34 Awesome Twitter Ideas for Engaging Your Prospects

This is an excerpt from our new ebook, 100 Inbound Marketing Content Ideas. For more tips like these for your blog and Facebook page, download the ebook here.

Engaging your community of prospects on Twitter is an essential way to show a human face behind your brand and let your customers know you care about them. Answer their questions and provide them with content they find useful, and you’ll build the trust you need for a loyal following. But how can you keep the relationship with your Twitter followers fresh?

Here are 34 ideas and tips for you to use for your own Twitter community to keep them engaged and coming back for more.

Responding to Followers

1. Check your @ replies regularly with a Twitter client. Reply to your users' questions.

2. Assign tweets to an appropriate team member who can answer followers' question if you cannot.

3. Offer to email with community members if they have further questions.

4. Have a blog post answering FAQ’s that you can refer to. Link to it regularly.

5. If you work in a regulated industry, pre-write 140-character responses to common questions that are pre-approved by stakeholders. This will enable you to still engage in real time with those who are asking questions.

6. Use "@ Reply" in the very beginning of a tweet to someone if you only want your followers who follow them to see the tweet. Add words or a character in front of the @reply if you want all of your followers to see the tweet.

7. If a conversation turns into a heated debate, know when to take it off of @ reply and use direct messages (DMs).

8. Thank people who comment on and share your blog posts.

9. Thank people who share your webinars and ebooks.

10. Write as you would write in regular conversation. Use emoticons and exclamation points. Write in first person. (Examples: “I’m sorry.” “We’re excited.”) It shows that an actual human is behind the Twitter account.

Twitter Tools

11. Find and follow your competitors’ followers using FollowerWonk. Learn from them, and tweet the types of content and hashtags they care about.

12. Use a separate Twitter app on your phone for your personal account and for your business’ account to avoid posting content meant for your personal account on your business account.

13. Add UTM codes to your tweets to track your referring traffic from Twitter in Google Analytics.

14. If you’re tweeting as part of a webinar or Twitter chat, kindly alert your followers and recommend that, if they don’t want to see your tweets, to use Proxlet to mute you.

15. Use SocialBro to identify demographic information about your Twitter followers. Learn factors like nationality and gender, and participate in relevant holidays. (Example: Happy Boxing Day to our Canadian followers!)

16. Measure your click-throughs on the links you share with bitly. Replicate the kind of language you use in those tweets to increase engagement from your followers.

17. Don’t wait for Google Alerts. Maintain and monitor a Twitter list (in a Twitter client) of the actual publications and companies that matter most to your industry and community. When news breaks about your industry, you’ll be the first to share it. This builds authority.

Sharing Your Content

18. Post tweets of your blog posts. Use a variety of headlines, and test what drives the most click-throughs.

19. Schedule tweets of blog posts on the weekends, as people read on the weekends, too. Also, post tweets of blog posts at night, as this targets people in other time zones.

20. If your blog post is a list of tips, offer one tip with a link to the post as a “teaser.”

21. If you feature tools or other companies in your blog posts, Cc them on the tweets to let them know so they retweet your content.

22. If you have evergreen content on your blog, don’t be afraid to schedule tweets of those older blog posts. A few months later, they will still be valuable to your audience, and your readers may have missed them the first time.

Incorporate Other Platforms

23. Let your Twitter followers know about a great contest or discussion happening on your Facebook page or LinkedIn group, and invite them to be a part of it. Don’t beg for Likes and members, though. (It’s annoying.)

24. Share your email newsletter on Twitter. Invite people to sign up for your newsletter by sharing a link to the landing page where they can sign up.

25. Do a Twtpoll. Ask your followers a question, and use the results for blog content.

26. Participate in relevant Twitter chats related to your community.

27. Don’t cross-post your content to Facebook and LinkedIn. They are different platforms; treat them individually.

28. If you’re working on a blog post, ask your community members for help. Reach out to them, and ask for their tips. It shows there’s a person behind the Twitter account.

Create Original Tweets

29. Offer a daily tip just for your Twitter followers.

30. Tell a joke or a riddle.

31. Use pictures. Show what you’re working on. Offer a behind-the-scenes look. Take a picture at a conference or event.

32. Ask your followers a question or for their opinion on a relevant topic. Collect the tweets with Storify, and use them for a blog post.

Follow Friday

33. Use #FollowFriday to shine the light on your most engaged community members.

34. Do a “special edition” #FollowFriday and give it a theme. Group special community members together for a specific reason, trait, or contribution to the community.

How do you engage your audience with Twitter? Let us know in the comments!