The Anatomy of a Perfect Twitter Post to Increase Click-Through-Rate

June 11, 2015 - 10 minutes read - Social Media

Twitter is a powerful channel for selling, with 60% of survey respondents saying they’ve made a purchase based on something they saw on Twitter and 86% saying they plan to make a future purchase based on information gleaned from the site. One of the core responsibilities of a digital marketer is to make sure the tweets being churned out are reaching the maximum audience and making an impact. In this week’s post, Mod Girl Marketing breaks down the anatomy of the most effective Twitter posts, based on the latest click-through rate (CTR) statistics.

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How Do Brands Engage Followers on Twitter?

Image Source: Kissmetrics

As Hubspot explains, there are nine ways a user can engage and interact with your brand on Twitter. They can:

• – Retweet
• – Favorite a tweet
• – Click a hashtag
• – Click the @-mention
• – Click a link
• – Click a picture
• – Click to expand the tweet
• – View your profile
• – Follow you

Keep in mind that 92% of the interactions on Twitter consist of link clicks.

Does Size of Audience Matter?

Image Source: Kissmetrics

The average click-through rate for a post is 1.64%. Many companies get caught up on expanding the size of their audience to get more clicks. However, as counter-intuitive as it may seem, SignUpTo tells us that Twitter accounts with the most followers actually see the least click-throughs. For instance, sites with 50-1,000 users saw a click-through rate of 6.16%, compared to accounts with 10,000+ followers that had a click-through rate of 0.45%.

 

What Makes A Great Tweet?

Why do people come to Twitter? Essentially, Twitter users are looking for three things: Inspiration. Humor. News.

Twitter has made it easier to break down the anatomy of the perfect tweet by publishing a marketing guide with tweet templates to help your business maximize success on their platform. That could be a good place to start… once you’re done reading this blog, of course!

Headlines

If you’re looking for a lot of blog post shares, then invest time in creating a headline that intrigues. While you don’t want every tweet to be a headline and a link necessarily, these posts do tend to get a great deal of click-through traffic. Crafting better headlines can improve your CTR by 18% overnight, according to one researcher. In fact, changing just one word in your headline can nearly double the clicks you receive!

Image Source: Kissmetrics

So what makes a good headline?

• Short & Simple: Aim for eight words for a 21% higher CTR.
• Numbers: Using a number in your headline boosts CTR 15% (or 20% if you use an odd #!)
• Colons: A two-part headline separated by a colon boosted CTR 9%.
• Verbs & Adverbs: These actionable words increase engagement 1-2%, while nouns and adjectives lower it.
• Capitalization: Capitalize each new word in a title for maximum efficiency.

Tip: Tweet about….TWITTER. Tweets about Twitter and social media receive 22.5% more clicks than the average tweet.

Words

According to Dan Zarrella, the best tweets contain action-oriented words and clear, direct language. The worst words to use are those that focus on the mundane banality of life or that sound too casual. (Avoid the “LoLs” at all costs!)

You might like: 10 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Are Still Making on Twitter

Hashtags

• Be frugal: One or two hashtags can get you 2x more engagement. Anything more and you’ll see a 17% drop.

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Images

Image Source: Kissmetrics

• Use them: Tweets with images get 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites and 150% more retweets, according to Kissmetrics.
• Don’t abuse them: Buffer recommends using a 70/30 formula, with 70% of your tweets including images and 30% text-only.
• Post infographics: Infographics receive 832% more retweets than articles and 746% more clickthroughs.

Tip: We use Canva.com to create beautiful, branded images quickly. 

Actions

• Clearly state your offer. HubSpot found that posts with clear copy received 18% more clicks and 29.8% more re-tweets than more ambiguous copy. An ambiguous tweet may read: “Get a sneak peek backstage on how @HubSpot does inbound marketing: https://hubs.ly/q0Rc70,” whereas a clear tweet would say: “Free Kit: The Marketer’s Crash Course in Visual Content Creation https://hubs.ly/y01sGg0 .”
• Ask for a retweet. Salesforce found they received 12x more retweets when they simply asked readers to retweet.
• Tell readers to “download.” Tweets with the word “download” received 13% more clicks, says Kissmetrics.

Tip: Use Twitter cards for even more CTA options. 

Links

• Embed it: It seems most intuitive to put your link at the end of the post, but Dan Zarrella found that placing the link 25% of the way into the post actually had the best click-through rate.
• Test it: Make sure you have spaces before and after your links so they are clickable. This may sound obvious, but it’s the most common link error. Also, be sure to test your link before you publish to ensure it’s going to the right destination.
• Shorten it: Use a site like bit.ly to shorten your links for better presentation.
• Highlight it: When you’re posting a link, avoid @-mentions and hashtags that will detract from the link itself.

 

Timing

Image Source: Kissmetrics

• Post on weekends: Salesforce found that engagement increases 17% on the weekends. We’re not suggesting that you work on the weekends. Using a tool like Hootsuite or Sprout Social, you can advance schedule posts for the weekends while you’re off having fun.
• Post early: For a 30% greater engagement rate, post between 7 and 8 am. Other good times include the noon lunch break and popular get-out-of-work times of 5pm or 6pm.
• Post late: TrackMaven found the most clicks happened between 10 and 11 pm.
• Post regularly: Aim for a regular posting schedule, be it 1-2 times a day or 4-5. Use a content calendar like this one to make sense of your agenda.
• Space them out. To avoid appearing spammy, let at least 30 minutes pass between tweets.

[easy-tweet tweet=”Tweet at night! The best time for a retweet is between 10 – 11 pm EST. ” quote=”Tweet at night! The best time for a retweet is between 10 – 11 pm EST. #TwitterTip” theme=”style3″]

Testing

The Bit.ly dashboard lets you track the number of clicks each Bit.ly link receives. This can be a good way to experiment with different copy or formats to see which type of post solicits the most engagement. Learn more about A/B testing for Twitter at Social Media Examiner. Statistics can be helpful in breaking down the “anatomy of a perfect tweet,” but ultimately, nothing beats field-testing for your unique brand and your particular audience. 

You might like: 8 Quick Ways to Generate Leads on Twitter

 

Where To Get Twitter Help

Twitter has partnered with Hubspot to launch a #TweetSmarter webinar series, starting June 24th. We just received this email in our inbox and thought it was appropriate to share with you considering we are blogging about Twitter today!

Speaking of Hubspot, they have an awesome Twitter marketing infographic posted on Kissmetrics here. You’ll notice that the images we chose above are from that infographic.

Of course, you can always ask Mod Girl for help with your Twitter marketing!

Here at Mod Girl Marketing, we do not push “one-size-fits-all” templates and solutions onto our clients. That’s part of what makes our boutique marketing firm different from the big agencies out there. We have specialized industry expertise that we bring to the table, but we treat each client as an individual enterprise and take the time to get to know the inner workings of your company. Working with an internal point person from your company, we become integral parts of your team. For more information on our social media, marketing and content creation services, request a consultation here.

Happy Tweeting!

Tags: Marketing, Social Media, social media marketing, Social Networking, Twitter, twitter engagement, Twitter marketing