Twitter is probably the coolest marketing tool of our generation as noted in Founder Magazine. While this is the holy grail of internet marketing for many top marketers, it is also the most confusing and frustrating channel for many.
Some of the features that make Twitter so powerful and so different when compared with any other social media channel are:
- Twitter lets you see what people are interested and talking about right now.
- Twitter lets you see lists of people who follow your competitors.
- Twitter lets you interact with all of those people instantly unlike some of the other popular networks.
On Twitter, you can easily find out who is tweeting about your topics related to your industry/product/service by using the search feature.
You can even search for people tweeting about your competition. Now, you can dig through the search results and look for anyone who may have a question or is upset.
If someone has a question, you have an opportunity to answer it, engage with them and, this in turn, will help with your brand awareness. If someone is upset or disappointed with your competition, this gives you an opportunity to win a new customer and get more referrals.
Such opportunities are available to you (and your competitors,) at your fingertips. That means, if you aren’t using Twitter properly, you are losing out big time there. On the other hand, if your competition is capitalizing on these features, they are possibly stealing your customers and you probably don’t even know it.
Twitter Tools For Efficient Twitter Management
Twitter can be overwhelming if you don’t know how to take control of your presence there. To become the most efficient and effective on Twitter, you have to use the right tools. So, here are a handful of awesome tools to help you get the most out of Twitter:
1. Hootsuite
One of the most widely used and leading social media management tools by internet marketers that gives you the ability to manage your publishing schedules on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and a few more from one central location.
You might want to check this earlier post where I had shared some of the most useful features of Hootsuite.
2. Buffer
Similar to Hootsuite but even more intuitive, one of the most popular social media management tools today, Buffer has made a lot of noise in the social media space. Use Buffer, and you’ll have a more balanced tweeting schedule and a lot better control on your Twitter presence throughout the day.
I use Buffer and Hootsuite together. Hootsuite has more coverage in terms of how many social channels you can publish while Buffer has a much easier-to-use interface.
3. TweetAdder
TweetAdder is a powerful Twitter management tool specifically focused on automatically doing a lot of things for you if you choose to. Apart from scheduling your tweets, it can do a lot of things for you which HootSuite or Buffer can’t do automatically.
Things like automatically nofollow people who don’t follow you, unfollow those who are inactive, automatic retweets etc. are just a few of the features you can leverage using this platform. There is no free version of this tool although they offer a free trial.
4. TweetDeck
This another popular and one of the oldest free Twitter app across any platform—iPad, iPhone, Mac, or PC. I know many internet marketers who won’t go to Hootsuite or Buffer because they enjoy the TweetDeck experience so much. If you would like a simple interface for your Twitter only management, TweetDeck can be your best friend!
5. TweetWally
This is a great tool for those looking to do social listening and search for relevant tweets or hash tags, and build a presentation of these targeted tweets. TweetWally gives you a simple and clean “Tweet Wall” where you only get the tweets that match your interests based on your keywords, hashtags or users. Check them out and you may just love how it can help you!
6. Twilerts
Twilerts is much like Google Alerts for Twitter with the ability to deliver email alerts in real time. It is not a free App. However, at a nominal fee you can receive email alerts in real time when you, your product, your brand or your business is mentioned on Twitter. Check them out if you would like to stay on top of your game on Twitter!
7. SproutSocial
Sprout Social is similar to HootSuite professional from a functionality perspective. It is a one-stop solution for all your social media tracking needs, including Twitter, with some really extensive reporting capabilities. However, this is not one of the most cost effective solutions either.
Their base plan starts at about 60 dollars per month and they do offer a trial period. So, check them out to see why they charge what they charge for their service.
8. Twitonomy
Twitonomy is a free Twitter analytics tool you can utilize to research your competition. All you have to do is type in your competitor’s Twitter handle, and the tool will tell you everything you need to know about the company you are researching.
Instead of reinventing the wheel, let me point you to this post from Neil Patel and you will know how powerful Twitonomy can be for you and your business.
9. Twitter Counter
With over 92 million users, TwitterCounter is an awesome analytics tool for Twitter. It gives you daily stats about your Twitter account such as daily followers, unfollowers, retweets, mentions and predictions of your growth on Twitter as well.
Starting at $90/month, you can attract high-quality followers through its follower program where they will feature you on their homepage and help you attract new followers.
10. Social Oomph
Social Oomph is a social media management service with free and premium features similar to HootSuite and Buffer. However, they do have a lot of great features which others don’t. Auto scheduling of direct messages, follow those who follow you, vet new followers, clear your direct messages etc. are among their top features.
