Looking to create awesome social media content to boost engagement?

It’s a given that creating engaging social media content is crucial for building a strong online presence, engaging your audience, and growing leads and sales. 

But how do you get it right?

Here are some tips and examples.

9 Tips To Create Social Media Content That Boosts Engagement

Start by creating professional and compelling social media profiles. Then use these tips when creating content. 

1. Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is the key to marketing success, whether it’s in email personalization or creating tailored social media content. 

For instance, Canva creates tailored messages for each of its target groups. This is a post for nonprofits.

And here is content created for teachers.

How do you identify your social media target audience?

You can use market research, email survey campaigns, or website forms to find out your customers’ social media preferences.

Here are other ways to gain audience insights:

• Facebook: Facebook Audience Insights gives data about your audience like this.

• Instagram: Click the Insights action button to get details of your existing audience and their engagement with specific content.
• Twitter: Twitter analytics and Tweet activity page give you stats such as key demographics, languages, and interests of your audience.
• LinkedIn: Access the “Analytics” tab where you can see audience insights.

Tools such as Copper CRM also let you sync your contacts with social media accounts to build lookalike audiences and target specific groups.

This Copper CRM review gives you more details on how to use this tool to sync contacts.

2. Define Your Goals and Metrics

While boosting engagement may be the primary goal for creating social media content, you’ll need to go granular when defining your goals. And tie each goal to a specific social media metric that you can track.

Here’s a framework to help you get started:

3. Choose The Right Content Type 

The types of social media content you can experiment with include:

• Blog posts
• User-generated content 
• Live streams/webinars 
• Ebooks and whitepapers  
• Stories and reels
• Contests/giveaways
• Videos
• Infographics
• Polls and surveys

Be sure to link the type of social media content you want to write with:

Your Target Audience’s Interests

As you can see from this image, short-form videos, images, and live videos are the most engaging social media content, as per a 2022 survey.

The Type Of Content Suitable For Each Social Media Platform And Demographic

Here’s a quick summary of the type of social media content to write for each platform/demographic.

Your Niche

The type of social media content you’ll create will also depend on your industry.

For instance, a Gartner study found that educational and user-generated content works best for software marketers. 

4. Create A Mix of Social Media Content

Experiment with different types of content, such as text, images, videos, and live streams. 

Simplilearn uses different types of social media content to boost engagement. This is a post on LinkedIn that promotes its professional certificate program.

And, on YouTube, the brand has multiple informative videos.

Make sure that your content is offering something of value to your audience.

Whether it’s helpful tips, informative articles, or just entertaining videos, give people a reason to stick around and keep coming back for more.

5. Write Compelling Social Media Copy 

Write social media copy that is catchy and easy to understand. And always include a call to action that encourages people to share your post with their followers.

The more shares you get, the wider your reach. 

Are there any formulas for writing catchy copy?

I have these tips for you:

Keep it short: Here are the ideal lengths for each platform:

• Instagram: 138 to 150 characters
• Facebook: 40 characters
• LinkedIn: 220 characters
• TikTok: 300 characters

This is an example of a short and catchy caption on Instagram:

Include action words and adjectives: Experiment with action words such as earn, save, act now, and adjectives such as powerful, awe-Inspiring, brilliant, etc. See this example from TED Talks.

Use numbers: Numbered lists and guides with easy steps can help increase engagement. See how Semrush does it.

Ask questions: Humans are always drawn to questions that spark curiosity like this post.

Write the social media copy by following the Google EAT guidelines so that your social media campaign can also help in getting good results from the search results. Your social media copy should include trustworthy, authentic, and expert facts and information.

6. Use Trending Hashtags

Utilize relevant hashtags and keywords to increase the visibility of your social media content. 

For example, if you are a food blogger, you may want to use hashtags such as #foodie, #yum, and #foodporn.

You can search for trending hashtags by typing your keyword on social media platforms’ search bars. 

Platforms like Twitter also have an Advanced Search feature where you can search for specific tweets and hashtags.

You can also use the right software to generate hashtags in your industry. These software can help you to create and how to use hashtags for your social media campaigns.

7. Post At The Right Time

Timing is crucial when it comes to social media. Post your content when your audience is most active to increase your reach and engagement.

