Five Twitter Strategies for Building Engagement

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Last year Buddy Media released a report on posting strategies for Facebook. This year, the company just released a similar strategy report for Twitter, and it contains some interesting insights which brands or agencies can look to leverage in their communications.

The report analyzed 320 Twitter handles from the world’s biggest brands to get the following insights. I found some of them interesting but wanted to dig a little deeper into the findings to see if they could be applied across most industries and brands, or if they were only for the target group surveyed by Buddy Media.

Here are some of the findings, and my takes:

1.  Twitter engagement rates for brands are 17% higher on Saturday and Sunday compared to weekdays, but brands don’t take advantage of this trend

I would say this is actually content-specific and depends on the brand and industry (basically B2C versus B2B). For example, as PR people we generally turn off from work on the weekends (or most of us do, I’m sure) and wouldn’t really read tweets about PR unless it was something with really groundbreaking insights or breaking news. But if you’re a consumer-facing brand, I’d be willing to say this statistic is probably true, especially if you push content like promotions and discounts during that time.

2. When brands tweet during “busy hours” (8 AM – 7 PM), they receive 30% higher engagement than tweets that fall during “non-busy hours” (8 PM – 7 AM).

I think this holds weight. Think about it, when you’re at work and want to take a break for five minutes, many will fire up Twitter or Facebook just to check and see what everyone else is up to. But after we leave work for the day we typically don’t check as often. This is something I‘ve noticed from the people I follow on Twitter – they are more active sharing content during work hours as compared to after hours. While this may differ from person to person, in general this is a good depiction of overall usage – and if you manage a B2B handle, this is likely especially accurate.

3. While tweets during “busy hours” receive significantly more engagement, Facebook posts show the reverse trend.

Again, this may or may not be true depending on what industry you’re in. But if this works for your brand, it’s an excellent strategy to continually engage your fans around the clock without being too obtrusive or overbearing.

4. Tweets with hashtags receive two times more engagement than those without hashtags (if it’s not done in an over-the-top manner)

Yes, this should be true because when you use a hashtag in a tweet it increases the chance of it being discovered by people who are not following you. If people are discussing that particular topic they are more likely to respond or engage with your brand. But do it wisely and don’t overdo it, and don’t “hashjack” as well if your brand is not relevant to the conversation.

5. Saying “please retweet” and including images increase the chance of you getting retweeted.

Pictures say a thousand words and if you have powerful graphic content that resonates well, then you’re likely to get more people who will re-share your content. As for the “please retweet,” I think it does work if there’s a really good reason for it. Some examples would be if you are running a contest, raising funds for a charity, or helping a cause – users will respond to something that goes way beyond just promoting your brand or selling your products.