How to Increase Engagement on Twitter (20+ Easy Ways)

Do you want to learn how to increase engagement on Twitter? When using Twitter for digital marketing your aim is to boost engagement on every single tweet you publish. But how do you do that exactly?

In this article, we’ll share the easiest ways to maximize your Twitter engagement so you can keep your followers interested and clicking your links.

Before we get started, here’s a summary to help you navigate this article. Click any link below to jump right to it:

What is Twitter Engagement?

Twitter engagement is when users interact with your posts. Those interactions can appear in the following ways:

• Clicking the heart icon for Twitter likes
• Retweeting your tweet
• Quoting your tweet with a comment
• Replying to your tweet
• @ mentioning you in a tweet
• Clicking a link in your tweet

And all these actions combined can help drive traffic to your website, raise brand awareness, and increase Twitter followers. So it makes sense that you maximize the potential Twitter has to attract new leads to your business.

But how do you measure the success of your engagement strategies?

How to Measure Engagement on Twitter?

You can measure Twitter engagement by viewing Twitter analytics. Simply click your profile and choose the More option to reveal a dropdown then click Analytics.

If you click tweets from the top menu, you can easily view tweet activity along with your engagement rate. Your interactions and engagement are also divided by impressions which are how many times users saw your tweet.

Another way to measure Twitter engagement is to add Google Analytics to your website.

That way you can see how much traffic your Twitter account drives to your site and what people do when they get there. Then you can monitor that activity and see the return on investment (ROI).

23 Easy Ways to Increase Twitter Engagement

Now you know what engagement is and how to measure your social media marketing efforts on Twitter, let’s look at ways to improve that engagement.

The following tips and strategies will help you build relationships with your target audience, grow your presence, and ultimately increase revenue.

1. Run Viral Twitter Contests

One of the best ways to skyrocket Twitter interactions is to run a social media giveaway. People love the idea of getting freebies. Plus Twitter giveaways have the power to go viral, expanding your reach to hundreds if not thousands of Twitter users.

RafflePress is the best way to create an online contest. It’s a powerful WordPress plugin with all the tools you need to run viral Twitter giveaways. And with ready-made actions, you can get participants to tweet a message in order to enter.

You can read about RafflePress’s actions in the documentation. Or if you’d like to give it a try, get your copy of RafflePress here.

2. Add a Twitter Feed to Your Website

Embedding your Twitter feed on your website is a great way to boost engagement. After all, the people that visit your website are already fans of yours, so they’ll be more likely to interact with your tweets.

You can easily add a Twitter feed to your website with Custom Twitter Feeds Pro from Smash Balloon.

Custom Twitter Feeds Pro lets you seamlessly integrate your Twitter feed anywhere on your WordPress site. You can display as many feeds as you like, either on the same page or throughout your site.

Plus, the feeds are super customizable. You can choose which type of Twitter feed to show, combine multiple feed types, select your layout, and there are tons of design options.

The best part? Your website visitors can like, retweet, and reply to tweets in your feed while staying on your site.

3. Post Content Your Followers’ Enjoy Most

If people don’t like your content, they won’t spend time discussing it. You need to share material on Twitter that resonates with your audience to get the most clicks, retweets, and likes.

The best way to discover what your followers enjoy consuming is to look at your analytics. As we mentioned earlier, Twitter analytics lists your top-performing tweets which gives an idea of what works best for your particular audience.

Note down the themes and ideas with the best results and share more content similar to that. You can even run a promotion through Twitter ads to get more engagements for your most popular tweet.

4. Add More Value to Quality Content

Many businesses make the mistake of using Twitter as an advertising platform. But people don’t like being sold to and tweets constantly advertising your products won’t generate the kind of buzz you need.

You need to start creating content with the added quality and value your audience finds interesting. This is the key to getting followers coming back to like, retweet and click on your posts.

Take a look at these two posts for instance. Which do you find the most engaging?

This:

Or this:

5. Remember to Interact With Other Users’ Tweets

It’s also important to remember that Twitter is a social media platform. This means you need to be active and socialize with other users.

Sometimes taking the time to browse your Twitter feed and create conversations around posts that interest you is enough. You can also like and retweet them so your own network can get involved.

But if you want to go a step further, use a social media tool to monitor conversations around your brand and industry. Then you can jump into those discussions with helpful information and advice.

More commonly known as social listening, you can use this tactic to identify topics your audience is interested in and create content that relates to it.

For example, through social listening, Netflix discovered many of its viewers dozed off while they binge-watched. With that in mind, they created the Netflix socks project. The socks detect when you’re dozing and send a signal to your TV to pause your show so you don’t miss it.

