Are you making the most out of Twitter? In this article, we show you how to get the best results from the platform in 2022.
So, 2021 is (finally) over and we’re all setting goals for the next year… When it comes to your social media strategy, Twitter definitely shouldn’t be overlooked. The site is still growing in usership, hitting 211 million in 2021- a 13% increase from the year before. Whether you’re looking to make more sales as a business or to increase your influence as an individual, the platform offers a lot of potential.
These days, however, there is much more to your success than simply posting a tweet that is under 280 characters. Increasingly, users expect to see content that directly engages them; without catering to this, accounts quickly slip under the radar.
In this article, we explain in five tips how you can adjust your Twitter strategy for 2022. You’ll grow your following, capture your audience’s attention and hit your goals.
When most people start out on Twitter, they post with little strategy in mind. Company accounts might just create basic updates about their achievements, for example. Individuals might write their opinions with little regard for audience engagement. If you feel like you’re getting little engagement or few new followers, you might be following a similar approach. Ask yourself whether your content is really centered around your audience…
If it’s not, in 2022, we suggest you flip your Twitter strategy on its head. Instead of posting things you’re interested in, or things your audience might be interested in, find what they are interested in and create a content strategy around that.
To do this, you’ll need to get into social listening. Put simply, social listening on Twitter means harnessing data to find out what people in your communities are discussing.
There are a few ways to do this, but the easiest way to carry out social listening on Twitter is to use software that is optimised for it. Our follower intelligence dashboards allow you to tap into your existing follower base to find out the key topics they discuss and the main brands that they are interested in. From here, you can deep dive into these topics and research the posts that these brands are putting out before crafting your own content.
If you don’t have much of an existing following to start analysing, try to follow accounts in your niche and get involved in conversations that push your profile out to a larger audience.
In the same vein, it’s important to make every tweet count in terms of boosting your engagement with others. Posting questions rather than statements is an obvious place to start and it never hurts to initiate or join a hotly debated topic.
Beyond this, Twitter offers a range of features that you should definitely make use of. A simple GIF can increase a tweet’s engagement by 55% while an image can boost retweets by 35%. Stick to 1200 x 675 pixels and consistent branding for better results.
Polls are also widely engaged with and will provide you even more insights on your audience.
The best thing to do is to test which types of content your followers respond best to and build a strategy around that.
Within this Twitter strategy, be sure to take into account the fact that it takes a lot of content to grow a following on Twitter. Whilst guidance varies, social media experts advise that you should be posting at least 5 times a day.
If you want to avoid being tied to your laptop and stressed about hitting this quota, a Tweet scheduler is key. Through our tweet scheduler, you can pinpoint the times when your audience are active using heatmaps.
Then, you can queue content to fill the slots and batch create evergreen content (tweets that can be posted at any time) that can be used to flil any gaps.
Take your 2022 Twitter strategy one step further by setting up auto-retweets of your own content. Not only does this ensure that you remain front of mind for your audience, but it means that they are less likely to miss important messages and calls to action.
You might be running a campaign that directs people to your website such as in this example by software company, Civica. This is a great way to boost your website traffic. However, if only posted once, this message could very likely get lost amongst the thousands of other tweets posted each day. After all, the average tweet is only present on the feed for 18 minutes.
By retweeting your content, you ensure that as many of your audience as possible have had the chance to engage with it.
A large feature of Twitter as a platform in recent years has been its involvement in shaping cultural trends and conversations. Whether writing as a brand or an individual, you want to make sure you can get involved in the trending topics and hashtags that take the site by storm. Even without going viral, if you hit the right trend at the right time, it can really multiply how many relevant people see your profile.
One way to do this is to keep an eye on general trends in the Twitter sidebar. These are shown to all Twitter users in the same country so you don’t have a high chance of trending, but it’s always worth taking a look at.
A more accurate way to get involved with trends- particularly those more niche trends that your audience are discussing- is to examine popular hashtags amongst your audience. Social Opinion’s hashtag feature allows you to see this clearly and quickly.
You can also search for a specific hashtag if you have seen one on the feed that seems to be picking up traction. This will give you an idea of the impact it might have with your followers.
One point that shouldn’t be overlooked in a strong Twitter strategy is competitor research.
Using the tools we have illustrated in this article, you can pinpoint which of your competitors your audience are speaking about and engaging with. From there, you can analyse their content and see which aspects of it are proving popular. Don’t be afraid to use this data to strengthen your own strategy!
To find out more about how Social Opinion could transform your Twitter strategy in 2022, click the link to learn more about our features.
