Top 10 Hacks to get your brand trending on Twitter

Twitter has grown to be one of the top social media platforms that have the power to put brands on their customer’s radar. However, over 65% of businesses have started using Twitter for advertising, telling us that its rise in the world of social media advertising has been quite slow. 

Twitter’s quirky bio’s, comedic posts, and effortless hashtags make it engaging and notoriously a good source of entertainment.

While there is no clear recipe for trending on Twitter, unlike other social media platforms, we have come up with the best ten hacks that could help you reach the trending status.

10 Tips to get your brand trending on Twitter

Hack 1- Be Recognizable

To become recognizable, you must have-  

(a) A perfect name for your handle that is easy to remember and short for easy tagging by people. The longer the name of your Twitter handles, the more likely are people to avoid tagging it tweets as there is a character limit. Some pointers you must keep in mind- 

• Avoid using numbers or punctuation marks in the handle name 
• The name of your Twitter handle must be the same as that on other social media pages. It will make sure people can easily find you without any confusion. 

Example- 

Yves Saint Laurent is a Fashion giant that has the best Twitter feed. It’s chic and provides followers with eye-popping visuals. The brand has the catchiest Twitter handle, i.e., @YSL. The handle name is short, catchy, and definitely easy to remember.

(b) A recognizable and memorable profile photo. You can do so by using your brand’s logo as the profile photo and is quite a common practice amongst brands on social media.

Having a recognizable profile photo is important because the customer may interact more with your page than the physical store. The logo, as your profile photo, will establish a sense of familiarity with the person who interacts with you and increase your recognizability. 

Example- 

(c) Header image to encourage brand awareness. The header space is the perfect way to showcase your creativity and also your personality. 

Example-

Target is known to come up with interesting header images that include their logo in it as well. It is fun and super catchy!

Burger King is a fast-food chain that is famous for its burgers. Their twitter header image is appetizing and fits perfectly with the brand image.

Hack 2- Personalize your Bio

A Twitter bio is displayed right under the profile photo ( see image below) and must be 100% original with it. The bio on your Twitter page is where the brand has the chance to introduce itself. 

Since it is front and center, you must ensure you put up 160 characters (or less) of the most creative introductory pitch. Some pointers to keep in mind when writing your Twitter bio- 

• INTRODUCE YOURSELF, include what you sell or the services you provide. 
• Showcase your comedic prowess to add flavor. This flavor you add could be that of seriousness, and it just has to be a reflection of what your brand stands for. 
• You can have more than 60 characters in your bio.
• Use emoji’s in your bio.
• Use relevant keywords because the bios are searchable by search engines like Google. 
• Mention recognitions or rankings you have received.

Hack 3- Make Mentions of Twitter Handles if Any

A lot of brands create multiple accounts on Twitter that could be because-  

• They have stores across the globe or have accounts in different languages to cater to their wide audience. 
• Customer care is laid heavy emphasis on and has been the core pillar of the brand. 

In such cases, you must connect all the different accounts or create a directory to ensure customers know where to find the other accounts. 

EXAMPLE- 

Play station mentions their customer care page across all their Twitter handles. This directs customers to their customer page to get their gradience’s solved. 

Hack 4- Tweet at the Right Time

Content is key, but if you push it out when your audience remains inactive, you set yourself up for a social media disaster.  There are certain times when the audience is likely to be more active online, and these could be- 

• Their daily commuting hours ( morning or evening ) 
• Their lunchtime or when the audience is taking a break
• After 9 pm every day, a time when people lay down to relax 
• The weekend ( Friday, Saturday or Sunday) when everybody is free 

Uploading your tweets/posts at the correct time will help you increase engagement, impressions as well as clicks. The graph you see below shows that tweets generate high CTR’s on the weekends instead of the weekdays. 

Hack 5- Let it not be about Just Selling/ Don’t Oversell

Twitter is a perfect platform for interacting or engaging with your audience and reaching out to a new set of customers.

