Twitter is the place where we all go to air our grievances and push out our opinions. You as a marketer should absolutely take advantage of this. People love to give their opinions, and Twitter has an awesome tool to help you ask them what they think (and to help you get tons of engagement). That’s Twitter polls. Today we’re going to discuss how to create and use Twitter polls in order to get customer/community feedback AND to increase your engagement rates.

The feature was released in October of 2015 and is super easy to use from both desktop and mobile.

Uses for Twitter Polls

There are many reasons you should use Twitter polls.

1. You can craft polls for market research (what product to release next)
2. To ask for predictions (what social media network will dominate 2016)
3. To get product feedback (do you love, hate or loathe xyz product)
4. To have fun and boost engagement
5. To get reactions to trending topics, and much more. 

The possibilities are up to you.

Before the Twitter poll feature was released, if you wanted to craft a Twitter poll, you’d have to get imaginative. Most people would craft their write up and then ask people to either retweet or favorite to cast their vote. Some used hashtags. While this gathered engagement, it was clunky and hard to keep track of.

Now, you can create a simple four option Twitter poll that is embedded in your tweet.

Things You Need to Know About Twitter Polls

• There are 4 answers
• You need to watch the character limit (for now)
• Polls have a lifespan of 24 hours
• The poll announces its life span (how long it will last) and how many people have participated.
• Votes are anonymous – sort of. Nobody will know what vote a person cast, but they will know he/she voted.
• When the poll is done, results can be seen publicly.

How to Create a Twitter Poll

Click to begin your tweet & click on “Poll”

Add your multiple answers

Click Tweet, this will publish your poll

Once people vote, it will look like this.

What happens when someone retweets my poll?

The poll will show up on their newsfeed to their followers. Anyone can vote from a retweeted poll. This means you want retweets!

How to Manage Your Twitter Account?

Twitter is fantastic, but it is a time suck. While you definitely need to set aside some time for real-time engagement, you should use a social media scheduling tool to schedule your tweets. This way, you can push out interesting and engaging information while you’re taking care of other parts of your business. Socialdraft is not just a Twitter management tool, it is an all-in-one social media management tool. With Socialdraft you can:

• Schedule posts to Facebook pages, LinkedIn pages, Pinterest boards, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
• Schedule single or recurring posts.
• Duplicate posts.
• Schedule reposts from Instagram to your other social networks.
• Schedule in bulk via CSV.
• Pull reports for Facebook and Twitter
• Engage your Audience.
• And much more…

The best part is that Socialdraft has plans for everyone. We even have a Free Forever plan…which is…free forever. Take Socialdraft for a risk-free trial today.

Welp. Facebook dropped the bomb we all knew was coming, but were hoping would come much later. Facebook announced that they’d be heavily penalizing business pages that get little to no engagement and focusing on conversations between people – not people and pages – but people and people. This is not an issue for pages that have been focusing on engagement from the get-go, but those that were using the platform to broadcast need to switch their strategy or move elsewhere. Twitter may be a good place to look. Yes, I know everyone thought that Twitter was dead, but we’ve been loving Twitter, especially over the past year. If you take the time to schedule with a strategy AND engage, you can build strong relationships and see a return on investment from your efforts. Today, we’ll give you our favorite Twitter Tips for success so you too can fall in love with the network.

Twitter Tips For Success

But, before we get to these tips, let’s discuss why you should reconsider investing time on the network you thought was dying a slow death.

• Twitter has 330 million active users
• Twitter allows you to directly talk to your target audience
• Twitter has been ignored for the past few years, this means the early bird can get the worm
• People are still talking about your brand on Twitter

Are you ready to give Twitter another try? Here are your Twitter tips for success.

USE IMAGES

While Twitter is the land of 280 characters, don’t rely on text alone. Images take up tons of real estate and that means that if you add an eye-catching image that is “easy to read” you can increase your chances of having people stop, look, read and engage. Don’t rely on just photos, experiment with videos and GIFs to get the most out of that valuable piece of land.

RESEARCH YOUR HASHTAGS

Just like Google has keywords, Twitter has hashtags. Research your hashtags before tweeting to make sure they are relevant to how you want to be found. Make sure that you don’t go crazy on hashtags though, you want to make sure that your tweet is easy to read and understand.

USE QUOTES

Quote industry leaders and make sure to @tag them on your tweets. You will receive attention not only from those who admire the person you are quoting but – if you are smart about the way you craft the quote tweet – you may even start a conversation with that influencer.

USE EMOJIS & SPECIAL CHARACTERS

Emojis add much-needed context to text. Use emojis to get the subtleties of what you are trying to say through your tweet. They’re also eye-catching, so tweets with emojis have more chances of being seen and being engaged with.

USE NUMBERS

People on Twitter love stats and numbers. When you add numbers to tweets in an informational way, you increase your chances of getting more retweets and likes.

USE A CALL-TO-ACTION

Don’t be shy to ask for those things you want. Add a call-to-action to your tweets to get your followers to do what you want them to.

KEEP YOUR TWEETS SHORT

Yes, we know that Twitter increased their character limit, but Twitter is all about being short & sweet. Shorter tweets are easier to read and digest, making them more shareable. We suggest that you keep your tweets between 71 and 100 characters to get the most engagement (but if you don’t the Socialdraft dashboard does support the new longer character length).

USE BITLY

We love Bitly. That’s one of the reasons Socialdraft users can connect their business bitly to our dashboard. Shortening links with Bitly lets you make the most of your character and gets you tons of cool analytics. We highly recommend it as a URL shortener.

THINK ABOUT A TWEET’S HALF-LIFE

While your tweets will get engagement throughout time, it is the first few hours where you have the most chances of getting it seen. When you have a super important tweet coming out, make sure you’re signed in and engaging with people to draw more attention and make the most of your tweet’s half-life.

MENTION PEOPLE

The best way to get someone’s attention on the street or at a party is to call out their name, right? It’s the same on Twitter. When you are working on your social media calendar, think of those people you want to target. Check out their websites and blogs and see if they have any content that would be relevant to your audience. Schedule hares of this content AND when you do, make sure to @mention them. You’re doing them a favor by spreading their word and they will at least like your tweet…at best begin to engage you.

PLACE LINKS BETWEEN YOUR TWEET

Placed links at the first quarter of your tweet. For some reason, this increases the CTR.

POST AT THE RIGHT TIME

Some sites will tell you “the best time to tweet is xyz”. Don’t listen to them. Check analytics and find out what the best times really are. Then, test out posting at and around this time to see what gives you the best results.

SCHEDULE SMART

The whole idea behind social media scheduling, especially on Twitter is to save time so you can engage. As such, each time you schedule a tweet, ask yourself:

• does this encourage engagement with my target audience?
• does this encourage engagement with an influencer?

An easy way to achieve these is to include people in your tweets – both your audience and those influencers. Create a list of influencers, and when you are creating your Twitter calendar, check their content. Chances are they are in the same industry and are creating content that will interest your audience as well. Schedule these pieces of content following the tips above making sure that they are @tagged on the posts.

Then, in order to meet your goal of saving time so you can engage, schedule in two ways:

Recurring Posts

Schedule evergreen content as recurring posts. Because Twitter is a constantly moving feed, it is ok to repeat content. You just need to be smart about it. If you use a dashboard such as Socialdraft, you can schedule posts that repeat daily, weekly and monthly and schedule them to stop after a certain number of occurrences. It’s quite handy here.

Schedule via CSV

Another great tool. If you have evergreen content about your brand or industry, take the time to create multiple csvs that you can schedule each week, month or year. Need some examples?

• Yearly holidays: Create a CSV that contains all your holiday posts. Then each year, just adjust the posting dates. Upload this once a year and save tons of time.
• Reviews & press about your brand or business: Create a CSV of your positive online mentions. Upload these monthly and randomize them with TrueTime so you don’t bore your audience.