According to a recent study:

• The best days to post social media content are Tuesdays to Thursdays
• The best time to post social media content is 9 AM and 10 AM.

But, there’re individual variations between each social platform when it comes to the peak engagement time or days. 

For example, posting on Instagram between 10 AM and 1 PM on most weekdays can help you maximize your reach.

8. Use Visual Elements

High-quality visual elements, such as images and videos, can make your content more engaging.

Be creative with how you present them. 

One way to stylize your photos and images is to use photo filters. You’ll create stunning visuals in minutes.

See this eye-catching visual from Velvet Spectrum.

9. Encourage Engagement

Encourage your audience to engage with your content by asking questions, starting a conversation, or running a contest. You can also host a giveaway as Fraser Hill Farm has done.

Be sure to show your audience that you value their opinion by responding to their comments.

You can also use lead generation software that allows you to integrate your social media platforms to manage and monitor interactions.

10. Analyze and Improve

Creating powerful social media content isn’t all about just content creation. Studying the content’s effectiveness is equally important. You need to use social media analytics tools to figure out if your social media posts are performing as expected. 

Check whether they’re generating significant engagement, driving sales, and bringing you new followers. 

In the case of blog posts, you can leverage a Google index checker and Google Analytics to check if your social media post helped speed up indexing or improved its rankings on Google.

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Wrapping Up

Remember that social media content doesn’t just have to be about your brand. In fact, some of the most successful social media campaigns focus on providing valuable information or entertainment to users. 

The goal is to get people talking about your business in a positive way!

Use analytics tools to track the performance of your content on each platform and adjust your strategy accordingly.An easy way to master your social media content strategy is by becoming a Certified Social Media expert. Learn how to apply proven strategies and boost social media engagement.

The post From Clicks to Conversions: Create Content that Boosts Engagement appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Twitter has finally joined us as a social media platform of the future. While in July of 2021 Twitter did in fact launch their Shop Module, which featured a shopping section at the top of a brand’s profile, they’ve got something even bigger on the horizon.

On November 28, 2021 Twitter launched “Cyber Deals Sunday” stream, partnered with Walmart, further dipping its toe into direct shopping through the app.

The stream will be hosted by Jason Derulo, and will feature everything you want out of Black Friday. Twitter describes the livestream as a “30-minute variety show” that will feature “electronics, home goods, apparel, seasonal décor, surprise special guests, and much more.”

Amazon, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube have already launched their versions of “live shopping.” These events are mainly hosted by high ranking influencers, who showcase their favorite products for an hour, in hopes to gain commission from the sales. Influencers of this magnitude have already gained their follower’s trust and respect, making it easy to make sales on products that they firmly stand behind.

“This live shopping with influencers, it’s basically like you’re shopping with a friend or somebody that you really aspire to be like,” says Lauren Beitelspacher, an associate professor of marketing at Babson College. “I see that trend only escalating.” These live shopping events mirror a modern day QVC for the younger Millennial and Gen Z audience. 

These events are already huge in China, 60 million people tuned in to live shopping streams in March. Kim Kardashian reportedly partnered with an influencer’s livestream and sold 15,000 bottles of perfume at the top of the hour. 

Twitter is using this Walmart partnership as a test run, and has confirmed that for the time being they will only be hosting these shopping livestreams with brands and not with the average twitter user. Meaning that the partnership between the brands and the influencers hosting these events will rely heavily on the brands following and the influencers ability to promote. 

Source: Watch, Chat, Shop: Live Shopping on Twitter

The post Trending: Live Shopping is Now on Twitter appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Twitter’s platform doesn’t necessarily fit with conventional marketing. As robust of an ad platform as other social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are, Twitter is built entirely different. The lesser emphasis on paid media, the character limit for tweets, and the short content lifespan makes even your best tweets come and go in only a few hours. On the surface, it’s understandable why some marketers look at Twitter and say, “this isn’t worth my time.”

But the truth of the matter is that they are probably using Twitter wrong.

Just because Twitter isn’t as straightforward as Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms doesn’t mean it’s not worth your time. On the contrary, there’s a lot of specialized marketing that you can do on Twitter that can’t be replicated anywhere else.

While other social media platforms flaunt their built-in paid advertising platforms, Twitter recognizes it’s not necessarily built for that. Although you can do paid advertising on Twitter, it’s a space much better suited for organic advertising through brand awareness and outreach.