The end goal is to increase sales and boost existing revenue, but that does not mean we shove ‘sales pitches’ down the follower’s throats. Putting up content that forces followers to buy your product/service could make them unfollow you! 

EXAMPLE- 

In the image of a Tweet by Tesla, you will see that they talk about more than just their products. They mention renewable and sustainable technology in the tweet, which is attention-grabbing content as the world is exploring different avenues of technology as most resources are depleting. 

Hack 6- Great Content= More Engagement

You have to make the best of 280 characters Twitter allows per tweet. Now coming up with the best content with such a tight restriction surely makes trending on Twitter an uphill task! Doesn’t it? 

For writing short content, you must keep in mind that the tweets must be easy to read and brand-focused. To ensure your tweets resonate with the audience and are re-tweetable, check out the ideas below- 

• Re-tweet relevant content. Pages like The Dodo are built solely on sharing videos they have found of animals by others. They have been successfully gaining popularity on Twitter. 

• Share content that your audience would like. You can do so by learning about their interests and keeping track of your tweets and the subsequent response from the audience. 
• Don’t go overboard and feel the need to use all the 280 characters. Sometimes less is more!
• RUN POLLS, this type of content is one of the easiest ways to encourage participation from the followers.
• GET CREATIVE with the content. Check out this tweet by Netflix India. It appropriately communicates the blues the whole world has been feeling because of the pandemic.

Hack 7- Don’t Overuse Hashtags

It’s necessary to use hashtags to make sure the content you put up can be seen by numerous people and not just your followers. Twitter will classify the content and group it with other relevant content. 

The data displayed in the image below will tell you the same and a very important fact that overuse of hashtags can drop your online engagement by 17%. 

So, it would be best if you used hashtags that are relevant or trending to the post to avoid overusing time. For finding out the top trending hashtags, opening up  Twitter analytics is the best option. 

Another way is by making use of websites like https://hashtagify.me/. It is a hashtag tracking tool that will help you find the best hashtags that suit your content. 

Hack 8- Tweet on Events Big or Small

Sharing content around the holidays or major events like NBA season will help you get in your audience’s good books. In addition, content that is event-centric will add variety to your feed.

Find out all the upcoming events by clicking on the analytics dashboard, and you will find an expanded list.

This list will show you everything from sports to travel, food, and conferences. You can filter out the events in the list to fit the interests and location of your audience, click on the event type, date, and location.

Hack 9- Analyze Popular Tweets

Find out which post on your feed gained the highest interactions and impressions. The statistics you uncover will help you in replicating similar attributes to increase engagement again. You can access the information on your top tweets by clicking on the tweets tab on the analytics dashboard. 

On opening that, you will see an overview of the engagement rate (engagements ÷ impressions), impressions, and general engagement for every tweet you have posted. 

While analyzing the tweets, ask yourself:  

• What was the tone of the tweet? ( serious or comedic)
• What were the hashtags used? 
• Was it an image or a video? 
• Was there a call to action mentioned? 
• Was a link posted? 
• At what time of day was the tweet posted?

Interesting Read:- Top 150+ Twitter Abbreviations(Acronyms) you Need to Know

Hack 10- Do Advanced Searches

Make use of Twitter’s advanced search for getting closer to the audience that would be more interested in what you offer. Using the advanced searches could also help you find out the chatter about your brand by people.

How to make the advanced search work for you? By searching for specific words directly related to your field, product, or service you offer. 

For example, if you are a brand that offers organic soaps, you should be searching for terms like organic soaps, soaps, organic soaps in my area, etc. By doing this, you will find anybody who tweeted about organic soaps in or near your area and present you with new leads!

Conclusion

One cannot doubt the power Twitter possesses in making your brand trend on social media. It allows building closer bonds with the masses to take place. 

The hacks, as mentioned above, are sure to come in handy for new brands to outshine and trend on the platform.