If you are now ready to take on Twitter, you will need a Twitter scheduler to help you make things happen. Take Socialdraft for a risk-free trial. You can do tons of things with Socialdraft including:

• Schedule posts to multiple Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, Pinterest boards, LinkedIn pages and Instagram accounts
• Schedule single, recurring, or duplicate posts
• Bulk upload posts via CSV
• Lets you know when your brand is mentioned online & has options for quick sharing
• Lets you engage on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• Lets you schedule Instagram reposts from Instagram to all other social networks.
• Pull reports on Twitter and Facebook.
• And much more.

Twitter is still an effective social networking tool for developing leads and communicating with customers and press. People talk about your brand on Twitter (and oftentimes, they complain about your brand on Twitter too), so it is imperative that you monitor your brand on Twitter. Don’t be an ostrich and put your head in the sand. Keep your eyes open and make sure that you’re ready to amplify & engage the good and address the negative. If you do this, you can control and grow your brand on Twitter.

5 Tips On Monitoring Your Brand on Twitter

Before you think about monitoring your brand on Twitter, you need to get familiar with Twitter  Analytics. The best thing about Twitter analytics is that you don’t have to be an advertiser to access the dashboard. Just set up a Twitter Ads profile and you’ll be set. Twitter analytics gives you information on:

• Total tweets you’ve pushed out & % change over the previous month
• Total tweet impressions & % change over the previous month
• Total profile visits & % change over the previous month
• Total mentions & % change over the previous month
• Total followers & net change since last month
• Your top tweet
• Your top mention
• Your top follower
• Your top media tweet

As you can see, Twitter analytics are a bit scarce when it comes to analytics on your mentions. On top of that, mentions that aren’t set up properly can easily be missed. For example, our Twitter handle is @Socialdraftapp. Without following the tips below, we’d miss any mentions that aren’t tagged @socialdraftapp. We’d miss anything for “Socialdraft” “Social Draft” or “@socialdraft”.  Let’s get down to the details so you too can be on top of any mentions of your brand on Twitter.

1) Use a Reputation Monitoring Tool

You can’t respond if you don’t know people are talking about your brand, and people love talking about brands.  The majority of the time these are good mentions, but because of ease of use, Twitter has become a popular customer service platform. Interestingly enough, only 29% of businesses on Twitter took action on consumer complaints. That’s quite a large number. If you can be one of the 71% who monitors and responds, you will have an edge over the competition.

Use a reputation monitoring tool. Hop on at least twice daily (once at the beginning of the workday and once before you leave) to make sure that everything is addressed including shared links, requests for tech support, general customer service requests, questions, etc.

2) Be ready to respond

Take the time to prepare answers to all possible situations. Use these as guidelines so that you can reply quickly and effectively when a new mention comes in. Have a response strategy that includes items like:

* Response times
* How to respond
* Who should respond (is it an issue that needs to be escalated?)

3) Mentions that omit the @

Bet you didn’t know that 30.72% of all mentions actually fail to refer to a brand by its Twitter handle. This is an easy way to completely miss mentions of your brand. Make sure to monitor both your Twitter handle, as well as your regular business name. In this case, you would monitor @socialdraft, @SocialdraftApp, Socialdraft, and Social Draft. This way you don’t miss a thing.

Since not all tweets mentioning the name of the brand are directed to the actual brand, you need to be extra vigilant as to when your brand is added to a conversation.  Even if people are not directly speaking to your brand, they are talking about you and this means you need to engage. Make sure to monitor not just direct replies, but tweets that mention the brand in any way. These are chances to connect with your audience and build brand loyalty.

PRO TIP: Monitor principals in your business as well as the name of your brand.

4) Negative mentions don’t always spread

If you wanted some good news, here they are: 60.20% of tweets mentioning brands don’t get retweeted. This means that many of the negative tweets that go out there fade away.

This doesn’t mean you can ignore them. These are an opportunity for a few things:

1. To make a customer happy
2. To review your practices and see if there is an issue that needs to be addressed
3. To show the community that you care

When you do address negative comments or mentions, they can be turned into something positive.

5) Mentions at odd hours

The Internet never sleeps, but you need to. This becomes an issue since 60% of brand mentions happen outside of working hours. While you may not necessarily miss a mention of your brand on Twitter, you will probably be late to engage or respond. If you find that you get tons of off-hour mentions, you may want to think about hiring a VA to fill in on those late times.

Why do we recommend this? Response time is directly related to Twitter response time. A recent study by Twitter shows that people will spend 20% more on an item if a business responds to customer service tweets, and the faster you respond, the more your revenue can increase.

When it comes to stocks, Twitter may not be winning the game, but it is still a very valid social network for small business. Twitter is another great small business tool in the social media arsenal to expand your company’s reach, build your brand, communicate with customers, and network with other business owners. As with other social media venues, the most effective way to establish a community of fans is to know who your target audience is and how to reach them. The more creative and imaginative your social strategy, the more you’ll stand out. That said, small business owners should invest time in creating a properly SEO’d Twitter bio that concisely describes and clarifies who your company is, what it has to offer, and why your business is different from the competition. Today we’ll go through some Small Businesses Twitter Tips so you can see actual dollars come in from this social network.

Small Businesses Twitter Tips

1. SEO your Profile

It is so important for you to optimize your Twitter profile for search. What do I mean by this? If you are a restaurant in New York, clearly state this on your profile. If you are a dog walker in Los Angeles, do the same. The key here is to make it easy for your potential customers to discover you.

2. Create Engaging Quality Content

The importance of creating quality content cannot be overstated, and social media experts all agree that when it comes to content, the most effective way to build relationships is to provide useful and relevant content as opposed to directly promoting your company. You can link to your own blog posts, other people’s blogs, articles, and news reports. Just don’t make it boring, people are bombarded with content, so you need to make your content shine.

3. Use Hashtags Correctly

Hashtags put together the conversations of different people in Twitter into one stream. When you search a hashtag, for example, #NewYork you can see the conversations created around this hashtag and topic.

Before we discuss the best use of hashtags on Twitter, you need to understand how these are used in a search. There are different ways to explore hashtags once you search for one:

• Top: This brings up the Tweets with that hashtag that have the most engagement
• Latest: The newest ones come up first
• People: The top Twitter accounts associated with that hashtag
• Photos: This brings up photos that were added to Tweets that used that hashtag
• Videos: Same as above but with videos
• News: News related Tweets using that hashtags
• Broadcasts: Periscope broadcasts using that hashtag

The first thing you need to keep in mind is that if you add an image or video, you give yourself more chances to be found in hashtag searches. So this is yet another reason to add hashtags.

You should also consider using location hashtags on a regular basis (only when they are relevant – of course) so that your account can be associated with location hashtags when a people search is activated.

Finally, use two, max three hashtags at the end of your Tweet. Make sure the hashtags are relevant to your tweet and to your target customers. Don’t overload your tweets with hashtags, it makes them too hard to read, so always keep readability in mind.

4. Entice Potential Customers

Twitter provides some examples of how you might entice your customers over the course of a week. For instance, on Monday you could launch special Twitter-only promotions to your followers, and Tweet an offer code that unlocks a promotion, or tweet a secret word that customers can mention to get a discount when they visit your business.

On Tuesday you could tweet behind-the-scenes videos or photos that your followers can’t get any other way. On Wednesday you could create a regular series of tweets that are informative or surprising. If you’re a chef, tweet recipes or kitchen tips. If you have a fashion boutique, tweet ways to match current trends with vintage items.

On Thursday, highlight positive press stories and news about your company, industry or community that your followers will find interesting. Be sure to mention the @username of the reporter or media outlet when you tweet the story. This provides clear attribution and recognizes the source. And on Friday, highlight the people who help run your company by tweeting photos of them hard at work and having fun.

