According to Twitter:
You are what you tweet. The quality of your content – how interesting, conversational and useful it is – ultimately determines how engaged your followers will be.
Although there is no single greatest solution to achieve maximum Tweet effectiveness, but Twitter has analyzed their internal Tweet engagement data to give us some best practices to work with. And now they’ve shared these insights to help marketers craft the most engaging Tweets via four effective call-to-action strategies. The study analyzed approximately 20,000 Promoted Tweets randomly selected over a three-month period in 2012, comparing how various types of calls to action in Promoted Tweets did in comparison to a baseline of Promoted Tweets using no calls to action.
#1: Ask for a download
Do you have a new product to promote that’s available for download? Or are you looking to generate more leads via downloadable content from your site? Fortunately for you, tweets that explicitly ask people to download something accompanied by a link increases your click-through rate by an average of 13%. Give people a clear direction and incentive to click and they will! Also make sure to only use hashtags and @handle mentions sparingly to avoid distracting folks from focusing on your main call to action: downloads.
The Walgreens Mobile App allows you to print photos directly from your phone to any Walgreens. Click here to download! ow.ly/dkyPq
— Walgreens (@Walgreens) August 29, 2012
#2: Ask for a Retweet
Offer your followers a compelling reason to retweet your messages! Some great ways to do this include leveraging contests or sweepstakes to incentivize retweets. Promoted Tweets that ask for a retweet, show an average retweet increase of 311%! And the best performing Promoted Tweets were twice as likely to spell out the word ‘Retweet’ as opposed to simply using the term ‘RT’. Also, Twitter indicated that a call to retweet action at the beginning of a tweet works better than at the end.
Retweet this for bonus entry into our #Cadbury2012 draw and a chance to win @paralympicsgb Opening Ceremony tickets! competitions.cadbury.co.uk/en/enter/terms…
— Cadbury UK (@CadburyUK) August 12, 2012
#3: Ask for a follow
Are you looking to reach out to new audiences on Twitter? You can do by simply asking for a follow! Promoted Tweets that asked for a follow showed an increase of follows by an average of 258%! A few tips include highlighting your most exclusive content, or once again sweetening the incentive to follow with some contest or prize-related promotion.
Follow @wendys to play 30 Days of Bold and enter to win daily prizes! #getbold bit.ly/Wrules
— Wendy’s (@Wendys) September 14, 2012
#4: Ask for a reply
Looking to further increase your engagement on Twitter? Try posing a question to give people more motivation to engage one-on-one with your Tweets. Promoted Tweets that ask for a reply generate an average of 334% more replies! Twitter recommends humanizing your brand by using a conversational tone which makes users more comfortable responding back to you.
Want to be among the 1st to try Pumpkin Dunkin’ K-Cup packs? Tweet us why & #DDkcup for a chance 2 win a carton: dun.kn/PflAsU
— Dunkin’ Donuts (@DunkinDonuts) August 27, 2012
Lastly remember that Twitter is all about conversation. Make sure to reserve these forward calls to action mentioned here for only your most important and action-oriented campaigns. In order to avoid turning people off with too much promotional content, always balance your calls to action with other types of interesting and entertaining content!
So what works for you on Twitter?