Awesome Twitter Facts to Help you Build Following

Social media is a constantly changing platform of new stats, trends and methods. Sometimes it can be difficult to stay on top of all the new developments that can impact the way that you engage your community. Twitter is arguably the best online marketing tool online and it is vital to keep a head in the game with the latest news and stats. This blog looks at the latest Twitter facts and how you can use them to your advantage.

Visual is keyEven though Twitter has primarily been about creatively using language in 140 characters, now tweets with pictures attract more engagement too. When you embed the picture using a URL shortener, users can expand the tweet to reveal the image on their Twitter feed. It is also very easy to search for images with certain hashtags using the menu down the left hand side of your Twitter page.

Trending and hashtagsHashtags are a way of organizing all the information piled onto Twitter each day and your posts are twice as likely to connect with your audience if you use hashtags. This being said, don't overload with hashtags. One or two is an optimum amount to use and too many will deter users from engaging with you because it looks spammy.

Shorter is betterWe know that 140 characters is already a really short message but evidently messages that are 100 characters or less are gaining more engagement. If you add a link to the message then a length somewhere between the 120 to 130 zone is best for you.

LinksTweets with links are 86% more likely to be retweeted than those with no links so are vital if you are wishing to build your audience. Make sure you use a URL shortener, either ow.ly or bit.ly, and make sure you are sending your users to some valuable content.

Times of the dayPut yourself in the shoes of your user when you think about when to tweet. When do you look at your Twitter feed? Most likely it is during a commute, a break at work, lunchtime or when you are on your way home. Use this common sense to engage with your users then too and set up your tweets to go out during these points in the day.

WeekendsJust because businesses stop on the weekends doesn't mean consumers online do and surprisingly engagement on Twitter is 17% higher on the weekend. You can use platforms like Hootsuite to set up all your posts through the weekend so all you need to do is respond to any retweets, favourites or replies.

DemographicThe older generation has finally jumped on board the social media wagon and 55-64 year olds are the fastest growing demographic on Twitter. You need to carefully consider how you tailor tweets towards the entire array of users including this older group.

Don't ask, don't get.Surprisingly, your tweets are 12 times more likely to be retweeted if you ask for it and this chance doubles if you spell out the word 'retweet'. Even though it might seem like a sell, it works!

Photo Credit to Josh Semans.