4 Reasons Why You're Losing Engagement on Twitter

By Leslie June September 17, 2015

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Twitter can be one of the most effective methods of networking if you use it properly. It only takes a minute to write <140 characters or to retweet related posts. These efforts lead to the growth of a community, where people can get to know your company and have conversations with you - and yet, businesses are still trying to take shortcuts with Twitter. 

What are these shortcuts and how do they affect your brand? What should you be doing instead?

I'll start with the biggest offender here - automatic posting.

1. Too Much Automation

You don't have time for twitter, but still want to magically generate engagement and customers on the platform - so you set up your blog to auto-share to Twitter, and you're done. Everything will work out about the same, right? Sadly, not at all:

1. Auto tweets will truncate posts mid-sentence, 
2. lose images when shared from other apps,
3. and aren't Twitter-appropriate: Twitter is a platform where you have a limited amount of characters to make an impact. Take a minute to properly address that audience and write an eye-catching headline. 

Try this instead:

Custom posting, every time. This requires more effort but is much more engaging than any auto-tweet. If you want someone to like or retweet your posts, make them appealing.

Your tweets should not look like this:

* Instead, they should look more like this: *

Rich imagery, brief headline, a mention or author, a hashtag, a link. Yeah! You got it.

Now, to elaborate a little more on automation:

2. Your auto-posted tweets are stripped of images

... and quality! When you auto-share from programs or apps, your photos don't show up in on Twitter like they would if you manually tweeted. 

This is problematic in two ways:

1. Would your followers want to retweet long, cut-off text with no image? There is no impact or connection with this tweet. 
2. You're assuming that your audience is fine with leaving Twitter and heading to Instagram. What if they don't want to open Instagram or don't have an account? 

Make every post on every platform rich, and your engagement will grow over time. 

Follow this structure when you're posting on Twitter for higher engagement: 

Now that you know how to create effective tweets, don't get all Twitter-crazy and publish only your own content. Let's learn the art of the retweet... 

3. You only post your own content

Let's say you know a few families with a drunk-Uncle-Bob. Drunk-Uncle-Bob comes to every family reunion and invites himself into conversations about lentil pilafs by shouting "I JUST WROTE A BLOOOOOG."

Don't make yourself the odd-man-out. Be relevant! Instead of letting your Twitter be an RSS robot of your own blog, connect as a human with other humans. TRY THIS INSTEAD:

• Take part in relevant conversations,
• retweet anything related to your industry,
• don't spam trending hashtags,
• give a shout-out or mention to any author or people involved,
• thank people who retweet you often,
• and be relatable with your posts.

It will feel more genuine, relevant, and like you are part of the group.

4. You forget about your twitter

Taking a vacation is cool, but don't neglect your brand's Twitter for months or years.

Sometimes, when I can't find a website for a restaurant, I search for their twitter or social media and see if they have posted daily specials. Alas! Not only is there no website, but also no Twitter, no web presence of any kind!

MAKE PROPER USE OF EVERY CHANNEL 

If you're overwhelmed trying to keep up with all the networks without a robot, make an achievable plan for each. Try posting once on Facebook, once on Instagram, and twice on Twitter every week. You can also schedule some posts ahead of time with Tweetdeck or on Facebook, or allow some posts to be on one network only. 

You got this!

One perfect tweet each week is still better than 10 broken auto-tweets. I think I say this in every article lately, but it still holds true:

"THIS ISN’T ABOUT GAMING THE SYSTEM - IT’S ABOUT AUTHENTICITY."

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• Producing Great Web Content
• Internet Marketing & Making the Most of your Website