Let’s face it. Twitter has become a marketing tool. Not just for brands, but for people. We all want more people to follow us. To find us interesting. To retweet our tweets. And and that’s ok. I, like many of you, are somewhat opposed to using twitter as a marketing device. But we are where we are. Marketers and Tweeters are going to promote themselves and their brands. So we should deal with it.
That said, here are a few tips to make sure you stand out in a stream of tweets. After all, if you. And with
almost 10% of twitter users following 100 people or more, it’s a constant stream stream.
So to get really stand out from the crowd, the endless river of 140 characters or less, there are a few ways to make your tweets do that, You might want to consider or following*:
1. Make every tweet a work of art.
Do you follow twitter artists like @A_b_S_t_R_a_C_t, @Om_Sun or @tw1tt3rart ? You should be! These guys don’t say much, but their artistic tweets are extraordinary. I can’t but not look at every one.
The lesson here: Make every tweet LOOK like a piece of art, and you’ll definitely get standout in the stream.
2. Consider Non-English characters
(or english characters if they’re not your primary character set).
I have a couple of people I follow that write in Japanese. I don’t understand it when I see it. But I SEE it when I see it.
Try “internationalisizing” your tweets. Write the key message in English, but write something in another language too.
3. Think about sharing your phone number.
For some reason, giving your phone number is fairly unusual on Twitter.
But sharing your phone number makes perfect sense to me, from a social media P.O.V. – it shows that you have nothing to hide, and that you are there to help.
And a phone number just stands out amongst a stream of letters. It really does.
4. Spruce up your Avatar.
It’s hard to put your finger on what makes a great twitter avatar. But no doubt, we are subconsciously drawn to the tweets
If you have an interesting profile picture in Twitter, like Josh sharp, @Brainpicker or and do, you’re bound to get more readers actively reading your tweets. It’s common sense.
They also say that you should show your face, not your brand in your avatar. Good advice, but I say you can do both. @KitsuneNoir and @ChrisCoyier provides a great example of brand/person avatar. And I
think i do a reasonable job with it at @ivoteforart.
Make the most of every pixel.
5. Become a celebrity.
Whether it’s mainstream notoriety like @lilyroseallen or niche celebrity status like @pitchforkmedia or @ewebber, celebrity status begets followers.
So that means you have to be good at what you do. Or at least, lucky.
6. Get involved.
Twitter is about tweeting to everyone.
But it’s also about the one-to-one conversation. If you don’t think you have the time or energy for that, you don’t belong here.
One example that springs to mind – @Seth Godin. One of the best marketers in the world. At the same time, one of the worst tweeters in the world. He simply links to his blog posts, and nothing else. No pithy conversations with real people. Just spamming us, basically.
You need to be prepared to respond to comments and complaints in 12 hours. You must follow lots of people. You can’t just post links. You need to talk to people. And promote THEM. You need to be humble. These are all just the conditions of entry.
7. Be Constant
Social media’s
all about time, not money. So make sure you’re checking your tweets at least once a day. Twitter users than haven’t logged in since January are short of cred.
8. Be funny
We all know that our favorite tweets are the funny ones.
So don’t be afraid to take a swig of that red wine, and let your hair down. All of your tweets don’t need to be intelligent and “On message”. In fact it’s certainly better if they’re not.
Showing your human side is always a winner in twitter. In fact, it’s an immutable law of social media marketing.
9. Links and Retweets
Of course, the whole thing is time consuming. So if you don’t have the time – at the very least, provide a great source of links and retweets – they work well.
If you want a quick way to establish yourself as a thought leader in some topic,
being an INDESPENSIBLE source of all links on that topic means that people will follow your tweets, and even rely on them. After all, content is – as they say – royalty.
10. BE UNMISSABLE!
Which leads me to my final point.
If you really want to gain notoriety on Twitter, you can’t really on tricks to succeed in the long term. You need to be an “unmissable”
Of course, this is a hard one. But it’s the one that you should really focus on. Make sure that the content that you are sharing is top-notch. Become “Unmissable”. A diamond in the often-overwhelming twitter stream.
And don’t forget to throw rules 1-9 in there sometimes for good measure.
*Disclaimer. I have a following of about 280 people on Twitter. So I am by no means an expert on this topic!
