Let me start by stating that I am not a Twitter expert.

Twitter overwhelms me. I have been filled with anxiety upon being met with 100 notifications on more than one occasion. My head spins when trying to maneuver through dozens of retweeted retweets of liked responses. As a blogger who is trying to grow her audience, I decided it would be beneficial to learn more about using Twitter.

Twitter is a valuable tool for bloggers and business. While Twitter may be social, it is not a ‘social network’. It is a platform for news and ‘micro-blogging’ where users share short bursts of information, which can include opinions, anecdotes, hot topics, and blog updates. It is common for users to tweet 10-20 times a day, and to reply, like and retweet frequently, as well. With all that activity, almost anyone can benefit from a few hints to enhance their Twitter experience.

Keep Your Tweets Short But Sweet

Although Twitter has increased their character limit to 280, shorter tweets perform better. People on Twitter love concise information.

Pin Your Best or Most Important Tweet

Twitter is all about updates. The most recent ones will be what people will see when they visit a profile. Pinning a Tweet locks it at the top of the feed, ensuring it takes priority over any other tweets.

Links in Your Bio

Most people will usually check out your bio when they visit your profile. By not displaying a link in your bio, you’re missing out on a lot of possible traffic. In addition to the website field of your profile, you are also able to include hyperlinks to social media or other websites in the body of your bio.

Use Images

Images grab attention and tweets with images are 94% more likely to get engagement. Add images whenever possible.

Edit Your Images

Incorrectly sized photos will not display properly to your followers. To ensure Twitter displays the portion of the photo you want to be seen, set your image width to fit the minimum requirements. Current Twitter image guidelines: Minimum 440 x 220 (2:1 ratio), Maximum 1024 x 512.

Use Hashtags

As with Instagram, hashtags increase a Tweet’s reach. Be aware that overusing hashtags can have an adverse effect, so only use the ones that are relevant to your niche.

Use Lists

If you want to see updates from profiles that you don’t want to follow, add them to a list. Lists are groups of Twitter users – you can create your own list, subscribe to lists created by others or be added to a list by an owner. When you view a list timeline, you will only see updates from users on that specific list, without needing to follow them.

Pose a Trivia or General Question

Asking trivia or insightful questions is an excellent way to increase engagement. People like to be the first with the correct answer to trivia or strive to provide a interesting response to a thought-provoking question.

Tweet Regularly, but Not Too Often

Find a ‘happy medium’ in your Tweet frequency. If you tweet to little, you will lose followers because you don’t provide value. On the flip side, if you tweet too often, you risk losing followers because you clog their feeds with needless information.

Recycle Old Tweets

Retweeting past tweets is an effective way to reach a new audience. Not everyone sees every tweet when originally posted, so retweeting is safe. There are plug-ins available for WordPress that can help do this, such as Revive Old Posts. Choose wisely and don’t spam!