6. Attract More Clicks with Videos

Video is fast becoming the most popular way to view content online. And on Twitter alone, videos are 6 x more likely to be retweeted than photos.

So embedding videos in your tweets have a huge chance of improving your rates of engagement.

Along with this is the fact that 93% of Twitter video views happen on mobile. With this in mind, remember to add subtitles so people can watch videos in public places without the sound on.

7. Share a Variety of Links

If one of your goals is to get more traffic to your website, adding links to Twitter posts is the best way to encourage people to engage with them and click through.

It’s tempting to share links to only your own content. But with social media, you don’t want to make it all about you. Track down and share links to great content from other sources online.

And mention the source in your tweet by using the @ symbol followed by their Twitter handle. That way they’ll see you’ve shared their content and may even retweet it to their own followers. This can send even more new traffic your way.

8. And Make Those Links Shorter

Given that Twitter has a character limit of 280, it’s a smart move to shorten your links. This frees up space for hashtags, mentions, and more valuable information. Plus users don’t need to see your entire URL to click it. A shortened version still does the job.

Many social media tools like Buffer, etc, will automatically shorten links when you schedule new content. But if you’re not familiar with them, you can use one of the following URL shorteners:

• Bitly
• Bl.ink
• Polr
• Rebrandly
• TinyURL

In the past, Google had its own URL shortener. However, this was shut down in 2018.

9. Setup Twitter Cards

If you haven’t already done so, head over to your Twitter account and set up Twitter cards. Twitter cards let you attach rich media, photos, and videos to tweets in order to drive traffic and improve engagement.

All you need to do is add a few lines of code to your site pages. Then when people tweet content from those pages, there’ll be a card attached that’s visible to their followers.

To drive more engagement from your tweets, consider adding the following Twitter cards:

• Summary Card – This includes the title, description, and thumbnail of a blog post or page.
• Summary Card with Large Image – Similar to the card above but with a large featured image.
• App Card – A card that includes a direct download to an app.
• Player Card – This card displays video, audio, and media.

To learn how to add Twitter cards to WordPress, check this guide out.

10. Boost Interactions by Curating Content

If you’re not sure what to share on Twitter, it’s time to start collecting useful content from other leaders in your industry. Sharing content from others highlights that you know your niche well enough to source the most interesting information. And with that, you can position yourself as a true expert.

There’s plenty of advantages to curating a collection of great content to share which includes:

• A diverse range of content to keep your Twitter feed relevant and interesting.
• Sharing content from industry leaders increases your credibility, as well as strengthening your reputation.
• Mentioning the source of content you share, gets their attention and prompts them to interact.
• Curated content fills gaps in your content calendar when inspiration fails you.

You can target influencers in your niche and curate content from them to further increase your visibility, engagement, and traffic.

11. Create the Perfect Content Mix

It’s hard getting the right balance of content for your feed. How much of your personal content should you share and how much should be from other sources?

Here’s a guide for the perfect content combination to keep your posts well balanced:

• 5 x Curated Content – Links, images, and videos from other sources relevant to your audience.
• 3 x Created Content – Relevant, quality content you’ve created yourself.
• 2 x Personal Content – Personal comments and fun content to build a personality for your brand.

12. Add Humor with GIFs and Memes

And while we’re on the topic of personality, there’s no reason why you cant add a little fun and humor into your content mix. Media like GIFs and Memes are super-popular on social media and can be a great talking point for your followers.

GIFs and motion graphics are especially popular around holidays and for topics that are trending. And the movement grabs attention in an otherwise static Twitter feed.

For example, this GIF shared for Pancake Day highlights the funny side of pancake-flipping, while still keeping on-brand with the profiles retro style.

Twitter even lets you add GIFs to your tweets in real-time without having to leave the platform.

13. Share Content at the Best Times

Most Twitter users visit the social network 3 times a day. But they only check-in for a few minutes.

So finding the right time to share your content is crucial to getting the most people viewing, clicking, and engaging with it.

Here are the best times to schedule posting your content on Twitter, backed by research:

• Between 11 am to 1 pm EST on Monday or Thursday for B2B.
• 12 pm or 1 pm Monday to Wednesday for B2C.

Alongside this, the worst times to post on Twitter that get the least rates of engagement are:

• Fridays after 3 pm.
• Any day of the week after 8 pm.

14. And Space Your Tweets Out

The average lifespan of any Tweet is around 18 minutes. So it’s tempting to share the same message more than once to get as many people to see it as possible.

But rules recently introduced by Twitter makes it harder to share the same content. Tweets that contain the same or substantially similar content are less likely to appear in the feed. Plus, tweeting too often can annoy your followers and drive them away.