Unlike other platforms, Twitter is the best platform to turn your followers into raving fans. You’re not focusing on selling with paid media, you’re focusing on making people fall in love with your brand. And when you approach Twitter with that mindset, you can start to understand how effective it can be.

It can be a fine line to walk, but we’re here to help you turn your Twitter into one of the best tools at your disposal. There are some things that anyone can do to make sure they’re using Twitter effectively for their business.

Use these 4 rules to create the perfect Twitter marketing strategy that will produce results.

1. Developing a Brand Voice is Extremely Important

On Twitter, more than any other social media platform, developing a strong, distinct brand voice is a necessity. Because all of your posts are confined to 240 characters (and potentially an image or video), having a recognizable brand voice is the thing that will make people remember your business. In the Twitter world, there’s no better example of this than Wendy’s.

Wendy’s is extremely well-known on Twitter for their snarky, humorous tone. They are popular because they’ve found a way to make fast food funny, which makes their tweets super engaging. They also tend to get into Twitter feuds with other brands, which just makes them all the more funny.

They also use that same tone to do a pretty good job at advertising their deals. A 14-word tweet that got 2,000 replies and over 23,000 combined likes and retweets? The average tweet typically gets a combined 1696 retweets and likes. It’s pretty evident that Wendy’s is doing something right on Twitter.

Because of their tone, people like the Wendy’s brand. People identify with it and odds are they will end up going to get food at Wendy’s. Wendy’s is using their Twitter account to make a massive impression on potential consumers. And it can all be traced to the fact that people like their brand voice.

Your brand voice doesn’t have to be identical to Wendy’s—humor is important to be successful on Twitter, but you can always develop a brand voice that’s dorkier and more heartfelt instead of snarky and sarcastic. Whatever the case, you need to find a voice that will work for your business, and then you need to stick with it.

If you need help finding your brand voice, the best thing you can do is think of what personality you want your business to have. You can go read your blog posts and newsletters for a little guidance on the personality your brand already has, because it’s best if your copy is consistent across all of your platforms.

Then, once you have a brand voice picked out, you can start using it to build your reputation on Twitter.

2. Engagement is Your Number 1 Goal

When you’re crafting your brand voice on Twitter, remember this: engagement is by far your number 1 goal.

Not follows. Not sales.

Engagement.

Some of your tweets should be informative, but a lot of them should be entirely focused on generating interaction. Whether it comes in the form of retweets, likes, or replies, you want people to interact with your top-notch tweets. Again, the best thing you can do on Twitter is build awareness for your brand or business.

In many ways, you can think of Twitter as a platform where your main goal to stand out. The more you stand out, the more likely it is you’ll go viral. The more viral the tweet, and the more engagement you get, the more likely it is to end up on the feed of your Customer Avatar. And although the viral tweets usually only circulate for roughly 12 to 24 hours, you can reach tons of people in that time.

Sometimes it’s as simple as tweeting something really funny that people will want to respond to, but there are plenty of trends on Twitter that you can do to encourage responses from people. Here’s an example of one we did.

This tweet is simply prompting people to respond, and we got great engagement on it. It makes people happy to be a part of the conversation, and it also helps them remember who we are. It gets them familiar with our brand, which we can then hopefully turn them into subscribers or customers after some more good content.

But if you aren’t having success with Tweets that are actively prompting people to respond, then really funny content is your next best bet. There are so many different ways to do this, but here’s one of my favorite examples.

Netflix tweeted this right before the Royal Wedding in 2018, and to say it did well would be an understatement.

Long story short: don’t track your Twitter success based off of how many sales you generate directly from the platform. If you make some sales, then that’s the cherry on top of the sundae. But the most important thing for your Twitter marketing strategy is engagement.

If you need some ideas on content, Twitter has you covered. Here’s a month’s worth of tweet ideas straight from the company itself.

3. Visuals Are Essential

Visual elements need to be a part of your Twitter marketing strategy, just like they need to be a part of your other social marketing strategies. It just makes your posts better, more digestible, and most importantly, memorable.

As far as videos are concerned, 70% of consumers shared a brand’s video on Twitter in 2020. And even Twitter thinks that creating a consistent visual brand is one of the best things businesses can do on their platform.