5. Engage Potential Customers

Engage those who engage you. That means that if someone likes, comments or retweets you, they need to be engaged. If they engaged your content, you already know they are interested either in you or what you have to say, they are a step closer to being converted to paying customers.

Engage Followers of your Competition: Check out your competition, their followers have a higher chance than anyone of becoming your customers. Add them all to a private list and spend 15 minutes per day checking out their content and creating genuine conversations with them. It’s a great way to expose your business to them.

Use a Social Media Monitoring Tool: For example, Google Alerts.  Hop on there once daily and make sure to click through and engage those who are talking about your business.

6. Promotional Strategies

Use events as opportunities to engage your audience on Twitter. Whether industry-based, seasonal or cultural, learn how to use events to tap into popular interests or conversations. The above example is for #NationalChocolateChipCookie day. My favorite example here is from First Financial bank who gave cookies to their customers at their local brand. It’s silly, it’s cute and it involved their customers on social media as well as in their location.

7. Launch a Campaign

As an incentive to excite your followers, create a contest or campaign. Start tweeting about when your campaign will launch, and follow up with frequent countdowns and campaign mentions — including hashtags and retweets — to gain visibility. Just make sure the giveaway is worthwhile. Giving away a mug is no way to get people excited, but a year’s worth of your service will get a lot more people to participate.

8. Do Not Auto Direct Messages

AutoDM use leads to a 245% increase in unfollow rate. If you are going to use this feature, use it to offer a freebie or something super juicy and desirable. If not, just skip this feature. It is very rarely used successfully.

9. Don’t “Tweet Longer”

Tweets with less than 100 characters have a 17% higher engagement rate, so stick to the spirit of Twitter and keep things short!

10. Photo Tweets

Tweets with images have a much higher chance to be retweeted. Think about it, a Tweet with an image (be that a photo, GIF or video) is going to take up significantly more real estate than tweets without. This means they have a higher chance of being paid attention to by your audience.

11. Tweet About Trending Topics, When Applicable

Prime Visibility suggests trending topics aren’t only tweeted about a lot, but also are heavily searched for on Twitter. Tweeting about a trending topic can help add your brand to these highly popular conversations. That being said, this should only be done when it makes sense for the brand.

12. Follow Those Who Have Positively Mentioned Your Brand

Take a look at users who have interacted with your brand in the past or have mentioned your brand in the past on Twitter (in a positive way) and follow them back. These users are already aware of who you are and are a lot more likely to follow you back than someone who is unfamiliar with your brand. Then, add them to lists and make sure to engage them on at least a weekly basis to maintain the relationship.

13. Track Your Competition in Stealth

Many brands follow their competitors on Twitter in order to keep track of their Social Media strategy. A lot of these brands don’t know that they can do this in a much easier way, without letting their competition know, by creating a private Twitter list and adding them to it. They won’t know that they’ve been added and you can access your competitors all in one central location.

14. Use Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit

Use sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and reddit to find, and share with your followers, interesting stories from your particular area of business. If you do decide to use reddit for this, make sure to read both parts of our beginner’s guide to reddit.

How to Measure Your Small Business Success on Twitter

Success on Twitter is not about how many people follow you. After all, followers can be bought with a mere $5. Instead, look at these metrics for success:

Amount of quality interactions

There are multiple types of interactions you can measure: retweets, favorites, @mentions, clicks, and lists.  The key here is to measure quality interactions. If you are retweeted by an egg account (one that has no image) there is likely to be no ROI from it. Quality interactions come from those who may convert to customers or others who are influential in your industry or geographical area.

Amount of clicks

No matter what type of content you are tweeting (your own or that of influencers)  the number of clicks you generate is an important measurement tool. If people aren’t clicking your links, then you’re doing something wrong. You’re either not writing engaging or captivating Tweets, not Tweeting them at the right time, or not using hashtags well. If no one is clicking the Tweet links to your own blog content, then you might want to work on your titles for posts. Conversely, if people are clicking your links, they’re listening to you and taking action.

Start off with checking Google Analytics for your own website, and then use a service such as Bitly to track clicks on links to other’s websites (Socialdraft is compatible with Bitly so you can get all your click analytics there.

Tracking your #hashtag(s):  Make it a point to track your hashtags and what people are discussing when they use them. Their tone will give you hints as to whether you are doing your Twitter marketing right.

Check Demographics: If you are a small business that deals on a local level, then checking to make sure the majority of your followers are in your area is key. You will always want to check to see the sex, age, and other relevant demographic stats to make sure that your audience is one that could convert into a customer.

How to Manage Twitter for your Small Business

Using a tool like Socialdraft will not only save you time, but it will help you make sure you see an ROI from Twitter. With Socialdraft you can:

• Schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook pages, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn
• Schedule recurring posts that repeat over time
• Schedule posts in bulk with CSV
• Download content as PDF
• Give access to other people without giving them passwords
• Schedule Instagram reposts to all other connected networks
• Pull reports to see how you are performing on Social Media
• And much more

Socialdraft offers a risk-free trial, so take our social media calendar dashboard for a trial today.

If you are a restaurateur who has ignored social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and …well you get the idea), you should really stop and read this article. You are doing yourself a disservice. By ignoring these social networks, you are telling all the possible customers who frequent these virtual communities that their business does not matter to you. You’re also missing out on many chances to be discovered. You need to begin thinking of each social network as its own mini search engine. They are all a mini Google where you can be found. Today, we’re going to focus on Twitter restaurant marketing tips to help you get more people at your restaurant.

Why You Should Not Ignore Twitter Restaurant Marketing

You Won’t Be Found. 

As seen above, Twitter works as a sort of search engine. This is a search for “Lobster NY”. It brings up the accounts that use those keywords in their profile, and any tweets that have utilized those terms.If you are a NY restaurant that offers lobster, you want to be active and represented in this type of search.  Locals & tourists often go to Twitter to find restaurants in a new city and to see what people are saying about them. People in your neighborhood could be searching for happy hour specials in the area. If you’re not active on Twitter, then you aren’t giving yourself a chance to be found.

Google indexes Tweets.

To put things simply, Google goes through Twitter to add its Tweets and accounts to its search engine. This practice started in 2015.  This means that each (well thought out) tweet is another chance for Google to get to your site. This could help your Google Search Engine rankings. However, Google does not index every tweet. If you have an active account with good authority, your chances of having Tweets indexed increases.

It’s a Great Place to Connect with Bloggers & Press

Bloggers & press love Twitter. If you are looking to connect with them, it’s a great place. You can start off by creating Twitter lists for all the bloggers and reporters you want to connect with them. If you know how to use Twitter lists effectively, they can be powerful tools for connecting with people.

You’d be Ignoring a Popular Customer Service Platform.

Your customers love social media as a customer service engine. Their favorite is probably Twitter. Why? It’s much easier for them to go to Twitter, find your profile and tweet you. Compare this to having to go to your website, waiting for that awful flash animation to stop, trying to find your contact page and filling out their complaint. On Twitter, their complaint is public and this gives them leverage. I know this is not your favorite thing, but if you are active on your Twitter account, you’ll be able to quickly and effectively deal with any issue that arises. You may even be able to prevent that problem from ending up on Yelp. The best thing about Twitter is that they have added tons of great customer support features (and they’re free to use).

