use them! Twitter is not about writing an essay but at the same time you can create an engaging conversation with that very first tweet you send out. It is also important that you have a quality tweet. We all have our ways at maximizing the 140 character limit, whether it is using the text message lingo such as ‘u’ or ‘lol’ but regardless of whether you opt to use such language it is imperative that you include enough quality inside the tweet.

Let’s take a look at what we should include in a tweet! Hashtags – how many? Research suggests that 1-3 hashtags is the optimal number! Any more than that and you are heading into the realms of spam, hence reducing the amount of engagement and interactions you receive with your tweets.

A hashtag immediately expands the reach of your tweet beyond just those who follow you, to reach anyone interested in that hashtag phrase or keyword.

Links – what format? I recommend using a URL shortener such as Bitly or Google URL Shortener. This enables you to track the amount of click throughs you are receiving from your tweets. Include a link where possible if it contributes to the value of your tweet.

Here are some of my favorite tweets of late that I feel meet both the ‘quality’ and ‘quantity’ standards that I mentioned above:

“Once a year, travel some place you’ve never been before” (Dalai Lama) pic.twitter.com/pANrWbpYP6 via @WTravelinStyle

— Women Travel inStyle (@WTravelinStyle) January 24, 2015

When you leave your comfort zones, you begin to realize what is beautiful about life. [ #travel #lp #travelpics ] pic.twitter.com/XqmJq4TZLa — Just One Way Ticket (@Just1WayTicket) January 7, 2015 

Highlights From a Year of Traveling and Blogging http://t.co/mImDFCpOIf #ttot #travel pic.twitter.com/sEahX42ANj — Megan Claire (@mappingmegan) November 14, 2014

Variation

Who wants to look at the same old rubbish day in day out? I know we didn’t and neither do our followers so our philosophy surrounds the concept of variation. This works nicely into our fourth key to success on Twitter as automating our tweets really helps us create this variation.

A day trip across the border into #Canada to explore the stunning #NiagaraFalls and #Toronto! http://t.co/bxPIcoZDEk pic.twitter.com/h1ZstksTvF

— Chris & Heather (@ABritSoutherner) January 25, 2015

So what do we mean by variation? Use Twitter as an opportunity to showcase your best work, both in terms of different media and your personality. We publish links to all of our blog posts on Twitter, along with intriguing titles and also we have recently started sharing more of our pictures (hoping to increase this in the coming months!).

Explore the gorgeous city of #Zürich in @MySwitzerland_e and check out the top things to do there! http://t.co/gtNwFfoh5C #travel — Chris & Heather (@ABritSoutherner) February 2, 2015

However, we have also found Twitter to be a great tool for our ‘personal’ lives so that not everything is necessarily travel related. I really believe that our followers (and probably yours too) are interested in our ‘real’ lives, so throwing in a tweet here and there about who you think will win the Superbowl or the World Cup is equally as prevalent as your top recommended attractions in London.

Automation

Where we would be without automation! The simple answer is probably a long way from being able to write this post. I want to share with you three awesome tools that if you have never been introduced to them before will make your life using Twitter is unbelievably easier!

Let’s start with Hootsuite. Without doubt this is the best tool to schedule tweets in advance, embed different types of media and also utilize across other social media networks also such as Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. We are part of the #WeekendWanderlust Twitter chat every Thursday and Hootsuite is an awesome tool for scheduling questions to be posted every 10 minutes. This is the same logic we use to spread out our focused tweets over the week ahead.

Whether we are collaborating with a brand and focusing our attention on certain aspects of a marketing strategy, or simply scheduling a variety of tweets to cover our recent travels, Hootsuite is an awesome platform to provide assistance.

So you have your scheduling down to an art, what material are you going to send out to your followers? If you are a blogger, I am sure you have plenty of articles out there, both new and archived that you want to share with your readership.

This is where the next tool comes in very handy and it’s actually a plugin that we installed on our website – Evergreen Post Tweeter. This plugin enables you to schedule out archived posts over Twitter on a rotating basis. You set the schedule. You set the format of the tweet. Evergreen does the rest for you!

Finally we have the wonderful tool that is called Triberr. This is a great way to enhance the third key we discussed – variation! By participating in ‘tribes’, you are able to share others work on your platform and this really does help grow a network among your followers.

Essentially you can think of this as a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” but regardless of how you treat Triberr, it is a great way to gain exposure for your account.

Passion

Our final key to success on Twitter is not something that is quantifiable or even something you can prepare for. Having a passion for anything in life is something inherent and this certainly applies to Twitter. Your passion shows through in your tweets and really helps all of the above aspects come together. Be confident, be prepared, be spontaneous but most importantly be passionate!

Another benefit of having passion is that it allows you to think outside the box. This is another key to success with Twitter. Those that are most successful have a tendency to post tweets that are outside the box yet still instigate engagement with their followers.

Summary

I am NOT an expert by any means using Twitter but our experience over the last 12 months has enabled us to build some key success factors. By utilizing all of these keys to success, we have seen our following grow and we have reached 10,000 followers much quicker than either of us could have imagined.

Where do we go next? Hopefully we can continue to grow and learn from our mistakes as much as our successes. We want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of our followers around the world.

DISCLAIMER – These strategies have worked for us in growing our following at A Brit and A Southerner but as I indicated, there is no guarantee that these will work for you. Please let us know by commenting below what strategies you are using.

Twitter 10K Giveaway

To celebrate our recent milestone of reaching 10,000 Followers on Twitter, we are delighted to announce our latest giveaway where not ONE but TWO lucky winners will win some awesome prizes.

For this giveaway, we will be giving away TWO Travel Tech 101 bundles that we hope will help you as you venture on your travels.

Here are the two bundles that we are offering:

TRAVEL TECH 101 BUNDLE A

• Inateck 4 Port USB Wall Charger
• Scosche Charge & Sync Cable for Mini and Micro USB Devices
• ECKO Glow Stereo Headphones
• iHome Smartband (Organizer for iPad Smart Cover)

TRAVEL TECH 101 BUNDLE B

• Inateck Portable Bluetooth Speaker
• Scosche Charge & Sync Cable for Mini and Micro USB Devices
• Koss Fitclips Headphones
• Bolderband Headband

***THE DEADLINE FOR THIS GIVEAWAY IS SUNDAY FEBRUARY 22ND, 2014.***

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Share on Social...