Not all images are created equal, though, so there are a few rules and best practices when it comes to incorporating visual elements to your Twitter strategy:

4. Avoid using stock photos as images

This is probably the most important rule. Stock photos don’t stand out, and even a simple picture of someone on your staff can produce way better results. This is a hand-picked example from Twitter of what a simple, but engaging, photo looks like:

These pictures go way beyond what stock pictures can do, and they can also communicate things about their brand without having to say one word. At least in Alphalete’s case, an athletic clothing brand, it communicated that their brand is for people who are serious about fitness. It also made me want to buy their product way more!

• Use templates to keep a consistent visual appeal to your photos

Similar to your brand voice, people like consistency in your images. If you throw lots of images at your consumers that are out of the ordinary, they may react negatively.

• Use bright and engaging colors

This is the most effective way to catch the eyes of scrollers. Bright yellow and green are way more effective for generating engagement than gray and black.

• Use illustrations

This is a trend that’s become increasingly popular, and it’s because it can help make your brand feel more authentic and accessible. Illustrations can help you emulate any emotion, so they’re a useful tool to have.

This doesn’t mean every single tweet needs a visual element, but a visual element can help carry a tweet whenever you need it.

4. Remember to Move People from Twitter to Your Website

Getting people to interact with you is your number one goal on Twitter. But what’s next?

You need to have a plan in place to get Twitter users from your Twitter page to your website or landing page.

Think of it in terms of your marketing funnel. The entire purpose of having a Twitter is to get people interested in your business so they’ll potentially become a customer later on. And, unlike other social media platforms, it’s basically impossible for anyone to actually make a purchase of any kind directly on Twitter’s platform.

That means you shouldn’t sell to them right from the start. The Customer Value Journey is important, even on Twitter. A simple tweet with a link that someone can use to sign up for your newsletter is a good start. It can be links to your blog posts that can at least get people to go to your website and read what you have to say. But once you get them past those milestones, then you can start focusing on selling to them.

The best thing you can do with your Twitter is get people more familiar with your brand. Just remember that the easier you make it for people to get from Twitter to your website, or the more incentive you give them to do that, the more likely it is that you will sell to them down the road.

Think of Twitter as an art. There is no hard-set formula for guaranteed success—it takes a lot of creativity and trial and error. But when you figure out how to drive engagement on Twitter, you’ll be able to generate more leads than ever before.

And, if you do it right, they’ll already be raving fans.

The post 4 Things You NEED to Build the Perfect Twitter Strategy appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

It’s easy to waste a lot of time on Twitter. 

The constantly updating feed, the easily digestible length of the posts, and how funny all the memes are all add up to make it a place where a couple minutes can quickly turn into a couple of hours. Fun to use does not always mean productive to be on—unfortunately for us all.

The secret to making Twitter time less wasted is to make sure that, in between the memes and the goofy videos, there is actual content that can help you become a better marketer. Lucky for you, there’s plenty of it available on the platform.

Here are 7 Twitter accounts that every marketer should follow.

Knowing the trends of the industry is integral to a marketer’s success, and this page provides exactly that. Because it is run by Google, it gives you up-to-date news and analysis about Google analytics and YouTube trends. They also discuss the marketing industry and where their experts think it is headed, which means a lot coming from the company that provides some of the best analytics software that marketers use. This page provides a little bit of everything for marketers, and it’s definitely a must-follow.

DigitalMarketer

After 10 years of building digital marketing courses and teaching over 120,000 marketers, DigitalMarketer has changed the paradigm of the marketing profession. DigitalMarketer has helped turn marketers from overlooked and temporary individuals into vital and indispensable components to business success.

We did this by creating a systematized process that combines the ever changing methods of marketing (email, social media, content, influencer, SEO, etc.) into a cohesive process that delivers results.

Goldie Chan

Goldie Chan is a social media strategy leader, author, and personal branding expert with over 10 years of experience working for major tech and entertainment companies. She is also a LinkedIn Top Voice for social media with over 8 million content views and has been featured on various publications.

Goldie is currently working on her first book, “Personal Branding for Introverts,” and leads the strategy at her social media agency for major brands and Fortune 500 C-level executives.