Twitter Restaurant Marketing Tips

Other restaurants are using Twitter to connect with their clients, gain new ones and promote themselves. By ignoring Twitter, you’re missing out on having new people at your place, and isn’t that why you opened your business in the first place? It’s time to stop resisting and read up on how Twitter can help you fill up your restaurant with its addicted foodies. Here are some twitter tips for restaurants to get you started:

Visual Tweeting

Smell-a-vision has not been invented yet, so until then, images are a great way to let people know what your restaurant has to offer. On top of that, images take up a lot of real estate on Twitter. That means that if you use a big, beautiful image it will stand out from all other plain text tweets. What type of images should you post?  Images that get people curious about you and your food. Images that could even induce a twitter influential to put you on their list of must-go-to restaurants (It happens). Foodies love to learn about what goes on behind the scenes at a restaurant. Post a photo of something interesting happening on a grill. Or of a meringue being whipped. Or of a duck sizzling in a pan. Just be sure that you don’t post anything that is visual as well as being unappetizing.   If you’re going to post an image that is out of focus, or a dish that (while tasty) looks ugly, don’t bother. There are tons of photo apps to edit your images, so put them to good use. 

Pro-Tip: Schedule GIFs using Socialdraft for maximum visual impact.

Partner Up With Non-Profits & Other Related Local businesses Our team loves the above example. Triple Voodoo Brewery teamed up with Muttville, a senior rescue mission to appeal to local dog lovers. Both brands were able to access a new audience, align their brands with the right message, and get press for their efforts.    Run Giveaways & Promotions

Sprinkles, the renowned LA cupcake shop gives its Twitter followers a fabulous reason to pay attention to what they are saying: free cupcakes. At times, they occasionally throw out a secret word that will get you a free cupcake if you say it on the day you are told to at their shop. Others they just offer them as specials. This is brilliant; not only do you get to eat a ginger lemon cupcake but you get to say a secret word. It’s fun, viral, and gets people in the door. Hey, you have something you could give your loyal followers, right? And a brain brimming with odd secret words?

Promotion Ideas for Your Restaurant

1. Offer goodies to those who dine with you on your anniversary or another special milestone. You can enhance this with an email newsletter for events such as a grand opening where you collected emails of the people who attended. 

2. Run a simple retweet promotion. Suite 106 Cupcakery shows just how effective this can be. This tweet is merely 10 hours old and has 376 retweets and 93 comments. That’s 376 of their customers functioning as a marketing army for the bakery. That’s smart Twitter use.

3. Run a special event & offer free entrance to the first five people to retweet or reply to your tweet

4. Offer a discount or freebie to people who show up with that day’s receipt for a business in your area (make sure to @mention them), this way the business will start promoting your deal & help you grow

Let Your Principals Be Themselves

Chefs often have something to say. They are passionate about food, the food business, and life. Let your chefs be themselves on social media; throw caution to the wind and give your followers a reason to tune in. Think David Chang, Anthony Bourdain. They’ve got this down. They tweet their thoughts about food, life, and even politics to an audience that is practically sitting around waiting for their next throwaway thought. They will tell you things like he how he learned to cook the soft shell turtle in Japan or how delicious spring rolls made with mashed potatoes can really be, and he is certainly not shy about sharing his political beliefs.

Use Hashtags

Twitter works as a search engine.  It’s not quite Google, but smart restaurant owners know that people go to Twitter looking to discover things. Hashtags are an easy way to get found.

What is a Hashtag, you ask? 

Twitter defines the term as “The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.”

How can you use Hashtags to help your restaurant be discovered? It’s pretty simple. Here are a few sample hashtags to get you started:

Use Geo-Targeted Hashtags

These let people know where you are at, so that anytime someone searches your city (or even better – neighborhood) your tweets will come up. Hashtags for a restaurant in Hoboken, NJ near Church Square Park could be: #Hoboken, #NJ #ChurchSquarePark

Use Promotional Hashtags

You’ve spent all that time coming up with super cool deals and promotions for your twitter followers. Let them know about it. Commonly searched hashtags include #HappyHour #Specials #Deal #BoozyBrunch

Publish Daily Multiple Times Per day

The nature of Twitter is fleeting. There are thousands of Tweets being posted every second, so as soon as yours is published, it’s being pushed down the feed. This is one of the reasons why it is so important that you as a restaurant are constantly active on Twitter. I know what you’re thinking. I don’t have time. But there are small things that can save you time. How?

Create evergreen content.

Evergreen content is content that lasts forever (or at least a very long time). Good reviews can be considered evergreen content. That #BoozyBrunch promotion you run every Saturday morning is evergreen. Your Chef’s birthday is evergreen content. The year’s holidays are evergreen content. Create a CSV with all your holiday greetings (these happen every year once a year), then upload them in January and you don’t have to worry about scheduling this type of post. The same thing with reviews, repurpose these monthly on Twitter and save tons of time.

Duplicate Posts

On Socialdraft, once you have created a post, you can to click duplicate it. You can do this as often as you want within Twitter’s limits. It’s an incredible time saver.

Recurring Posts

On Socialdraft, you can also set a post to happen over and over again. This feature is great for that happy hour special that happens every Thursday night.

You can take us for a risk-free trial. If you don’t feel we’re the right fit for your restaurant, simply cancel before the 14 days are up. It’s that easy.

What Else Does Socialdraft Do?

Socialdraft is an all-in-one Social Media Dashboard. It is the most robust and simple tool for agencies and teams to effectively handle social media. With Socialdraft you can:

Schedule posts to Facebook pages, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn Business Pages, and Pinterest
Boards
Schedule posts individually, as recurring posts,  or bulk upload them as CSV
Easily re-schedule with a drag & drop action
Schedule GIFs to Facebook and Twitter
Download content calendars as PDF
Keep an eye on your online reputation and easily share the good news to social
Find content on Instagram and easily schedule reposts not just to Instagram but to all other
social networks
Engage on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin
Download reports for Facebook and Twitter
and tons more…

Twitter polls are super easy ways to garner engagement and increase your social media influence scores. The best part is that they are super easy to implement. They were introduced in 2015 and we absolutely love them. They are a super easy way for people to engage with you (they just need two clicks). This means that participation is usually high. Twitter polls are great for asking for feedback (great alternative to a boring survey), increasing your influence, and for having fun. Keep reading for a full tutorial on Create a Twitter Poll.

How to Create a Twitter Poll

Creating Twitter polls can take less than one minute, so they are super quick to create. Here’s your step by step guide on how to create a Twitter poll and how to market it to get the best results:

Start a new Tweet

Click the “Add Poll” icon

Create a poll question (140 characters)

Add up to 4 suggested answers  of 25 characters

Choose the duration of your poll (up to 7 days)

Add relevant hashtags: Combine hashtags that let people know this is a poll #twitterpoll #poll #polloftheday with hashtags that are related to your industry or that particular post.

Pint the poll to your profile

Cross promote on other social networks

Ask friendlies to retweet & participate

Embed on your blog

When your poll is live, you will be able to see answers in real time, at the end of the poll duration, the people who took part get a notification prompting them to see the results. Great way to get people to come back to your profile.

How to Manage your Twitter Accounts

Socialdraft is an all-in-one Social Media Dashboard that helps you manage Twitter. It is the most robust and simple tool for agencies and teams to effectively handle social media. With Socialdraft you can:

Schedule posts to Facebook pages, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn Business Pages (and one LinkedIn account) and Pinterest Boards
Schedule posts individually, as recurring posts, or bulk upload them as CSV
Easily re-schedule with a drag & drop action
Schedule GIFs to Facebook and Twitter
Download content calendars as PDF
Find content on Instagram and easily schedule reposts not just to Instagram but to all other social networks
Engage on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin
Download Facebook and Twitter reports
and tons more…

If you are curious about Socialdraft, take it for a risk-free trial. You’ll get to try out all the features and decide if Socialdraft is right for you.

We all keep hearing that Twitter is dead, but this is not the case. Twitter is still very much relevant and has value to offer those who use it right. If you’re just using Twitter as a dumping ground for links, then you’re not going to get any benefit from the platform. If you still don’t believe me, read on. We’ve pulled some stats and data on Twitter from 2016 so that you can see just how much you can benefit in terms of engagement, brand awareness, and sales (yes, sales) if you use the platform right.