They do give out a lot of these features with their free account and then some are available only to their paid customers.
Strategies For Acquiring Followers And Engagement On Twitter
Will you follow a boring or less than active Twitter user unless you happen to be their close friend or a family member?
You don’t have to be cool and publish thrilling content all the time to be interesting. You just have to know what to share and how to share it to succeed on Twitter and be interesting. So, here are some strategies to just do that:
1. Make Your Profile Interesting
A lot of Twitter profiles are empty or uninteresting. Your Twitter bio is a the first place where people will look when they click on your Twitter handle. It is a great place to show how interesting you are.
Make it interesting. Have a proper cover picture that makes an impression and then list things you love and hate. Make it interesting enough for your visitor to feel that they should follow you and engage with you.
2. Share Your Thoughts
Many people’s stumbling block on Twitter is that they can’t figure out what they should post there. Well, it is a social network. Share your thoughts, your opinion about things around you.
You might have some opinion about a news item, an event happening or a problem that people you know are facing. Share what you think about it.
You might come across a tweet from someone else about which you have an opinion. Respond! This is the best way to be interesting on Twitter and to attract conversation.
3. Share Your Blog Posts
This is another type of post you will notice a lot of internet marketers do on Twitter. If you have a blog, make sure you share about it on Twitter with your followers and ask them to share their thoughts or retweet it if they find it interesting.
4. Share Interesting Links
Sharing links doesn’t mean you have to share only links from your blog posts. A great way to show people you have depth is to share with them what you are reading.
You can share things about your hobbies, photography, sports team, electronic gadgets and if you have interest in the topic, share about political news as well. Diversity is good.
5. Share Videos You Are Watching
People love videos and I am sure you do too. If you are watching a video and you find it interesting, share about it on Twitter. It has been found to generate great engagement.
6. Respond To Questions
I briefly touched upon this in the beginning of this post with regard to researching your competition and engaging with their followers. If you are doing social listening on topics and keywords of your interest, you will find people who will ask questions or comment about something where you could add value.
Seize such opportunities by responding to such tweets. Help somebody, guide someone, answer a question by someone and in turn it till bring new followers to you and help you with your brand awareness.
7. Share Quotes
People love quotes (don’t you?) and they love tweeting/retweeting them. The best thing about quotes is that you don’t have to create them and they are plenty.
Share your favorite quotes regularly in between other types of tweets and to make them even more interesting, create memes with those quotes and then share. You will find a lot of engagement coming through quotes as well.
7. Promote Events
If you are participating or organizing an event, create hashtags for the event and tweet frequently about it. Encourage all participants to also use the hashtag for the event in their tweets. Unlike any other types of tweets, you can tweet about the event more frequently and it will only make your event more interesting to your followers. A lot of traction is usually generated by event organizers through Twitter if done right.
7. Use And Create Hashtags
Hashtags are now very common across all popular platforms and that saves me time in explaining what those are used for.
You will get new following when you use hashtags properly. Why? People see what you are interested in as they search through these tags and since you will show up in popular hashtag searches, you might attract them to you.
You can create hashtags and use existing ones when you are tweeting. Consciously choose proper hashtags while creating tweets. Sometimes, you will notice a hashtag trend catching up. When you see that happening and you can, jump on it!
You can use tools like HashAtIt.com, Hashtagify.me or RiteTag to do your research about Hashtags.
8. Build Lists
Twitter lists allow you get a very quick snapshot of what tweeters in your list are tweeting about, right now. All you have to do is to create a list and simply add people who match your criteria into your list. It is a great way to filter out people with similar interests into one bucket and refer to them whenever you like.
If you create public lists and add interesting and influential people in your list, they will know that you added them into your list and that might generate some new following for you. Not just that, you may be able to create a few new conversations with some of those people in your list.
9. Reshare Other People’s Content
It is easy and very natural to only tweet about yourself, your business and your content. But, if everyone does the same thing, no engagement will come. Therefore, make a point to share other people’s content (their tweets, their blog posts that may interest your audience) on a regular basis.
You can add your thoughts along. But, it’s important to make sure that you don’t come across as self-promotional which will turn people off.
10. Follow The 90/10 Rule On Twitter
This is the most important and most commonly ignored rule which you must follow to come across genuine and social on not just Twitter but in any social setting.
Instead of always promoting yourself, your content and your business, make a point that 90% of all things you are saying is about other people and only 10% is about promoting yourself, your business or your content. To be interesting and remain interesting, you should never ignore this.
Twitter Can Be Rewarding When Done Right
Twitter isn’t just a numbers game and it isn’t just for some people or some type of businesses. It is for everyone who commits to leverage the power of Twitter.