She is open to consulting and speaking on social media strategy, community building, and personal branding for leaders. Goldie also produces top-performing LinkedIn videos and partners with amazing brands.

Jeremy Enns

Jeremy is a podcasting expert who has worked with various podcasters and online business owners to launch and improve their shows, develop marketing strategies, and build production systems. He is the creator of The Cut The Bullshit Podcast Community and has connections with many podcasters and industry leaders.

At Counterweight Creative, Jeremy runs a podcast agency based on the belief that people can change the world when brought together around a common goal. He offers services to anyone looking to take their podcast to the next level or get started in podcasting

Ann Handley

As the Head of Content at MarketingProfs and a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, Ann Handley is constantly called upon to share her expertise in the marketing world. And she does this through her Twitter. Not only does she post podcasts and articles of her own, but she often links to other great content that other marketers post.

Her content also often features other experts in the industry, giving you lots of different perspectives on topics. Handley’s page is the epitome of tactical, and is undeniably worth your time.

Jay Baer 

Baer primarily uses his Twitter page as a place to link to all of his live recordings, audio clips, and podcasts. He covers everything from B2B marketing tactics to LinkedIn advertising, and he’s a great follow for people who are interested in how to become better marketers.

He also interviews industry leaders and other marketers for successful brands. And if you use his page more like a list of resources instead of a traditional social media page, you’ll maximize what you can get out of it. 

Amy Porterfield 

Amy Porterfield is a marketing trainer who posts lots of the helpful webinars, podcasts, and online courses that she provides—many of which are free. She runs milti-part seminars that people can sign up to attend and also shares articles from her website. She doesn’t post as often as some of these other pages do, but when she does, it’s worth paying attention to.

Content Marketing Institute posts articles, infographics, statistics, and links to webinars. With almost 300,000 followers, they’re definitely one of the more popular content marketing accounts on Twitter right now, probably because their followers actually get something out of their content. And they post a lot of it, so there’s always new content marketing tactics for you to read up on and learn about.

AJ Ghergich

AJ Ghergich is an SEO and content marketing expert with lots of stories and guides for his followers to consume. He exclusively shares content marketing and SEO content, so his posts are extremely focused and hyper-tactical. He posts things that he creates himself, but he also shares the best content marketing news, tips, and guides available on Twitter. If you’re a content marketer, you’ve got to check out AJ Ghergich.

The post 7 Best Twitter Accounts For Marketers to Follow [Updated 2023] appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

• 29 MILLION+ impressions
• Over a quarter million engagements
• 55,000+ link clicks to content, squeeze pages, offers, eBooks, etc.

(Guess how much I spent on Twitter Ads to fuel this traffic machine? $0 – and you can read more about it here.)
Want to know how much time I spend every day managing my Twitter system?
One hour!
Today I’m showing you exactly how to do the same. Stopwatch ready? Let’s go!

1. Auto-Schedule Content to Drive Massive Traffic

I am live on Twitter every day, but I want to spend that time actually engaging with my followers, not posting content.
To do that I use an auto-scheduler — Let me say that again, I NEVER automate engagement, just content distribution.
There are lots of tools out there that do that, but my favorite and “go to” tool for auto-scheduling the past several years has been SocialOomph.
I currently have 9 active queues with over 1,500 pre-written tweets in them. I group tweets by category and have categories for almost everything I do, including sales and marketing!

Want to know how I stay one of the world’s leading social media bloggers? Traffic!
I use Google Analytics to tell me which of my blog posts are getting the most traffic. Then, I take the top performing ones and put them in a SocialOomph queue and use the software to send one out every 43 minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!
(Digital Marketer recently hosted a webinar for their Digital Marketer Lab Members on using MeetEdgar for social scheduling — check it out here.)

Once the tweet is sent it goes to the bottom of the queue to be sent out again later.
Of course I make sure that the type of content that makes it into this queue is “evergreen” — content still as relevant today as the day it was written — and no, I don’t have to worry about coming across as “spammy” because it takes almost 5 days for each blog post to be tweeted once.

2. Use Hootsuite to Manage Engagement

Truth be told, I RARELY visit my own Twitter page.
Instead, like over 10 million other Twitters users, I use Hootsuite to manage my engagement.
I have a Hootsuite Pro account that costs me a whopping $8.99/month. Yes, I do pay for it myself and I have no affiliation whatsoever with Hootsuite. I have tried just about every Twitter account dashboard out there and Hootsuite works the best for my purposes.

