In our eagerness to promote our businesses on Twitter, we sometimes forget what the “social” in social media actually means. If we want people to follow and pay attention to us, then we need to follow the same rules of social intercourse that apply in the real world.

Making interesting, useful and relevant contributions to the conversation, and giving recognition where it’s due, is appreciated by our followers and makes us feel good. Plus, according to research done by Twitter and others, it’s also the best way to get our tweets retweeted and favourited, and build a large following quickly.

Link and cite to grow your following

A simple way to develop an engaged Twitter following is to become a reliable source of high-quality information on a topic. Regularly tweet links to articles, photos, infographics and videos – your own and other people’s – on your chosen topic and watch your follower count soar. According to Twitter’s research, you can get twice as much engagement on a good tweet simply by adding a link.

When tweeting a link it’s a good idea to include the Twitter handle (e.g. “by @username” or “via @username”) of the source. Not only is it good manners, but it will help lift engagement.

Twitter’s research shows people using this tactic grow their following 17% more than average.

Double down with hashtags

• 37 Genius Tweets From 2017 That Broke The 50k Retweet Barrier. These people weren't looking for numbers, but numbers found them anyway.
• Twitter grows in popularity by the day, and is still one of the biggest traffic sources for sites all over the world, and in every niche you can imagine. Thus, it is obvious that going viral on Twitter can greatly help your blog in getting some much needed traffic, and you might be surprised to find that it’s easier than you think.
• A lot of tweets that go viral claim that amassing retweets will cause some actual good in the real world. So it was with this tweet, which said the dog food company Pedigree would provide a meal.
• Twitter is a great format for enacting a viral marketing campaign, which is all about spreading your message from person to person to person. A few examples of successful online and offline viral marketing campaigns include.

Twitter Tip #9: Try tweeting longer tweets to get more clicks. The research shows that longer tweets get more clicks if there is a link in them. At the same time, don’t forget to leave 10 to 20 empty spaces in your tweets so that your followers can retweet you easily. Twitter Tip #10: Try putting your links 25% of the way into your tweet.

One of the easiest ways to improve your engagement is to add hashtags (the # symbol followed by the topic related to your tweet) to your tweets. Adding a hashtag makes your tweet more visible to people who are interested in the topic you cover.

Using hashtags helps you to identify and engage people discussing your topic outside your immediate following.

Twitter’s research shows that using hashtags can increase engagement by almost 100% for individuals.

“Personal story” tweets

Marketing coach Steve Slaunwhite discovered making his tweets more personal, rather than purely informational, produced better results. In a recent Twitter experiment, he used three different formats to tweet a link to an article he had written:

• “Tip” format: Use opportunities that already exist to reach your target market. But if none exist? Create your own crowd: [link]
• “Problem-solution”: Can’t get in front of your target audience? Maybe you need to create your own crowd. Here’s how: [link]
• “Personal story”: A few years ago, I couldn’t find a convenient way to get in front of a new market. So I created a way: [link]

The “personal story” format got more than two and half times as many clicks as the other two combined. It was also retweeted and favourited more. Slaunwhite noticed a similar pattern with many of his previous tweets.

Retweet the right way

Retweeting allows us to curate content on our topic for our followers. It’s also a great way to start relationships with the influencers and thought leaders in our niches.

There are two ways to retweet:

• You can simply click the retweet button on Twitter. This will cause the other person’s tweet to show up in your Twitter timeline under their name, saying it was retweeted by you.
• Then there’s the “old-style” retweet, which looks like this: “RT @username: original tweet”.

So what’s the difference and why is it important?

Well, retweeting is the best compliment you can give someone on Twitter. And if you’re giving someone a compliment, don’t you want them to know about it?

But in most Twitter clients, such as HootSuite and TweetDeck, if you use Twitter’s retweet button, the retweet doesn’t show up as a “mention”. So if the person you retweeted is using a Twitter client, they may not know you retweeted them.

That’s why if you want to get the attention of the person you’re retweeting, it’s best to use an old-style retweet. You can also edit the original tweet for brevity or clarity, and add your comments and hashtags.

