Poor old Twitter. It gets a bit of a bad rap. I’ve heard so many of my friends say that they just ‘don’t get Twitter’. And I can definitely see why. It’s fast paced, it only allows you to write 280 characters (previously 140 characters!) at any given time, and then you’ve got the likes of hashtags and things ‘trending’ too. But once you know Twitter, once you get it, it can actually be a lot of fun.

I make no secret of the fact that Twitter is my favourite of the socials. It feels the most authentic to me. Maybe because it’s a lot like conversational snippets, and I do love to talk, so it suits my personality perhaps, but still, it can be a little tricky to get your head around when you first start out.

I’m not professing to be a complete expert on Twitter. I mean, as I write this I only have 4,465 followers (not that I’m counting!!) and there are many, many accounts with far more followers than me. But I do love it. As such, I feel like this gives me a little bit of an insight for those who are just starting out on Twitter, or who are maybe a little bit wary of what it entails. I hear so many people saying that they just don’t get Twitter, and, I hope, therefore, that this post is for you.

So with this in mind, here are my top Twitter tips:

1. Be Yourself

I guess this is my biggest Twitter tip. Because you do only have 280 characters to play with, it’s all about little conversational snippets. So for me, I like to share little anecdotes about my day. At any given time, you’ll find me commenting on how much I love Baby Lighty once he’s fast asleep, little funny things that occur throughout the day and also those eye-rolling times when you just want to share something that’s rattling around in your brain with someone.

When you go to check on your sleeping child and all you can see is perfection on a pillow ? #howdidImakesomethingsobeautiful?!

— Nicola Hatch (@MrsLighty) January 8, 2018

I always think that it’s a bit like how Facebook used to be. You know, when you look at your Timehop on Facebook and it tells you that 8 years ago you shared an anecdote about something funny that happened to you that day, that you probably wouldn’t share on Facebook now? Twitter is still a little bit like that.

Anyone else stand in front of the wardrobe trying to decide what to wear tomorrow as if some brand new piece of clothing is going to suddenly appear out of nowhere?! ?? #Ineedamagicwardrobe

— Nicola Hatch (@MrsLighty) January 9, 2018

2. Tailor your Posts to Twitter

Because you do only have 280 characters to play with, you do need to tailor your posts a little bit. You can just share from Instagram and Facebook, but your post will be cut off and finished with a link to the original post. This is fine if you do this every once in a while, but as a rule, you’ll find you get much better interaction if you actually tailor your posts to Twitter. Think about the key information that you need to get across, and go with that.

3. Interact and Engage…

This is key to Twitter. It’s all about the conversation. Have a flick through your feed, talk to people local to you or that interest you, and generally join in the conversation! Dropping links to your own content, or promoting your business constantly is fine, but if you’re getting no interaction with these tweets, they’ll be shown to fewer people, or worse, you may be muted by your followers so that you don’t appear in their feeds. Not only are your tweets more likely to be visible to your followers if you engage with them regularly (for example, you might appear in their ‘In case you missed it’ section which appears in your feed when you haven’t logged on for a while), but you will also likely find some really interesting new people to follow yourself, too!

4. …But Schedule, too!

Having said that you need to interact and engage, there is also an element of self promotion too, of course. For example, if I write a new blog post, I will schedule it to tweet out several times over a few days. But this is always balanced with my normal every day tweeting about anecdotes / TV / food / whatever, as well as retweeting and sharing other people’s content. I read somewhere once that the average lifespan of a tweet is 20 minutes, and therefore Twitter is so fast paced that in terms of self promotion, you do need to tweet more than you would post to Facebook or Instagram, for example, because otherwise it just wouldn’t get seen.

In my opinion, it’s absolutely fine therefore to schedule Twitter posts for your own promotion, as well as tweet old content automatically, so long as you’ve balanced it with everyday conversational tweeting. Everything in moderation!

5. Take a Closer Look at your Notifications

What do I mean by this? Well, Twitter recently introduced some interesting features with regard to their notifications. They now notify you if several of your followers have started to follow someone new, for example. This means that you can take a look to see if you want to follow them too. If you do decide to follow them, they may, in turn, decide to follow you back. Similarly, your notifications nowadays will also highlight any tweets that they think you might be interested in, which is great in order for you to join in the conversation and see what’s happening within your niche.

6. Use your Pinned Post

Your pinned post is prime real estate in Twitter terms. It’s the post that sits just below your profile, and is the first tweet that any of your followers see. I change mine up regularly, normally to reflect my latest blog post, or a blog post which is resonating with my readers, but you could also use this to promote something you’re proud your business has done, or special events and offers, for example.

7. Keep an Eye on what’s Trending

A great feature on Twitter is the fact that when you hit the search icon, you’ll instantly get a list of what’s trending at that exact moment in time. You can use this to your advantage. For example, if you see that a national day is trending, and you have something which fits this theme in terms of content or your business, tweet about it. Remember to use the relevant hashtag! Twitter notifies your followers about certain things like this, not to mention that you may well appear in the feed for that hashtag, so it might just get you noticed.

8. Have Fun!

And that’s the crux of it! As long as you’re not offending anyone else, Twitter is really all about a bit of fun. A bit of conversation. So have a play around and see what works for you!

I took Baby Lighty for a haircut today. I've just remembered that he kept saying to the hairdresser every time she came near his ears with the clippers "Lady you don't cut my ears off!" ???

— Nicola Hatch (@MrsLighty) February 13, 2018

What do you think of Twitter? Have you got any further advice to add? What works for you? Let me know in the comments below!
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