The higher quality followers you have, the more popular you will be and that will help you get more visibility and further help you drive more engagement, customers and revenue.
By using right tools and right strategies on Twitter any business can succeed in acquiring more followers on a consistent basis and drive more engagement.
Your Turn To Share
So, what tools and strategies do you use to grow your Twitter following? How do you use Twitter for your business and branding purposes? I look forward to learning from you through your comments. Thank you kindly!
Hello Kumar sir,
This was definitely a resource for those who want to have great conversions via twitter. I use twitter abd its really awesome and quick way to get noticed. Needless to say all our ace bloggers are active on twitter and even businesses too.
I use some of the tools you mentioned here like hootsuite, buffer, and social bro (it is not mentioned though).
I love the strategies you mentioned and they really do work. Hshtags help me get over 30 retweets for a mere 4200 followers and that is not bad.
thanks for coming up with this resource. 🙂
Wow! 30 retweets from 4200 followers is spectacular on Twitter, Swadhin! Great job there! You seem to have got a solid control on your Twitter presence! Congratulations! I have just followed you there as well my friend. See you on Twitter!
Hi Kumar
Very comprehensive post on benefits of Twitter and tips and tools to use it more effectively.
Things are going other way round in media world nowadays. Earlier a news was first broken into news channels and then people used to Tweet it at Twitter for wider coverage but now a news breaks at Twitter first and then news media lift it for its wider coverage. It is sufficient to tell the growing popularity of this wonderful social media.
Top two tools which you mentioned in the list I have already been using and getting amazing results. Will try a few more to fully optimize my Twitter activities.
Thanks a lot for sharing this useful post.
That is a very accurate assessment Mi! News breaks on Twitter first and then goes to media outlets. That is why Twitter is so powerful and those who are capitalizing on its capabilities, are winning big time!
Thank you for dropping by and adding value through your thoughts about the post and value of Twitter!
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
One word for your post, great! 🙂
I had no idea that there was some sort of tools. This is the first time I knew them. Then, tips and advice you give in this article is very easy to understand.
Indeed, social media made human reduced to interact face to face, but if used properly, it can be a great tool that will be useful for us, our business and our lives.
Thank you for contributing to my learning curve, Kumar.
Great article, indeed!
~Nanda
Hi Nanda,
I am glad to know you enjoyed learning about a few awesome Twitter tools and strategies for success on Twitter. Welcome to my blog and I look forward to hearing from you more. Good luck to you with your Twitter quest:-)
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar . I’m Jonah from Hashtagify.me. I’ve just read your article and want to thank you very much for mentioning our tool. 🙂
Have a great day!
Jonah
Hi Jonathan,
Thank you for dropping by and words of appreciation. I would appreciate if you could help me spread the word by tweeting about it on Twitter 🙂
Cheers!
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
Well this post surely came at the right time for me. I was away form Twitter last year, building products. I couldn’t keep up with all the social media platforms. But I knew in my soul that I needed to get back and I did in January.
I do have an assistant now who handles my Twitter account. She shares, retweets and has a good conversation in my own voice. But when someone asks me a specific question she notifies me immediately so I can answer myself.
I’m doing that 90/10 rule of course, like I do everywhere. And those little quotes and cute pictures are being shared. In one month’s time, I’ve seen so much growth.
We are using tweetdeck at the moment, because we are just starting. I’m sending this link to my assistant because she can learn so much more about it. She is a Twitter specialist and also a freelance email marketer. Not that we are using her for our emails yet…but soon she will help us with our analytics.
OK I’m very excited you wrote this one because I’m looking at the marketing aspect on Twitter also. Lots to learn 🙂
-Donna
Hi Donna,
Having somebody help you with the social media channels for you so you fan focus on your business is a great idea. In fact, that is why I started my social media marketing team and we have been assisting some of our clients in the US and in other international markets with their social media needs.
What triggered me to share these tools and techniques here was that one of our web development clients wasn’t comfortable handing over their social media content creation aspects in our hands and instead, they wanted us to train their in-house staff so they could manage their stuff by themselves since they are into a very niche market that requires specialized way of creating even social media updates.
Well, while doing that training for them, I realized that there are a lot of business owners who don’t want to spend money to get someone else to do it for them. Instead, they want to do it themselves and they fail miserably because they get confused for lack of strategy and sometimes, for not knowing right tools for right things.
I hope this post all such people.
I am glad to know you have hired someone to manage Twitter for you. I am sure she will do a great job. If you ever have any questions, please feel free to let me know .
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
Wow, I haven’t been here in a while, but it’s so nice to be back.