Sources for Our Twitter Statistics For 2017

• Twitter’s Q3 letter to its stock holders
• Twitter’s about page
• The Pew Research Center
• Twitter’s Marketing Center
• The American Press Institute
• Twitter’s Customer Insights
• E-Marketer

WHO USES TWITTER?

Here we will discuss what the typical Twitter user is. There are currently 317 million monthly active users. That’s a lot of people, and before you start to tweet and engage, you need to understand who they are, what they want and how they want it.

Twitter Users Are All Over The World

Twitter has a strong global audience. The network supports over 40 languages and more than 79% of Twitter accounts are located outside the USA. But you don’t have to worry if you have a US based audience. 67 million Americans use Twitter (that’s 24% of the US population that uses the web). If you are wondering what countries are the heaviest when it comes to Twitter use:

• USA – 67 million
• Brazil – 28 million
• Japan – 26 million
• Mexico – 24 million

Twitter Users Are Young

• 36% of online Americans who are Millennials use Twitter
• 23% of online Americans who are 30-49 use Twitter
• 21% of online Americans who are 50-64 use Twitter
• 10% of online Americans who are 65+ use Rwitter

Twitter Users Are Educated

People who use Twitter have either gone to college or are working towards their degree. 29% of online Americans who have earned a degree use Twitter. 25% have some college education and 20% have a high school diploma.

Twitter Users Have More Money

All that education has paid off for Twitter users.  It means that Twitter users have more money to spend. Here are some stats on the financials:

• 30% of online Americans earning $75k+ use Twitter
• 28% of online Americans earning between $50k-$74k use Twitter
• 18% of online Americans earning between $30k-49k use Twitter
• 23% of online Americans earning less than $30k per year use Twitter

Both Men & Women Use Twitter

• 24% of American men online
• 25% of American women online

They’re on Mobile

Yup, Twitter users love apps. 58% of Twitter users installed apps within the last 30 days.

HOW DO THEY USE TWITTER

Now that you understand who the people using Twitter are, let’s get down and dirty into how they use the platform:

Twitter Users are Repeat Offenders: Yup, 71% of Twitter users check it out more than once a day.

Twitter Users are Big About Mobile: 82% of Twitter users hop on from their mobile phones and tablets. Only 39% use it on desktop. This means that you need to keep mobile in mind when creating posts and images. Are your images easy to read on mobile? Is your font too small…Oh yeah, and 90% of all video views on Twitter happen on a mobile device.

They Tweet (a lot)

There are over 500 million Tweets sent out daily. That’s 317 million monthly active users creating 500 million Tweets daily. 30% of them are tweeting multiple times per day.

On top of this, 90% of Twitter users hop on at least on a weekly basis and 57.6% use it daily.

They Like GIFs

Who doesn’t…that’s why over 100 million Tweets in 2015 included a GIF. In 2016, Twitter recognized this, and has made it super easy for you to search GIFs to Tweet. We’re estimating a significantly larger number this year  (we’ll update with 2016 numbers as soon as those are ready).

They Want to Be Informed

Twitter users want to know what is going on in the moment. 86% of people on Twitter use it to get news, 75% of them checking the site for news daily. Once they see something on Twitter, 64% of them will share these news to other social networks.

HOW BRANDS & BUSINESSES USE TWITTER

American Brands Love Twitter

Most US companies (65.8% in 2015) that have 100+ employees use Twitter as a marketing tool. This number is expected to rise to 67.2% by 2017.

Twitter is a Good Discovery Engine for SMBs

Small an medium sized businesses have a lot to gain from Twitter. 66% of Twitter users have found new SMBs on the network. Of those people, 94% intend to make a purchase from an SMB they follow; and 69% have already made a purchase.

On top of this, 75% of Twitter users enjoy following these SMBs…and you’ll see why in a second.

Twitter is Awesome For Customer Service

There were over 100k customer service inquiries just to major airlines each month. Why? It’s much easier to find a company on Twitter and @them a question than it is to hop on their website, look for a contact form and wonder when you’ll hear back.

This means that if you are a company on Twitter, that you need to be on your toes and respond in a quick manner to any of these inquiries. Outside of just making the customer happy, studies show that 82% of people who got a quick response shared positive thoughts about the business with their community. This is a powerful way to turn a potential negative into a positive.

Twitter Users Act As brand Advocates

If Twitter users like your brand or business, they will help you spread the word. 79% of Twitter users retweet SMBs, and 38% retweet new products or services from SMBs. This means that if you need to spread the word, Twitter is a great place for it.

Twitter Users Like Shopping

Remember how we mentioned that Twitter users want news. They also want to be informed about the latest trends, products, and services from your SMB. 84% of people on Twitter use the network to find coupons, deals, reviews, and ideas. Your average Twitter user also shops online more than a non-Twitter user…3.6 times each month compared with 1.9.

If moms are your market, then Twitter is a must for you. Moms do 67% more research on products on Twitter and they are 45% more likely to buy stuff after seeing information on the product on Twitter than women without children.

The Future of Twitter

Live Streaming

Big brands are hopping on the Live Streaming wagon and you should too.  The presidential debates were live streamed and they reached 3.3 million viewers. This is powerful. On top of that, there were over 16 million debate related tweets sent out during the second debate. You may not be running for president, but you can benefit from Live Streaming in the year to come.

Twitter Advertising

This is something that we all need to come to terms across social networks. Advertising is becoming necessary.

But there is good news here. 63.5% of SMMs surveyed named Twitter as their second platform when it comes to ROI.

People on Twitter don’t look at ads in a negative manner. 85% of Twitter users feel that Promoted accounts are a good way to find new businesses, and 68% followed these businesses after being exposed to the promoted account.

Videos also do quite well on Twitter with a little help from ads. Twitter users who saw a branded video were 28% more likely to make a purchase than a regular web user and 20% higher than those who saw ads on other platforms. They also recommended the brands seen on the videos 12% more than after seeing an ad on television.

Twitter ads are especially effective during the holidays. In 2015, Twitter users who saw holiday ads spent 1.8% more than other shoppers.

Tell People What to Do

Yup, on Twitter, calls-to-action are ridiculously effective. If you ask for a follow, your follows will increase by 258% in the timeline and 86% on search. If you add a Website Card, your engagement is likely to go up 43%. This is HUGE!

How to Use Twitter to Get the Most Out Of The Network

Repeat Evergreen Content 

Yes, it is ok to repeat evergreen content, just change it up a bit. Change up the image, write up and re-package this super useful content to share on different days at different times. Keep in mind that Twitter’s audience is on at all times of the day, and the person who saw your tweet at 9am won’t be on the next day at 7pm to see it.

Engage (a lot)

Don’t forget that you can use Socialdraft for all your Twitter needs including scheduling, commenting, retweeting, reporting and more. If you want to take us for a spin, sign up for your risk free trial of Socialdraft today.

How to Manage your Twitter Accounts

Socialdraft is an all-in-one Social Media Dashboard that helps you manage Twitter. It is the most robust and simple tool for agencies and teams to effectively handle social media. With Socialdraft you can:

Schedule posts to Facebook pages, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn Business Pages (and one LinkedIn account) and Pinterest Boards
Schedule posts individually, as recurring posts, or bulk upload them as CSV
Easily re-schedule with a drag & drop action
Schedule GIFs to Facebook and Twitter
Download content calendars as PDF
Find content on Instagram and easily schedule reposts not just to Instagram but to all other social networks
Engage on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin
Download Facebook and Twitter reports
and tons more…

If you are curious about Socialdraft, take it for a risk-free trial. You’ll get to try out all the features and decide if Socialdraft is right for you.

Twitter has been having a bit of a rough patch. Its stock is hovering between $14-15, user growth has been stagnating, and newer social platforms like Instagram and Snapchat are taking quite a few of its active users.

That being said, Twitter is still a great platform. Many use it as a news and information discovery network, marketers are certainly not leaving the platform (especially since Google is indexing tweets).