Don’t use all the characters

It can be a challenge to limit your tweet length. We used to only have 140 characters. Now we have more. But I’m going to suggest you should try to make them even shorter. Why? Because you have to consider your retweeters.

It’s good practice to leave enough space for an old-style retweet (i.e four characters plus the length of your Twitter handle). Otherwise an old-style retweeter will have to trim your tweet. Also, people who retweet often like to add comments and offer their own take. So, if possible, you need to leave even a bit more room for them to do so.

Over to you

Do you have any good tips or tactics to increase engagement on Twitter? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments.

Ten years ago, a young entrepreneur named Jack Dorsey changed Internet history with five words: “just setting up my twttr.” It was the first of billions of tweets that have been posted on Twitter ranging from the mundane to the momentous.

Dorsey’s tweet has racked up an impressive 103,000 retweets since it was posted, but that figure pales in comparison to the most popular posts on the platform. Here we look back at the 10 most retweeted-tweets of all time, according to the retweet-tracking website Favstar. (Twitter declined to provide an official list.)

The list outlines the many ways Twitter is often used—as a place for political proclamations, celebrity musings and, of course, selfies.

10. Andrew Malcolm

A lot of tweets that go viral claim that amassing retweets will cause some actual good in the real world. So it was with this tweet, which said the dog food company Pedigree would provide a meal to a canine for each retweet.

Pedigree did indeed have a #tweetforbowls campaign last year, but the company said it reached its goal of donating 210,000 bowls to dogs in need three days before Andrew Malcolm’s tweet was actually sent. So it’s not clear these RTs actually accomplished anything. Pedigree didn’t respond to an email seeking clarification, but even today Twitter users regularly use this message and image to rack up RT’s.

9. Harry Styles

The One Direction member gave fans an uplifting message the day former member Zayn Malik announced he was leaving the group.

8. Adam Saleh

Popular YouTuber Adam Saleh made waves after posting this video claiming he was removed from a Delta flight after speaking Arabic on board. But it was later revealed that Saleh often makes prank videos and may have sparked the incident to get the footage.

7. Barack Obama

The departing President left office with a series of tweets thanking his supporters for their work over the last eight years, and encouraging them to stay active in the future.

6. Barack Obama (again)

There are a few famous people who use Twitter besides One Direction, including the President of the United States. On the night he was reelected in 2012, Barack Obama’s staff posted this image of the president embracing First Lady Michelle Obama. It became the most retweeted-tweet ever at the time.

5. Camila Cabello

Camila Cabello, a singer and then a part of girl group Fifth Harmony, originally racked up more than a million retweets with this simple message. However, Twitter’s now showing just 51,000 RTs on the tweet, though it’s unclear why.

4. Denny Januar Ali

A pair of tweets by Indonesian political analyst Denny Januar Ali have racked up a combined 2.5 million retweets. In one, he is backing Indonesian presidential candidate Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. In the other, he is calling for an end to discrimination and pictured with a group of adorable kids in the accompanying photo whose shirts spell out “love.”

The popularity of these tweets is a reminder of Twitter’s global reach. Eighty percent of social network’s users reside outside the United States.

Twitter Viral Jayapura

3. Louis Tomlinson

One Direction member Louis Tomlinson embraced his bromance with fellow member Harry Styles in this 2011 tweet. As the band’s stature grew, the tweet kept being recirculated and has now racked up more than two million retweets.

2. Carter Wilkerson

Carter Wilkerson is a man on a mission: A mission for free chicken nuggets. Twitter, occasionally a wonderful place, is trying its best to help.

1. Ellen DeGeneres

It took half of Hollywood to topple One Direction on Twitter. This star-studded selfie from the 2014 Academy Awards includes Bradley Cooper, Lupita Nyong’o, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey and literally half a dozen other extremely famous people.

Within hours it became the most-retweeted post in Twitter’s history and spawned a Simpsons parody. But the feeling of spontaneous exuberance at the heart of the image’s appeal was sullied when The Wall Street Journal reported the picture was in part product placement for Samsung’s Galaxy phone.

Thank you!

Twitter Viral Tweets

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