Well, I’ve got much better and most of all, I like Twitter much more now than I used to in the past.
The trick for me was very simple. Linking Twitter to an email that I check on a constant basis, so I don’t miss a thing and I’m on it as soon as I check my email. Before I had Twitter linked to some email address that I never or rarely checked and that wasn’t a good idea, because nothing reminded me of Twitter.
That email change did it for me!
Thank you for mentioning all these Twitter tools. Some I didn’t know about 🙂
Have a wonderful day!
Hi Sylviane,
Glad to see you here and yes, glad to see you churning out some great content every single week, multiple times per week. Looks like 2015 has enthused you with new energy and new vision! I am so happy for you!
Yes, out of focus is out of mind and it is muck likely to happen if your Twitter account is linked to an email address which you don’t often check. You did a good thing by linking it with your current email address. It helps!
Glad to know you found some tools interesting. I hope these help you take better control and help you create better Twitter management 🙂
Cheers!
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
Happy New Year!
Twitter is one social network it almost took forever for me to understand. Yet, despite its understanding today, it still isn’t my preferred medium (maybe because my audience hangs out on Facebook more).
I’ll take your suggestions here to memory and I’m positive (as usual), that I will see a change – and growth.
I’ll be sharing via Twitter in a moment.
Do make the day great!
Always,
Akaahan Terungwa
Hi Akaahan,
Good to hear from you! And yes, Happy New Year my friend!
Twitter can be a little confusing and it was a mystery for me as well for sometime. However, I was one of those early adapters who never gave up and finally got it 🙂
So, yes, if you haven’t got a handle on it so far, don’t worry. Keep on keeping on and you will see the tremendous power of this awesome channel for business and influence!
Cheers!
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
Your have very informative and visually refreshing blog, I just love to visit your blog and read your blog posts….
Twitter is one of those tricky channels to acquire users from. It’s very dependent on the nature of the business you are promoting, at least from my experience.
Anyway, I liked your list of tools. I’ve used most of those in one way or another. TweetAdder was like a blessing to me back then. Today, I cant live without buffer.
Keep the great content coming!
These Twitter Tools and Successful User Acquisition Strategies are very helpful and useful for us. I am very grateful and thankful for this post. I learned great ideas here. It’s a great article.
Great tools Kumar
I didn’t use all the the tools but I like the Buffer & Hootsuit.
By far the most detail and comprehensive article on twitter and it’s many life-enhancing tools! Presently using Social Oomph and love every minute of it
Twitter,
Still a learning experience for me…
Sometimes get overwhelmed at the quantity of posts by robots or
some type of “I’m not here but this is Great! go buy it or go read it” or
Join….etc.
Rather like like watching very late night TV….one infomercial after another.
Love it when i reply to someone and strike up a conversation, or else I post
and someone comes back at me.
No robots talking now.
No I don’t have thousands of followers..probably because I don’t follow so
many people. But I do have followers with tremendous numbers of hanger ons.
Because I have opinions and express them…do get people who leave, but that
is ok. Usually get more who agree to follow and replace them.
If someone turns out to be a robot, I leave to.
That is the fun.
Connect and respond in real time or I’m not interested!
And despite all the advice and guff…these last few weeks the
weather topped the list.
The only tool that I use is to connect an email address and my auto responder (accident…didn’t realize that it posts my emails to Twitter and Facebook).
Probably should take the time to invest some of in taking a closer look at some
of the things listed above.
Like your comment that you spent a lot of time on Twitter before you figured it out.
Hmm. Maybe should re read and save some precious time.
C.
Hello,
Mindblowing tips and twitter tools, to be honest I wasn’t aware of these tools. The fact is I’m not at all active at twitter as I’m on facebook and pinterest. However I use twitter rarely. Recently got encouraged by one of my friend and I guess this might be the reason to land here.
Thanks for sharing.
Very good list here. I am using several of them. Although TweetAdder has been a lot less effective in the last couple of years. I also like Tweepi and Justunfollow.
Thanks for another post with great resources all in one spot. Twitter is one channel I have a hard time figuring out how to use professionally – or at least balancing building an audience without being too “out-there” or unprofessional. Good suggestions on how to do so.
Hello Kumar,
Thank you for sharing various tools used for twitter. It helped me a lot.
I have a few questions i request you to please help me with those.
Does using # helps in driving more traffic from Google plus?
And does addressing someone for eg. @Kumar helps in drawing peoples attention to our twits?
Thank you
Twitter is really very popular and most often used marketing tool of our generation.You share very nice and useful tool of twitter which are so helpful.And some are new for me.Thanx for this useful information sharing.