This has prompted the platform to make some changes to see if they make a difference to its current status.

Twitter Changes May-June 2016

Accessible Images

This change is geared towards people who are visually impaired. People can now add alt text descriptions to images within tweets. If you want to see how this works, in your Android or iOS smart phone or tablet go to Twitter > Settings > Accessibility. Then turn on “Compose Image Descriptions”.

When you add an image to your tweet, click “Add description” to insert the descriptive text.

Connect Tab

The “Connect tab” released in May, lets you browse people to follow and gives customized recommendations based on geo-location, activity, existing follower profile, and major interest accounts. Twitter is not where you should be following your friends. That’s what Facebook is for. Twitter is where you should be following your favorite brands and interests. This will keep your feed fun, relevant, and interesting.

140 Character Limit Changes

This is a celebrated change for all Twitter users. We all hated having to count characters on images and links when scheduling to Instagram. Especially, those of us who use a csv bulk scheduler. As things were, media links took up 23 characters of the 140, leaving us with 117. This was an issue especially because tweets with images are proven to get more engagement, retweets, and click thru.

Twitter recently announced that media (including images, polls, and videos) would no longer count to the 140 character limit. The same thing goes with an @handle (when replying to someone’s tweet).

While these are not a perfect fix, they are a huge step in the right direction.

Periscope “Go Live”

Live video is where it’s at. From Snapchat, Facebook, and even Twitter who acquired Periscope last year. Twitter has begun to roll out their “go live” button as they compose tweets. If you click it, you will be connected to Periscope so you can begin your live broadcast via Twitter.

Twitter has been a little slow on taking advantage of live video, but this could be a sign that they will be taking advantage of its power.

GIF Search

While images increase your engagement and click through…GIFs do even more. Twitter is making it easier for you to find GIFs. Just click a button & search. You no longer need to search for the perfect GIF, save it to your computer and then upload it to Twitter. I seriously recommend you take advantage of this feature.

Photo Sizing

As mentioned a few times here, tweets with images rule on Instagram. Twitter recently updated its size requirements. There is no more forced crop. Loving this change. There is also a new way to view with multi-photos in a collage.

Improved Anti-harassment Features

via GIPHY

Twitter is known for its trolls and it looks like Twitter is beginning to take complaints more seriously. Twitter has implemented:

• A clearer definition of abusive behavior in its TOS
• Better blocking, muting, and reporting abuse functions
• A Twitter Safety Center and the Trust and Safety Council

We are loving this as a good starting point. What else would you put in place to bring Twitter back to its glory? Let us know in the comments below.

How to Manage Your Twitter Accounts

Socialdraft is an all-in-one Social Media Dashboard that helps you manage Twitter. It is the most robust and simple tool for agencies and teams to effectively handle social media. With Socialdraft you can:

Schedule posts to Facebook pages, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn Business Pages (and one LinkedIn account) and Pinterest Boards
Schedule posts individually, as recurring posts, or bulk upload them as CSV
Easily re-schedule with a drag & drop action
Schedule GIFs to Facebook and Twitter
Download content calendars as PDF
Keep an eye on your online reputation and easily share the good news to social
Find content on Instagram and easily schedule reposts not just to Instagram but to all other social networks
Engage on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin
Download Facebook and Twitter reports
and tons more…

If you are curious about Socialdraft, take it for a risk-free trial. You’ll get to try out all the features and decide if Socialdraft is right for you.

The Social Media angels are singing Twitter’s praises. Rumor is Twitter plans to give you a lot more wiggle room in its 140 character count limit. What’s the announcement?

Photos and links will no longer count towards the 140 character limit. The change has not taken effect, but is slated to take place in a week or two.

As of right now, a link counts towards up to 23 characters, leaving you with 117 characters to work with. This is all sorts of awesome, this means your tweets will really be 140 characters.

Photos & Links No Longer Count towards Twitter character limit

How does this affect Socialdraft Users?

We expect it will make your life easier, especially if you upload your content via CSV. Currently, an image counts for 24 characters, and a link for 23. This change probably means that you’ll get to enjoy all 14o characters on your content and not have to worry about the character count as much.

What else can you be excited about? Twitter video, they’ve been working on some interesting partnerships to push video on site.

How to Manage Your Twitter Accounts

Socialdraft is an all-in-one Social Media Dashboard that helps you manage Twitter. It is the most robust and simple tool for agencies and teams to effectively handle social media. With Socialdraft you can:

Schedule posts to Facebook pages, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn Business Pages (and one LinkedIn account) and Pinterest Boards
Schedule posts individually, as recurring posts, or bulk upload them as CSV
Easily re-schedule with a drag & drop action
Schedule GIFs to Facebook and Twitter
Download content calendars as PDF
Find content on Instagram and easily schedule reposts not just to Instagram but to all other social networks
Engage on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin
Download Facebook and Twitter reports
and tons more…

If you are curious about Socialdraft, take it for a risk-free trial. You’ll get to try out all the features and decide if Socialdraft is right for you.

Smart and savvy business owners and marketers are taking advantage of social media not only to reach new prospects and customers, but also to support customers that have already made purchases. Using Twitter as a customer service tool is one of the savviest approaches to customer service, and also provides customers with a memorable experience, while simultaneously advertising your brand.

Since the majority of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand that provides a quick and effective response on social media, we will help you understand how to best advance this task by supplying key tips and insights on how to use Twitter as an effective customer service tool.

5 Tips on Using Twitter as a Customer Service Tool

@twaggies really sorry about that. Pls contact Customer Service for a replacement part http://t.co/dfKXPVcd

— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) September 14, 2012

According to information published by the advertising industry, 67% of Twitter users are more likely to purchase products from businesses and organizations they follow on Twitter. Additionally, 94% of Twitter users make purchases from their mobile device, and utilize Twitter to make their purchasing decision. One of the best ways to increase your online conversion rates is when questions about your brand are quickly answered and resolved on Twitter, which is why Twitter can be a powerful tool to not only improve customer service, but also in beefing up your overall marketing efforts. For example, a potential customer is drawn to your brand and begins to review what other customers have said about your products on Twitter. This customer may even interact with others who have purchased products from your brand in the past, and received positive feedback, which leads to a purchase. However, their order is damaged when they received it, and the customer contacts your brand’s customer service department via Twitter. A customer care rep responds minutes later with information on returning the product, and guarantees that a new product will be shipped overnight. Your company even offers to resolve the situation offline if needed with an in-depth conversation rather than a difficult-to-follow conversation on Twitter. This is how you recruit loyal customers that will continue to purchase your products for years to come. But customer service shouldn’t just be limited to live interactions on Twitter, it should be the foundation and mission statement for your entire business. 5 Tips In providing 1st Rate Customer Service on Twitter 1) Rapid Response Time

@ElenaEpelman Hi, Elena! We have received your DMs and will follow-up with you there shortly. Thanks for your patience! — Airbnb Help (@AirbnbHelp) September 13, 2016

Response time is crucial in providing optimal customer service. According to one study, 71% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand that provides a quick and effective response on social media. Studies have shown that 42% of consumers expect a response within one hour when they contact a brand on social media. In an airline study, Twitter found the quicker an airline responded to a user’s Tweet, the more money the users were willing to spend. Note how Airbnb answered the above question within the hour.

2) Use a Dedicated Customer Support Handle

Interacting with multiple customers on Twitter can become very complex and confusing. As a business, you should use a Twitter Dashboard, and a separate Twitter Handle solely for support to eliminate your Twitter feed from being filled with customer issues and complaints. If you notice Airbnb has both an @Airbnb handle, and an @AirbnbHelp handle. This will keep any negative items away from your branding handle and in the customer support handle.

3) Provide a Personalized Experience

Try and become well acquainted with your customers. Send notes to Twitter users you interact with, and then share those notes among your entire team to provide a more personal level of service.

