8 Ways to Use Twitter to Enhance Your Social Media Influence

8 Ways to Use Twitter to Enhance Your Social Media Influence
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

Don't be fooled, Twitter is not just for sharing what you had for lunch or pictures of baby animals. Twitter can be an extraordinarily powerful platform that can effectively enhance your social media presence. Twitter can help you to position yourself as an influencer and expert.

2016-11-11-1478828152-7789568-FUTEtip21_web2.jpg

Here are eight ways you can do to effectively use Twitter to enhance your social media influence.

1. Have a strategy
In your social media strategy define who your audience is and their interests, then share content you think will appeal to them. Think about the type content you want share, your tone and the type of audience you want to connect with and influence.

2. Real-time autobiographies
Each Tweet may only be 140 characters long but your Twitter feed is a live, real-time autobiography. Personality on Twitter really counts and simply trying to sell or promote won't work effectively.

3. Repeat your tweet
It is important to schedule a tweet more than once. Because people dip in and out of Twitter, they can very easily miss your tweet. So if you have something important to share, schedule it multiple times. A scheduling tool like Buffer can help.

4. Learn to listen
There are two sides to communication and the most important part is listening. Interact with your followers, follow them back and respond to their comments.

5. Interact with influencers
Search out others in the same, or similar, fields and follow and interact with them. Comment on relevant issues, stories or new topics. This approach helps to place you as a leader or expert in your own field and it can even create some surprising and possibly lucrative partnership opportunities.

6. Connect with media
Many journalists use Twitter and the platform offers a great way to connect and engage with them. You can do this by following them, commenting on and sharing their stories.

7. Manage your reputation
By monitoring your mentions on Twitter you can also deal with any negative issues relating to your brand. Customer complaints on Twitter can be damaging, but monitoring these (and having a strong presence on Twitter) allows you to respond quickly.

8. Play
Experiment and play a little with Twitter (and all social media platforms). Try different tactics; if they don't work then try something else. That's the beauty of social media; it gives you the opportunity to constantly test approaches.

If used successfully, Twitter can be a highly effective tool for positioning yourself as an industry leader. Although creating that position as an expert requires time and patience, the rewards can be monumental.

About the author
Catriona Pollard is the author of From Unknown To Expert, a step by step framework designed to help entrepreneurs develop effective PR and social media strategies to become recognised as influencers in their field. www.unknowntoexpert.com

Catriona is also the director of CP Communications, which merges traditional PR tactics with cutting-edge social media strategies that engage consumers as well as business. www.cpcommunications.com.au

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot