What I Learned from Tweeting for 60+ Days Straight

Author

Steve Ryan, Founder & CEO​

After interacting with our social squad and reading through the content calendars they create on a weekly basis for our clients, I decided it was time to step up my personal social media game, especially after reading this Business Insider article about CEOs on social media earlier this summer. As a digital agency, we should practice what we preach to our clients and as I heard more and more that Twitter is a valuable B2B tool, important to humanize an organization, and it takes a lot of time and effort, I knew it was time to jump right in.

So, I spent some time thinking about my Twitter strategy, what I hoped to achieve, why was I doing this, and then began implementing my plan. I had to start with updating my Twitter bio to make it more about me, who I am, and reflect my personal and professional life.

What did I find out? Let's dive right in.

Interested in learning more about Twitter? Read, “How to Get More Twitter Followers.”

More to Say
As I thought about and defined my Twitter strategy, I realized that I had more relevant content to share, more individuals in which to engage, and more thoughts than I had originally thought. I could share personal stories, content that was relevant and I found interesting/applicable, share updates about our company, retweet others, and become part of different conversations. 

Engagement is Key
While I was engaged within Twitter and sharing regularly, I also found myself looking through my Twitter feed more regularly throughout the day, jumping into conversations by replying to others, and reading tweets around specific hashtags. For example, I spent more time reading about the latest hurricane on Twitter than I did in regular news outlets online or on television. I was consumed by the content that was coming out.

Creating Lists
To further my engagement opportunities, I spent time creating different lists on Twitter so that I could ensure that I took the time to engage with various groups. I created a list of the nonprofit organizations which we support or I serve on their board of directors. I edited a list of current clients with whom we work to stay on top of their messaging. I developed a list of RyTech team members so I could see who was using their Twitter accounts as brand ambassadors and amplify their messages.

Getting Personal
People want to see the human behind the Twitter account. I took this very personally, and I'll admit was slightly nervous at first. I have a public Twitter account -- do I really want to share personal insights, photos of my kids? I wasn't sure at first, but my family is an important part of who I am and I needed my Twitter account to reflect it in order to fully implement my strategy. I quickly found out that my personal tweets were the ones with the highest engagement, so I continued to be personal on Twitter.

Hashtags and Tagging
As a means to amplify my tweets, I explored how to share with a larger audience aside from my followers. I made a concerted effort to look at hashtags that were relevant to the content in the tweets and that had a larger conversation. I also made sure to tag individuals who I thought might be interested in the content, originally wrote the content if it was curated, or was a follow up to a previous conversation. These tags brought tweets in front of others - it was interesting to see who responded, who didn't, and what their engagement was with the content.

While I had some significant takeaways, there were also some challenges to kickstarting and continuing this Twitter strategy. There were only one or two days when I thought to myself late in the day that I hadn't said anything on Twitter and rushed to find something relevant to share or retweet. I needed to ensure I balanced the content - it couldn't all be about marketing RyTech. So, I started using Sprout Social to pre-schedule certain tweets that I knew I could share on specific days or times.

In 60 short days, my tweets were seen more than 57,000 times, I had nearly 3000 engagements, and I increased my followers by almost 7% (thanks Sprout Social for tracking my activity within Personal Mode).

Of the 145 tweets I sent (that's more than 60, just saying), it is interesting to look back and see the types of tweets, as I relied heavily on photos as part of my strategy. I also wanted to develop conversation and not just be posting to post - that's something we advise our clients to think about as part of their strategies, so I took it to heart. An area that I can continue to work on is engagement with new contacts. I want to expand my messaging aside from those who I follow and who follow me, so what can I do next to focus on new contacts? ​

I'm going to continue my Twitter strategy, refine it, and see where it takes me professionally and personally. If you want to follow along and see if I keep up with my posting, you can find me @sjryanjr. My next project? My personal LinkedIn profile. Stay tuned!

Are your leadership team members on social media? Do they have an active social media presence? If not, it is time to get them on social media, engage with their followers (even your customers), and share their thoughts within their industry conversations online. RyTech can assist with strategy development, analytics, training, or management.

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