4) Be Quick to Acknowledge Negative Feedback

Ignoring negative feedback about your company can be very damaging to your business. Use negative feedback as an opportunity to correct any of your company’s shortcomings and improve your business. According to Twitter, users who receive a reply regarding negative feedback are more satisfied with their service experience.

5) Use Direct Messages For Private Information

When discussing personal information related to your customers, such as emails, phone numbers, addresses, billing information, and usernames, always use Direct Messages to keep your customers’ personal information private.

Put Twitter’s Customer Service Tools To Use

Twitter now offers Customer Direct and Customer Service Feedback. The first allows you to take a public conversation private in seconds…eliminating any potential damage done by a customer service issue, and allowing you to get sensitive information from your customers privately and safely. The second lets you ask your customers for feedback in a quick and easy way. You can get more info on these amazing tools by clicking here. 

Twitter is easily one of the world’s most popular social media networks, but more than that it’s one of the world’s most popular communication channels and certainly one of the most often leverage marketing opportunities available today.

5 Ways to Leverage a Pinned Tweet

Twitter understand this, which is why they have continued to make tweaks and changes to the overall platform – many of them to improve the overall experience that people have on Twitter, but no small amount designed specifically to help individuals boost their ability to market on this platform.

In 2014, Twitter rolled out a number of new changes, and the biggest of them all was the introduction of the “pinned tweet”. This gives users the opportunity to provide prime real estate to specific messages that they want their followers to get, all without having to worry about these people missing out because of the fast-paced nature of Twitter.

If you were hoping to take advantage of everything that pinned tweets have to offer, you’re going to want to first figure out how to get traffic from a pinned tweet – and then you’re going to have to figure out how to make the most of that traffic!

Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty on How to Use a Pinned Tweet.

1) Leverage high engagement messages when you pinned tweets

Though you certainly have the opportunity to pin pretty much anything and everything you want on Twitter, you’re only going to be able to generate a considerable amount of traffic with this approach if you choose to pin twitter messages that have high engagement rates.

If you’ve ever wondered why pinned tweets work in the first place, it’s because of these messages almost always contain interesting, exciting, or viral content – and that’s why they get pinned to begin with.

Yes, you could certainly pin any old tweet that you have up, but why waste that prime real estate when you could use this opportunity to master how to get traffic from a pinned tweet that is much more valuable?

2) Utilize a rock solid call to action with a pinned tweet

People that have really begun to understand why pinned tweets work in the first place (from a marketing perspective, anyway) almost universally agree that they work because of a rock solid call to action that actually leverages the traffic that these pinned tweets create to begin with.

Traffic generation can be an absolute nightmare, but if you are able to take advantage of everything that Twitter has provided you in the form of a pinned tweet capability to get the kind of traffic you’re after, you can’t waste that chance with a wishy-washy or limp call to action. Direct your followers, give them clear instructions and convert on that traffic.

3) Include a trackable link

With a trackable link, you can determine how effective your pinned Tweet is at conversions and visitor engagement on your website or blog.

4) Use images

Since even pinned tweets at the top of your profile can be missed by some people, why not include an image in your pinned tweet to increases the chances that your tweet stands out. Besides, research suggests that tweets with images increase retweets by at least 25 percent.

5) Pinned Tweet types

Here are several types of tweets you could consider to pin:

A) A retweet from an influencer in which you are cited

B) Old content that was popular

C) A link to a successful blog post

D) New product announcement

E) Photo from you or your company

F) One of your most effective tweets

If you have ever seen a Twitter profile that includes a light blue checkmark logo next to their name and wondered what exactly it signified, you’ve come across what is known as a “verified account”.

How to get a verified Twitter account

UPDATED 7-19-16

Verified accounts on Twitter enjoy a lot of extra credibility, a tremendous amount of influence, and are definitely regarded as “better than” those that are unverified – but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be effortless for you to get your hands on this kind of account.

In fact, the odds are pretty good that you’re going to have a little bit of a tough time figuring out how to get a verified Twitter account all on your own, which is why you’re going to want to really zero in on all of the inside information we are able to share with you below.

We will be able to help you figure out EXACTLY how to get a check mark on Twitter.

Check out this quick guide!

The value in getting verified on Twitter

The entire point behind the Twitter verification is so that everyone in the Twitter universe would know that they were dealing with the “real deal” – an individual or account that represented the person that they claimed to represent.

This verification simple has been used by athletes, celebrities, and other high profile individuals to delineate that this account represents them and that it is their actual Twitter handle.

For business people, it opens up a lot of extra influence that you may not have had access to otherwise and can instantly your business from parity or hack accounts that would attack you from all sides without this verification.

Critical details to remember when trying to figure out how to get a checkmark on Twitter

When it comes time to figure out how to get a check mark on Twitter, it’s critical that you remember these four essential details:

• The amount of followers that you have IS NOT going to be a determining factor in whether or not you are verified
• When you receive verification and the coveted blue checkmark it won’t stop people from creating duplicate or parody accounts (though they won’t have the checkmark)
• The verification isn’t going to immediately boost your followers or your engagement
• Twitter is in complete control over who gets verified (which is why you need to figure out how to get a verified Twitter account hack to work for you)

That last point is where we come into play!

Easy steps for getting verified on Twitter

The first thing that you need to do is realize that Twitter would like to verify as few people as humanly possible, and only those that legitimately require Twitter verification to protect them.

Secondly, understand that it’s going to be a lot easier for you to get a Twitter verification when you imbed a “Twitter Follow” button on your official website. Not only will this blend credence to the fact that your account is the legitimate one that needs be verified, but it will also allow you to add more followers to your legitimate account through outside traffic.

From there you’ll need to go over the Twitter Verified Account terms that are provided directly from Twitter themselves. This should only take a couple of minutes to read and review, but it’s essential when you want to know how to get a checkmark on Twitter.

Now it’s time to actually apply for these verified accounts.

1. Log onto your Twitter account and then go to the Twitter Verify Account Link. Click the continue button.

2. Twitter will ask you to confirm the account that you are looking to verify. You will need to click the check mark if the account is an organization account. If it is just a person account, skip that step and click next.

3. Twitter will ask you to make sure you are verifying the right account. They will ask you again if your handle is for an organization.

4. You will be able to ass up to 5 links to prove that you are a check mark worthy account.

5. Write to tell Twitter why they should verify your account. You have up to 500 characters.

6. Then you will have to upload a piece of ID.

7. And then you’ll have to wait.

Twitter usually takes about a week to process their verification requests and they do this on a first-come, first serve basis. It can take anywhere between 7 and 14 days for you to hear back from Twitter.

Once you get the “blue checkmark” from Twitter, you will have to follow their directions to verify your account on your end. This is only going to take a couple of minutes, and from there you’ll have the checkmark that you’ve been searching for!

Conducting searches on Twitter is a great tool for monitoring various Twitter interactions related to your account, and a powerful way to discover what people may be sharing your content. You can also find any keywords relevant to your brand, your own mentions, and much more useful information that is a gold mine for brands and marketers. But the key in obtaining this valuable information is knowing how to search for it.

Twitter offers users a few different ways to conduct basic searches. One is a web search and another is with the mobile app search. It is with the Advanced Search feature that you can obtain the most powerful results.

Advanced Search is accessable when using Twitter’s web search and can be directly reached at:

twitter.com/search-advanced

With Advanced Search there are more than 12 different ways to search, and filter Twitter’s tweets and profiles. In addition to the Advanced Search, on Twitter’s search results page, you can filter results by media type, profiles, and more. You can also do advanced searches from any Twitter search box by using a combination of Twitter search operators.

Navigating on the Advanced Search Page

Here is a breakdown of the various headings and search bars under each of those headings on the Advanced Search Page.