If you’re just getting started, set up four streams that will be most useful for keeping an eye on your engagements:

• Retweets,
• Mentions,
• Inbox
• Favorites

I probably spend 30 minutes a day engaging with people directly from this dashboard.

3. Use Smart Growth Tools for Smart Growth

There are lots of tools out there that can get you Twitter followers.
If you really do not care about the quality of those followers (or even that they are real people), then you can buy tens of thousands of followers from hundreds of “black hat” operators for just a couple of hundred dollars.
Let me make this clear — that’s a terrible idea!
Those followers are worth absolutely nothing to your business because they will not engage with your content or buy your products and services. In fact, all they might do is get your account shut down.
What you DO want is highly-targeted followers who ARE interested in your content and may actually buy from you. More is definitely better when it comes to those types of followers.
I use a tool called ManageFlitter to help find and follow the types of Twitter followers I want in my community as well as to get rid of ones I do not. I use the “Pro” version of the tool and pay $12/month. I have no affiliation with the company.

I use ManageFlitter in Power Mode to find Twitter followers.
There are several things I love about this tool. The first is its filtering ability. I can search by…

• Bio
• Name
• Competitors
• Tweets
• Any other criteria

Doing so really helps me hone in on my ideal community members.
I also like the ability to unfollow people who aren’t following me back in the reverse order that I followed them, meaning that I unfollow the people who have had the longest to follow me back but did not first.
Unfollowing is an important growth strategy for most people on Twitter, especially users with new or smaller communities — why?
Twitter only allows you to follow up to 2,000 people before you hit a follower limit. To get beyond that you must have more people follow you than you follow (with a 10% variance allowed). If you are following people who are not ever going to follow you back that prevents you from following other people who WILL follow you back.
The result: your growth gets stalled.
Finally, I really like their processing service…
For a very small amount of money they will actually process the different actions I set the software up to perform over time so I am not violating Twitter’s Terms of Service. That saves me a ton of time and worry.
Very cool, right?

4. Build Awesome Graphics in the Blink of an Eye!

Here’s a riddle for you:
Which of the two strikes your eye and which are you more likely to engage with?

The one with the graphic was retweeted 22 times and favorited 26 times. The one without the graphic was retweeted only 6 times and favorited just 5 times.
Tweets with graphics almost always outperform those without.
I have a design background and 10 years ago the graphic above would have taken me a couple of hours to make. This one took my 5 minutes.
How did I do that? I used Canva.
There are lots of graphic-building tools on the market now but Canva has the best combination of price, quality and selection. I also love that they have templates specifically sized for Twitter and other social media sites.
(Check out this post by Britney Arkin for creating Facebook ads with Canva.)
So, that’s it! Let’s do a quick recap.
How do I drive massive amounts of lead-generating traffic on Twitter spending about an hour a day?

• I auto-schedule content using SocialOomph,
• do all of my engagement from my Hootsuite dashboard,
• manage growth using Manageflitter,
• and build jaw-dropping graphics quickly and easily using Canva.

Total cost: Under $100/month!
Do the ROI calculation on that one!
Have a question?
Ask the DM team and 9,036 other members in the DM Engage Facebook Group!
Not a DM Lab Member? Learn more here.

The post How to Run a Twitter Traffic Lead Machine in an Hour a Day appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Building Your Own Twitter Traffic and Lead Machine

There are 9 types of tweets that make up my Twitter sales and marketing strategy. Plug these into your organic Twitter strategy and watch your machine go to work…

1. The “Blog Content” Tweet

I have written 527 blog posts over the last 5 years.
Over 300 of my evergreen (content that is still as relevant today as when it was written) blog posts are loaded into a single queue with one being posted automatically every 35 minutes. The results of one of these evergreen posts?

• 20,000+ impressions,
• 100+ link clicks, and
• 57 retweets

This is how you begin building your machine. Loading your content into an automated scheduler (I’ll show you some of mine in just a minute) and putting it in front of your audience. They can’t click if they don’t see it!
Don’t think you need to get fancy either — posting your blog content can be as simple as posting the headline of the post and a link to it.
Bonus: If you do want to change up the style of your post, create an image with your headline and drop that picture into your tweet! See which one performs better and you’ll learn a little bit about what grabs your audience’s eyeballs.

