Not long ago, I hit a new record on Twitter: nearly 90,000 impressions in one day.
Together with the 2 days following, my tweets garnered nearly 250,000 impressions, and an average of over 79,000 impressions per day. My previous record was under 20,000 impressions.
The new record was a bit of a shock, but not entirely surprising. My monthly impressions have been steadily climbing for sometime:
| Month | Impressions |
| October | 48,500 |
| November | 68,800 |
| December | 78,100 |
| January | 83,400 |
| February | 93,400 |
So, how do I manage to consistently increase impressions for my tweets? I have a tried and true 6-step method for guaranteed engagement on my tweets that I follow every day.
1. Respond to mentions
When I open up my Twitter account, I immediately open the “Notifications” tab. One of the first things I do is check for any mentions I received since the last time I logged in. They could be comments, questions, or shoutouts.
Depending on the nature of the comment, I thank them for the comment or continue the conversation. For questions, I simply answer the question, hopefully pointing them to my website for more details or related article I recently read. For shoutouts, I simply thank them for mentioning my name.
I try to favourite the mention, as well, to give them another nod, but mainly to help me know what content I’ve already interacted with.
2. Retweet the retweeters
The next thing I look for is anyone who retweeted one of my tweets. I thank each of them, and I bring up their profile to see if they have something I can retweet in return that is related to my industry (primarily writing and social media). Retweeting those who retweet me is a way to say thank you, and it populates my timeline with original content I don’t have to write.
3. Follow the followers
The third thing I do is check for new followers. I usually follow them back (unless they are bots or potentially offensive accounts) and add them to lists I’ve created as a way to manage my timeline.
4. Curate content
Next, I try to find content to share as original tweets. I do this via two streams: accounts that recently retweeted me (see #2) and through my Twitter lists.
Once I have half a dozen or so potentially engaging articles, news stories, or blog posts, I schedule them in a service like Buffer to provide content when I’m busy doing client work. I use a combination of mentions, hashtags, and images to make the posts more compelling.
5. Clean up followers
When I have time, I use a service like Tweepi to cleanup my follower list, unfollowing those who unfollowed me and those who haven’t tweeted in months.
There is some controversy among social media managers around unfollowing those who unfollow you, but I’ve found that most of those who unfollow me only followed me in the first place to get me to follow them back in an effort to boost their numbers. If I managed an account full-time (like I did until I started my business last year), I’d be more selective in who I follow. I just don’t have the time for that luxury. Some see my methods as crude, but they build followers and engagement in the long run.
6. Search for engagers
Not all who engage with your content will show up on your “Notifications” feed. For example, if someone shared one of your blog posts directly from your website and didn’t include your username, it wouldn’t show up.
One way to find content like this is to do a search for your website address. (Here’s my business, for example). Also, search for your company and product names.
When you find content here, thank them and retweet it.
So, these are the 6 steps I do every day to build engagement, which in turn increases viewership and followers. What tricks do use to increase engagement on your own tweets?
