7 Easy Steps to Boost Your Twitter Reach

Writing a great tweet is great, but it doesn’t mean that, that tweet will be read or even be seen. Even if you have thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers, your tweets might fall into oblivion or lost in transit.

Why is this? For one part, Twitter doesn’t use an algorithm to determine who sees what tweet. Everything is piled into users’ timelines in real time. This means that if your tweet is sent when no one is around to see it, no one will see it, it is as simple as that. This is different from networks like Facebook, which use algorithms based on people’s profiles, past interactions and networks to show content (they hope) is relevant to them, even if that content was posted while they were offline.

So, in order to get your tweets in front of eyeballs, you have to be strategic with your timing, content and overall strategy.

Here are seven easy ways you can boost your Twitter reach:

#1: Follow Twitter Basics

Example of tweet with username at the beginning of tweet

Before you do anything else, be sure you understand a few Twitter fundamentals. You can increase your tweet exposure with just a few tweaks:

Don’t start tweets with @username. Starting a tweet with @username restricts its visibility to only you, the person you’re tweeting and any mutual followers. Your reach is automatically cut short!
Don’t use more than three hashtags in any one tweet. Too many hashtags in a tweet make it look spammy and reduces your tweet’s shareability.
Provide as much value as you can. Listen to your followers and the people you follow. What are their pain points? How can you solve those? When you share relevant, interesting tweets (without over-promoting), people see you as an expert and may recommend you to others as an important resource.

A good example of well-crafted tweet for proper reach and engagement

#2: Timing is Everything; time it right

A big portion of your Twitter reach will come down to whether you tweeted at the right time or not. Though, there are different right time to every brand, so, the right time will be different for every brand, since “right” in this case means “when your audience is online.” Therefore, in order to maximize your reach, examine how well past tweets performed and schedule future tweets for the best performing times of day. Continue to refine your timing as you learn more about when your audience is online.

Here is a tip from Doug Scudder Randall Reilly

What time of day do you get most of your clicks and where are they coming from? Depending on your audience, it might be pointless for you to tweet at 6 PM. But here is a newsflash: the whole country doesn’t have 6 PM at the same time. 3 PM in LA is 6 PM in New York. Assuming you want to reach a national audience, you’ll need to break your engagement out by time zones.

If your brand seems to be getting the most engagement on Twitter at 9 AM across the country, that means you need to tweet at least four times to hit each time zone at 9 AM. With Twitter timing isn’t everything, but it is very, very important. Don’t tweet every few seconds, that will only annoy your followers. Your brand needs to post to Twitter several times a day, but you must be strategic about when you do it.

Doing this will give your tweet a proper engagement with your audience and inturn increase your audience reach.

#3: Promote Your Twitter Profile Everywhere

Use your other social profiles to tell people about your Twitter handle. Add your Twitter username to the About or Contact sections of Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and any other social profiles you use.

On your website or blog, be sure you have social sharing buttons to make it easy for readers to tell others about your content.

Plugins make it simple to install and customize sharing options and expand your reach by adding via @yourusername every time someone tweets content from your site. This simple customization gets your Twitter handle in front of hundreds of users you may not have reached otherwise.

#4: Interact with Niche Influencers

Whether you’re offline or online, networking is a tried-and-true method for extending your reach. If you haven’t started networking on Twitter, now’s the time.

If you’re truly listening on Twitter, you’ll be able to tell who the influencers are in your niche—those are the people with whom you want to establish a relationship. Remember, the influencers don’t have to be national in scope, they can be important locals as well (e.g., the newspaper editor or local newscasters).

Start a Twitter conversation with a few of the influencers in your niche and add as much value to the conversation as you can. The more interesting you are, the more likely it is that an influencer will respond to or spread your message.

Bluespectra Boss, @Oguntayomathew has almost 1000 followers, but has established relationship with amazingly popular @alanbmillard in Columbus Ohio, and @carolinewabara in Lagos Nigeria. Assuming Bluespectra Boss Tweet a tweet via @BluespectraLTD and Tag these two popular persons and they retweet the tweet, can you imagine the magic that will perform. That is exactly the power of connecting with influencers in your niche

#5: Use Keywords, Tags and Hashtags Correctly

If you use industry standard terminology, trending hashtags and common keywords in your tweets, they will be more likely to show up in searches. This will allow your tweet to be seen not just by your followers and maybe a handful of their followers, but by a much larger and diverse group using Twitter search.

By including usernames and tagging users in the photos you tweet, you will alert them and hopefully encourage them to interact in some way. If they retweet your tweet, for instance, it will be seen by their followers, who could potentially retweet it themselves, spreading your tweet to hundreds of users who would not have seen it otherwise.

#6: Use Visuals

This is very important, don’t forget to include visuals in your tweets whenever possible. A tweet that contains an image or video will appear larger in users’ timelines, and they will be more likely to engage with it and share it with their own network.

#7: Find Allies in an Online Community

If you think you’re alone in trying to build Twitter exposure, think again! There are lots of communities for people just like you who want to network.

These communities are generally built around niches, so it’s easy to find one where members share your interests. Shared interests mean it’s easier to find good content to send out to your followers (remember the 80/20 rule!). Since sharing is usually (but not always) reciprocal, you’re benefitting too.

Most online communities are free to join and welcome new members with open arms. Here are 10 communities you can join to increase your exposure on Twitter:

Do you have any other tips you have used to increase your twitter reach, kindly drop them in the comment box below, and do not forget to equally share this post with your friends.