2. The “Value-Added” Tweet

Can you tell I am selling you a book?
Tweets like this helped push my book to #1 in several categories for several weeks on the Amazon bestsellers list earlier this year.
I pulled quotes from the book and turned them into graphics and added the book branding together with a special hashtag, #beyou, that worked with the book’s topic. I receive tons of traffic, people love the quotes and I sell books each and every day using these value added quotes.
You say, “Well you only sold 4 books from this tweet”. True, but I have 10 book quote tweets a day running 7 days a week.
Did I mention I sell books each and every day?

3. The “Free Offer” Tweet

I currently have 5 free eBook links to which I promote 2-3 times per day on Twitter. This particular tweet got 5 link click and 6 retweets.
Is that a big deal? Yep!
Each eBook has an opt-in and leads into a sales funnel to a related product. I add 5,000+ subscribers to my list and get nearly as many sales leads every month without spending a penny on advertising.
This link is particularly clever as it takes you to a custom app on my Facebook Fan Page. This strategy drives my Facebook fan count up!

4. The “Humor/Personality” Tweet

Social media is personality-driven and it is VERY possible to show your personality on Twitter. Take a peek at the traffic and embedded media views.
I also brand all of my graphics. If you look closely at the graphic you will see our logo in the bottom right hand corner. Brand impressions are HUGE in the marketing world and it’s important to make sure you take advantage of all your real estate to get that message out there.

5. The Other People’s Content “OPC” Tweet

I routinely share “other people’s content”.
What types of things do I share? Interesting articles and tweets that have value to my community.
It shows that I am keeping up with content that matters to them and develops relationships with the people whose content I tweet.

6. The “Motivational or Inspirational” Tweet

Just like on Facebook, motivational or inspirational content gets great engagement. Look at this tweet that was retweeted 123 times!

7. The “My Content In Other Places” Tweet

What a great way to build business relationships, seed my authority and generate traffic.
When I do write content for other people I make sure to support traffic to that content on my social media sites. You might recognize this one (hint: you are reading the same blog right now!)
(Check out this post and start expanding your reach on Facebook with ZERO ad spend!)

8. The “Tips” Tweet

People LOVE tips!
In the early days of social media I used to give tips on how to do various different things on each social media site. Now I focus more on social selling, general business and leadership tips.

9. The “Retargeting” Tweet

This retargeting tweet was used to create a Facebook custom audience.

I pixeled the page to create a Facebook custom audience to later run advertising for a new product I recently launched.
The understanding here is that if they’re clicking to read my post about making money with Facebook, it’s safe for me to assume they’ll be interested in a product geared towards….wait for it… making money with Facebook!
This tweet gave me an extra 60 people to pixel — who will hopefully purchase my new product!

Selling on Twitter

Did you notice what type of Tweet did NOT make the list?
The “Direct Sales” Tweet.
I very rarely will run a tweet directly to a product. I used to but I found out very early that it didn’t work and for the most part, annoyed people. Companies that think of Twitter as just another “push” marketing tool invariable fail fast and quit Twitter because they don’t see results.
Instead, I think of Twitter as a long-term relationship building tool I can use for traffic to my content and as an entry point to my free offers which then lead to sales funnels where I can sell them my products and services.

Pick the Right Tools

Guess how long it takes me to…

• Manage 360,000+ followers,
• Tweet almost 100 times a day,
• Add 10,000 followers/month to my community,
• Engage with 100,000 people/year (55,000+ so far in 2015),
• Get 400,000+ bit.ly link clicks?

About an hour a day — and I owe it all to my tools.
Hootsuite is a great tool for engagement. You can create ‘streams’ that show what you want to look at — be it ‘mentions’, direct messages, sent tweets, or your news feed.

I’m also using Sprout Social for engagement, publishing, analytics, an in-depth view of my followers.

I spend more time tuning my Twitter machine using a great little tool called Manageflitter.

Lastly, for an auto-scheduler, I’m using SocialOomph — a great tool for scheduling bulk content at once.

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The post 9 Ways to Build a Twitter Traffic and Lead Machine (… with ZERO ad spend) appeared first on DigitalMarketer.