Words

All of these words:

Enter two or more words in this field and you’ll see tweets that contain those terms. You can search for one or more phrase by using quotations to separate each.

This exact phrase:

Search for a phrase, and names or quotes.

Any of these words:

Use this field to search for multiple words.

None of these words:

This filed will remove tweets from your search results that contain the words or phrases you enter.

These hashtags:

Check on hashtags.

Written in:

With this field you can find tweets in any of Twitter’s supported languages.

People

From these accounts:

This will show you tweets only from the account’s you add.

To these accounts:

Enter the username of accounts to see tweets sent to them.

Mentioning these accounts:

Enter an account name in this field to see tweets mentioning your chosen usernames.

Places & Dates

Near this place:

You can see tweets sent while a person was in a particular area.

From this date to this date:

Search for tweets between two dates.

Keep Track of Your Company’s Reputation

With Advanced Search you can check on your brand’s reputation by:

1) Locating news about your company

After running your Advanced Search, select “News” from the More options dropdown to show all results that contain a link to a news site.

2) Find happy and un-happy customers

To include sentiment filters in your search, include the relevant box over on the Advanced Search page or add a happy or un-happy emoticon to the end of your search term.

3) Filter out competitors

If you want to filter out any results mentioning competitors of yours, you can do so by adding their username and URL in the “None of these words” Advanced Search field.

4) Monitor mentions of your company

Advanced Search allows you to monitor mentions of your Twitter account and Tweets that include your URL.

You Can Also Conduct These Assorted Advanced Searches

1) Find accounts by keyword and location

Combine keywords with a location to locate accounts or businesses within a certain area.

2) Find people to follow

If you’re looking to find new people, you can run a search on a keyword or phrase and then filter Accounts that match those keywords.

3) Filter Tweets from only people you follow

Twitter search allows you to filter Tweets from only people you follow.

4) Search your competitor’s tweets

Using Advanced Search you can filter tweets from any account for selected keywords by using the All of these words and From these accounts fields.

5) Find out what people are saying about competitors

In order to check out what people are saying about competitors, add their company name and URL to the All of these words bar.

Twitter is a formidable tool in the social networking landscape. According to one study, Twitter is among the top three referrers of web traffic, along with Facebook and Pinterest.

Most small business owners who have used Twitter to market their brand are familiar with basic Twitter strategies, such as following those who have positively mentioned your brand, creating Twitter contests or campaigns, and using cultural events as opportunities to engage your Twitter audience. But a deeper, more in-depth review of Twitter has revealed some rare and invaluable tips regarding this social media titan that can give small business owners/marketers a decided edge.

Thanks to the astute reporting of Kevan Lee, we’ve harvested three uncommon statistical gems related to Twitter that can enhance and strengthen your social media marketing strategy.

1) Businesses Have Less Than an Hour to Respond on Twitter

Customers have high expectations for a quick response. According to a study commissioned by Lithium Technologies, 53 percent who expect a brand to respond to their Tweet demand that response comes in less than an hour. The implications of failing to respond quickly on Twitter are serious and the majority of users will escalate their negativity — from closing their wallets to publicly shaming the brand on social media.

In fact, 74 percent of customers who take to social media to shame brands believe it leads to better service. What’s more, even consumers who are initially positive can quickly turn negative if brands fail to respond to their Tweets in a timely manner. Brands that recognize and seize the opportunity to meet consumers’ rising expectations can achieve serious results.

The study also revealed that when brands provide customers with timely responses:

* 34 percent are likely to buy more from that company

* 43 percent are likely to encourage friends and family to buy their products

* 38 percent are more receptive to their advertisements

* 42 percent are willing to praise or recommend the brand through social media

2) Best Time For Retweets?

TrackMaven analyzed over 1.7 million tweets and found that the best time of day to tweet for a retweet is after-hours, between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. ET. Track Maven also found that Sundays are the best day of the week to get retweets and that tweeting with the word “Retweet” or with all caps or exclamation points leads to more retweets.

3) Twitter Has 6 Unique Network Crowds

This Pew Research article notes that conversations on Twitter create networks with identifiable contours as people reply to and mention one another in their tweets. These conversational structures differ, depending on the subject and the people driving the conversation.

“Six structures are regularly observed: divided, unified, fragmented, clustered, and inward and outward hub and spoke structures. These are created as individuals choose whom to reply to or mention in their Twitter messages and the structures tell a story about the nature of the conversation.”

Based on a report that analyzed thousands of Twitter conversations, these are the six distinct communication networks.

Polarized Crowd: Polarized discussions feature two big and dense groups that have little connection between them. The topics being discussed are often highly divisive and heated political subjects. In fact, there is usually little conversation between these groups despite the fact that they are focused on the same topic. Polarized Crowds on Twitter are not arguing. They are ignoring one another while pointing to different web resources and using different hashtags.

Why this matters: It shows that partisan Twitter users rely on different information sources. While liberals link to many mainstream news sources, conservatives link to a different set of websites.

Tight Crowd: These discussions are characterized by highly interconnected people with few isolated participants. Many conferences, professional topics, hobby groups, and other subjects that attract communities take this Tight Crowd form.

Why this matters: These structures show how networked learning communities function and how sharing and mutual support can be facilitated by social media.

Brand Clusters: When well-known products or services or popular subjects like celebrities are discussed in Twitter, there is often commentary from many disconnected participants: These “isolates” participating in a conversation cluster are on the left side of the picture on the left). Well-known brands and other popular subjects can attract large fragmented Twitter populations who tweet about it but not to each other. The larger the population talking about a brand, the less likely it is that participants are connected to one another. Brand-mentioning participants focus on a topic, but tend not to connect to each other.

Why this matters: There are still institutions and topics that command mass interest. Often times, the Twitter chatter about these institutions and their messages is not among people connecting with each other. Rather, they are relaying or passing along the message of the institution or person and there is no extra exchange of ideas.

Community Clusters: Some popular topics may develop multiple smaller groups, which often form around a few hubs each with its own audience, influencers, and sources of information. These Community Clusters conversations look like bazaars with multiple centers of activity. Global news stories often attract coverage from many news outlets, each with its own following. That creates a collection of medium-sized groups—and a fair number of isolates (the left side of the picture above).

Why this matters: Some information sources and subjects ignite multiple conversations, each cultivating its own audience and community. These can illustrate diverse angles on a subject based on its relevance to different audiences, revealing a diversity of opinion and perspective on a social media topic.

Broadcast Network: Twitter commentary around breaking news stories and the output of well-known media outlets and pundits has a distinctive hub and spoke structure in which many people repeat what prominent news and media organizations tweet. The members of the Broadcast Network audience are often connected only to the hub news source, without connecting to one another. In some cases there are smaller subgroups of densely connected people— think of them as subject groupies—who do discuss the news with one another.

Why this matters: There are still powerful agenda setters and conversation starters in the new social media world. Enterprises and personalities with loyal followings can still have a large impact on the conversation.

Support Network: Customer complaints for a major business are often handled by a Twitter service account that attempts to resolve and manage customer issues around their products and services. This produces a hub and spoke structure that is different from the Broadcast Network pattern. In the Support Network structure, the hub account replies to many otherwise disconnected users, creating outward spokes. In contrast, in the Broadcast pattern, the hub gets replied to or retweeted by many disconnected people, creating inward spokes.

Why this matters: As government, businesses, and groups increasingly provide services and support via social media, support network structures become an important benchmark for evaluating the performance of these institutions. Customer support streams of advice and feedback can be measured in terms of efficiency and reach using social media network maps.

As Lee points out, tight crowds and community clusters are suitable groupings for brands interested in increasing engagement levels, and adds that support networks can also be a good type of communication network for brands, especially if you are doing customer support on Twitter. Obviously, the goal here is to determine your place in these Twitter networks, and to find out if you need to change your strategy to mix with a different group.

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