Try to space your Tweets out during the day, leaving a big enough gap so as not to appear spammy. And if you’re sharing the same link, make sure you change the accompanying text so it’s completely different from the original Tweet.

Tweeting 3 to 4 times a day is the best way to get the most interaction.

15. Keep Tweets Short

Even though Twitter’s character limit has doubled from 140 to 280, it’s still important to keep tweets short.

Tweets around 110 characters tend to get a good chunk of engagement, while even shorter tweets perform even better. This is because there’s enough room to include mentions and hashtags that increases the chance of being retweeted.

Check out this guide to learn how to write a viral tweet.

16. Add Hashtags to Increase Your Reach

Speaking of hashtags, it’s rare that you see a Tweet that doesn’t include any. Hashtags are an essential part of a Tweet because they categorize your Tweets and make them easier to find.

You might want to include as many hashtags as you can. But with Twitter, less is more. So stick to 1-2 relevant hashtags to increase the reach of your tweets.

And try to stay away from jumping on trending hashtags unless you have something highly valuable to contribute because the overuse of trending hashtags can seem spammy.

Looking for the best giveaway hashtags? Check this out!

17. Create or Participate in Twitter Chats

As we mentioned earlier, your Twitter activity should be about building relationships and conversations with your target audience.

So creating or participating in a Twitter chat is the perfect chance to start conversations in real-time with thousands of users.

Twitter chats gather a group of users around a particular hashtag. For your own chat, it could be a unique hashtag created about your brand or industry – the ideal way for you to demonstrate your expertise on the topic.

But if you’re not confident enough to start your own Twitter chat, try joining one to get a feel for it all works.

18. Keep Your Language Clear and Scannable

Because Twitter is a platform geared to short content, it’s crucial you keep your language simple, clear, and direct. Don’t be afraid to tell people what to do in the clearest way possible.

If you’re sharing a blog post, tell people what it’s about. And if you want them to share it, ask them to.

Some users even style their Tweets with bullet points to keep their message straight-to-the-point. And this is a great way to make your tweets easier to scan in a quickly moving feed.

19. Don’t Forget to Add a Call to Action

Calls to Action (CTA) are just as important as a brief, clear message. Strong CTAs can have a huge impact on your engagement rate because you’re telling people exactly what you want them to do. They’re not left hanging without direction.

When composing your Tweets, include some of the following CTAs to improve click-throughs, retweets, and comments:

• RT
• Follow
• Read
• Download
• Click
• Reply
• Comment
• Like

20. Ask Questions With Twitter Polls

Asking questions is a tactic that always works. People love being asked their opinion and it’s a great way to get your audience involved with your business without being too obvious.

Twitter’s interactive polls are an effective way to ask questions of your audience. They’re quick to put together and look great in the feed.

You could ask people’s opinions about a new product feature, current events, and industry trends. And you could even poll them on something fun like their favorite TV show (providing it’s relevant).

21. Use Emojis to Stand Out

Besides sharing excellent quality content, you can customize your Tweets to help them stand out more. The use of emojis has fast become a common practice in Social Media, so it’s worth adding them to your social media marketing strategy.

Emojis can express emotion beyond simple words. So if you want to express gratitude to your followers, include the kiss, heart, or hug emoji.

They’re also the perfect way to highlight parts of a tweet. The finger-pointing emoji, for example, can direct users to the link you want them to click.

22. Share Images as Image Tweets

There’s no doubt that images rule on Twitter. They break up the Twitter feed, add bold points of interest, and help tell a story.

But you don’t always have to rely on images attached to your content. Try posting an image post tweet to put the focus clearly on your image. This lets followers view photos and infographics right in their feed, without having to click away to a different web page.

All image post types end up in your Twitter image gallery so people can still view it long after it’s disappeared from your stream.

23. Don’t Buy Twitter Engagement

Our last tip is the most important. Under no circumstances should you buy twitter engagement. What we mean by this, is paying third-parties on freelance gig sites like Fiverr to engage with your Twitter content.

More often than not, third parties use bots to create this engagement which can make your account vulnerable to hacking. What’s more, this type of activity is seen as platform manipulation by Twitter and can result in your account being penalized and potentially banned.

Instead, use a combination of the strategies shared in this guide to improve engagement on Twitter.

And that’s it!

In this article, you’ve learned how to increase engagement on Twitter, without employing any shady tactics.

But if you want to learn more about social media, these social media marketing statistics offers all the information you need. You can also learn how to go viral on Twitter here.

We hope you found this article helpful. And if you did, check out our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.